Pulqer/Kelt
Kelt is the extinct native language of the island of Jacques (Tśak), believed to have been a language isolate. Relatively little is known of the language; there are few written survivals and the primary source of information is through its impact on the language of Pulqer, which replaced it. Kelt is the name of the language in Pulqer, it is thought to have been called Keltah by its speakers.
Phonology
Vowels
Kelt had a system of four primary vowels, each of which had long and short variants. There were no diphthongs.
| Front | Back | |
|---|---|---|
| Close | i /i/, ii /iː/ | u /u/, uu /uː/ |
| Open-mid | e /ɛ/, ee /ɛː/ | |
| Open | a /a/, aa /aː/ |
Consonants
The consonant inventory is shown below. It is characterised by having only voiceless plosives, fricatives and affricates but voiced resonants. It is unclear whether Kelt originally had a series of aspirated plosives alongside the unaspirated ones - a defining feature of Old Pulqer, which has a phonology heavily influenced by Kelt. If this distinction existed, it had probably been lost by the time Pulqer began ousting Kelt.
| Bilabial | Alveolar | Post-alveolar | Velar | Glottal | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Plain | Labial | |||||
| Nasal | m /m/ | n /n/ | ||||
| Plosive | p /p/ | t /t/ | k /k/ | q /kʷ/ | ||
| Fricative | f /ɸ/ | s /s/ | ś /ʃ/ | h /h/ | ||
| Affricate | ts /t͡s/ | tś /t͡ʃ/ | ||||
| Approximant | r /r/ | |||||
| Lateral app. | l /l/ | y /j/ | w /w/ |