Guaru

Guaru [ˈŋuaɾu] (also Gualu, Nguaru, Ngualu) is a constructed language spoken by the inhabitants of Oru, part of an enormous space habitat in an uncertain location, which is putatively a conservation ark and research station developed by an unknown extra-terrestrial civilisation in order to conserve and study terrestrial life. The language itself was developed by a historical figure known only as Orimu, who appears to have been a human involved with the setting up of Oru several hundred years ago. The education system of Oru prescribes a strict adherence to the original structure of the language as detailed in Orimu's original documents, more or less preserving the original orthography and grammar, although sound changes have apparently taken place, most notably the universal change of [p] to [h].

Guaru appears to be unrelated to any other known language. It is a right-branching, analytic language with a very simple phonology, with a small inventory of eight consonants and five vowels and consisting only of open syllables.

Phonology

Consonants

Single Consonants

	Bilabial	Dental	Velar	Glottal
Nasal	/m/ [m] <m>	/n/ [n̪] <n>	/ŋ/ [ŋ] <g>
Plosive		/t/ [t̪]~[d̪] <t>	/k/ [k]~[g] <k>	/ʔ/ [ʔ] <(x)>
Fricative				/h/ [h] <h>
Tap / Lateral		/l/ [ɾ]~[l] <r>

The allophones listed are all in more or less free variation and chiefly subject to individual variation, with voiced allophones of /t/ and /d/ being used more often by men.

The phoneme /ʔ/ is usually elided word initially in casual speech. In both commonly used romanisations, it is not written at the beginning of a word. Any word that begins with a vowel can optionally begin with a glottal stop. A glottal stop within a word, however, is always pronounced and is thus indicated in the romanisation.

Similarly, the glottal fricative is optionally elided from the beginning of particles. It is, however, always written.

All consonants may be doubled and are then pronounced as geminate or "strong". This only occurs at the beginning of words in the genitive case.

Doubled Consonants

	Bilabial	Dental	Velar	Glottal
Nasal	/mm/ [mː]~[mb] <mm>	/nn/ [n̪ː]~[n̪d̪] <nn>	/ŋŋ/ [ŋː]~[ŋg] <gg>
Plosive		/tt/ [t̪ː]~[t̪ʼ] <tt>	/kk/ [kː]~[kʼ] <kk>	/ʔʔ/ [ʔː] <x>
Fricative				/hh/ [ɸ(ː)]~[p(ː)] <hh>
Tap / Lateral		/ll/ [r]~[lː]~[ʈʼ] <rr>

As with the single consonants, the allophones are essentially in free variation.

A geminate glottal stop is written in the romanisation (using the Schaeffer system as here, with <x> although the Tanner system uses <ʻ>), distinguishing it from the word initial single glottal stop which is omitted from romanisations.

Vowels

Guaru has a simple five-vowel system similar to Spanish, Hebrew, Japanese and Hawaiian.

Single vowels

	front	central	back
close	i		u
open mid	e		o
low		a

When stressed, these vowels have the tense cardinal pronunciations of [i e a o u]. When unstressed, they tend to weaken towards [ɪ ɛ ɐ ɔ ʊ].

Each vowel constitutes a mora or time unit of speech. Vowels may appear together in "couplets" (bimoraic pairs) as illustrated in the following table. The existence of couplets is important in understanding stress, syllabification and allowable vowel clusters within a word.

Vowel couplets

	Ending in -i	Ending in -e	Ending in -a	Ending in -o	Ending in -u
Beginning with i-	ii	ie	ia	io	iu
Beginning with e-	ee		ea	eo
Beginning with a-	ae		aa	ao
Beginning with o-	oe		oa	oo
Beginning with u-	ui	ue	ua	uo	uu

The sequences of identical vowels /ii ee aa oo uu/ are pronounced as long vowels [iː ɛː aː ɔː uː]. In the Polynesian influenced Tanner romanisation, these are indicated with macrons <ā ē ī ō ū> however the Schaefer romanisation, used here, depicts them as separate vowels as this helps better conceptualise the morae within a word.

Phonotactics

Monomoraic initial syllables have the structure CV as in te /te/, ha /ha/. Bimoraic initial syllables have the structure CVV, as in ia /ʔia/, nua /nua/.

Within a word, bimoraic syllables without an initial consonant (VV) are allowed but only under certain circumstances.

As can be seen in the table above, the vowel sequences /*ei *ai *oi *eu *au *ou/ do not occur as couplets. These may appear, however, where a couplet sits adjacent to another vowel or couplet, as in /ke.io/ which consists of the monomoraic syllable /ke/ followed by the bimoraic /io/, or /tio.ua/ consisting of bimoraic syllables /tio/ and /ua/.

Sequences of three or more vowels are only allowed where there is a high vowel /i/ or /u/ beginning a valid couplet. For example, the words /huo.ua/, /no.io/, /li.ie/ /mae.ii/, /ʔua.io.uu/ are permitted; /*laeoa/, /*tuoa/, and /*meeo/ are not. In addition, no more than two instances of any one vowel may occur together, meaning that /iiio/ and /uuuu/ are not permitted, even though they each consist of valid couplets. Illegal vowel combinations, where they come together, are broken up by one of two methods.

(1) By the glottal stop /ʔ/. Where these sequences could occur across word boundaries, underlying initial /ʔ/ or /h/, which may otherwise be elided, is triggered to appear in all but excessively casual speech.

(2) In casual speech before the particles /hi/ and /hu/ (which frequently lack /h/), by raising an /e/ or /o/ to /i/ or /u/ respectively, for example /kao hi/ becomes pronounced /ka.u‿i/. In more formal or careful speech, the /h/ is preserved and no raising occurs.

Prosody

Stress in Guaru is realised as a slightly louder, tenser and higher tone on the vowel of the stressed mora. Vowels in unstressed morae are laxer and quieter, although just as long.

All words of more than one mora have a strong word stress on the first mora. Any bimoraic syllables within a word also receive a slight stress on the first mora and in long words, there may be a slight stress on the second last mora, even if it is the second mora of a bimoraic syllable.

The last content word within a phrase receives sentence stress, with monomoraic particles being completely unstressed.

Sentences generally drop in tone from the last stress. A level or rising tone indicates that the speaker is not finished. Yes-no questions may be delivered with rising tone from the last stress although this is sometimes absent.