Tinnermockaar

ttỳnaamokkəər
Pronunciation	[/ˈtʼɪˀ.naː.mo.kʼɝː/]
Created by	–
Date	2024
Language family	Isolate

Tinnermockaar (natively ttỳnaamokkəər /ˈtʼɪˀ.naː.mo.kʼɝː/, which translates as 'the language') is an a priori conlang with an agglutinative grammar where most words are formed either by adding vowel-initial prefixes to CVC root to form a verb or verb-like element or by adding vowel-final suffixes to a root to form a nominal (noun or noun-like element). As a result, most Tinnermockaar words either start with a vowel and end in a consonant or vice-versa.

The language features a somewhat challenging phonology, including ejective stops, a three-way contrast in voicing and glottalized vowels based on Danish stød.

In addition to the Latin script orthography that will be used throughout this article, Tinnermockaar might be written in its own alphabet. The native orthography is moderately phonemic but it includes some etymological contrasts that are no longer observed in the spoken language.

Phonology

Consonants

The following table shows the consonant inventory for Tinnermockaar. Note that the rows and column in the table may indicate historical realizations that are no longer descriptive of the current realization of the respective consonant, as is the case for palatal 'stops' which have long shifted into affricates.

Caption text

	Labial	Dental	Alveolar	Palatal	Velar
Ejective stop		tt //t̪ʼ/	cc /tʼ/	tts /tsʼ/	kk /kʼ/
Plain stop	p /p/	t /t̪/	c /t/	ts /ts/	k /k/
Partially voiced stop	b /b̥/	d /d̪̥/	đ /d̥/		g /ɡ̊/
Voiced stop	bb /b/	dd /d̼/	đđ /d/
Fortis pre-nasalized stop	mp /mp/	nt /nt̪/	nc /nt/		ńk /ŋk/
Lenis pre-nasalized stop	mb /mb/	nd /nd̼/	nđ /nd/	z /d̥z̥/	ńg /ŋɡ/
Nasal	m /m/		n /n/		ń /ŋ/
Fricative		s /s̻/	ś /s̺/	x /ç/	h /h/
Approximant				j /j/
Lateral			l /l/

Notes:

• Alveolar consonants, as well as the affricates tts and ts tend to have an apical realization.
• Velar consonants are allophonically uvular when following /u/ or /ʊ/.
• There are no traces of the language ever having an ejective labial stop. It should be noted however that many languages with ejectives also lack /pʼ/ (less acoustically distinctive from its plain counterpart than other ejective plosives), so such a gap is not unexpected.
• Unvoiced stops are very mildly aspirated.
• There is some variation in the VOT (voice onset time) for pre-nasalized stops, fortis might range from moderate aspiration to tenuis while lenis might range from almost tenuis to fully voiced.
• Pre-nasalized stops in final position might result in the allophonic nasalization of the preceding vowel. For instance, amb /amb/ might be realized as something closer to \[ãb̥\].
• The phoneme z /d̥z̥/ is listed under the lenis prenasalized series since it comes from a historical /ɲɟ/, but its current realization is closer to that of a partially voiced counterpart to ts.
• A fully voiced /ɡ/ was dropped except before front vowels, where it turns into /j/ instead.
• An (intrafictionally) earlier form of the language had a palatal series that has mostly shifted to other points of articulation.
  • First, its partially voiced and fully voiced stops (presumably /\ɟ̊/ and /\ɟ/ ) merged with the corresponding velars /ɡ̊/ and /ɡ/ (before the latter was lost to further sound changes). This change seems to have happened early enough that the distinction is not attested even in the earliest forms of Tinnermockaar writing.
  • Then historical /cʼ/ and /c/ shifted into /tsʼ/ and /ts/.
  • Historical pre-nasalized /ɲc/ and /ɲɟ/ first experiences a similar shift, turning briefly into /nts/ and /ndz/ before a second shift turned them into pure affricates, with /nts/ merging with /ts/ while /ndz/ became z /d̥z̥/.
  • The palatal nasal /ɲ/ turned into /j/. A later change would drop it before front vowels.
• A single coronal nasal n /n/ seems to have developed from a merger between a historical dental /n̪/ and an alveolar /n/. Orthographic evidence (in the native Tinnermockaar script) suggests that the two sounds might have first adopted a complementary distribution before being outright merged in a generally alveolar \[n\].
• It is unclear whether the language ever had a labial fricative (/f/ or /ɸ/), if it did, it must have long dropped or merged with another consonant (likely h).
• The 'dental' fricative s is a laminal /s̻/ while the 'alveolar' ś is an apical /s̺/, with speakers commonly pronounced it as a postalveolar \[ʃ\], especially in word-final position.
• The 'palatal' fricative x /ç/ often shifts to \[x\] before back vowels.
• The 'velar' fricative h is realized either as a glottal fricative /h/ or outright dropped (especially between non-high vowels).
• A glottal stop \[ʔ\] and a rhotic alveolar approximant \[ɹ\] might occur as allophonic pronunciations for glottalized and rhotacized vowels, respectively.

The native orthography in the Tinnermockaar script still makes some distinctions that are not preserved in the spoken language:

• Distinction between /ts/ from historical /c/ and historical /ɲc/ (transcribed as nts).
• Distinction between /j/ (and null onsets from a historical dropped /j/) from historical /ɲ/ (transcribed as ñ) and historical /ɡ/ (transcribed as gg).
• Two characters that might have once corresponded to a historical dental /n̪/ (sometimes transcribed as n̈) and a historical alveolar /n/ (transcribed as n) now generally present a complementary distribution, with dental n̈ usually being found before back vowels although multiple exceptions to this rule can be found.

Vowels

Tinnermockaar has the following vocalic inventory:

Caption text

	Front	Central	Back
High	i /i/		u /u/
Upper	y /ɪ/		v /ʊ/
Mid	e /e/, [e̞]		o /o/ [o̞]
Lower		ə /ɜ/
Low		a /a/, [ä]

Note that the vowels y and v are considered to be 'front' and 'back' (respectively) despite actually having a more centralized realization.

All vowels can be short or long (indicated by doubling the vowel).

Five diphthongs are allowed, all of them falling: ae /ae̯/, av /aʊ̯/, ey /eɪ̯/, ov /oʊ̯/ and əi /ɜi̯/. No length distinctions are observed on diphthongs.

All diphthongs and all non-high vowels (short or long) might be glotalized, with a realization similar to Danish stød. This is marked with a grave accent diacritic on the (last) letter as in v̀ for /ʊˀ/, aà for /aːˀ/ and əì for /ɜi̯ˀ/.

The vowels a, e, o v, y and ə (short or long) and the diphthongs ae, av and əi might be rhotacized, marked with an \<r\> after the vowel: ar for /a˞ /, yyr for /ɪ˞ ː/, avr for /aʊ̯˞ /. Since the hook diacritic used in IPA to mark rhoticity is often hard to read if not completely absent in most fonts, these will be notated with a /ɹ̆/ as in /ʊːɹ̆/ for vvr rather than /ʊ˞ː/.

Only a short ə is allowed to be simultaneously rhotacized and glotalized: ə̀r for /ɜˀɹ̆/. Historically, v̀r /ʊˀɹ̆/ was also allowed, although it later merged with ə̀r (the distinction is preserved in the native orthography, though).

Some speakers (particularly those in the peripheries of the language, in contact with non-native speakers who might struggle with rhoticity and glottalization) might pronounce rhotacized vowels as plain vowels followed by a rhotic such as \[ɹ\] or \[ɾ\] and pronounce glotalized vowels as plain vowels followed by a glottal stop \[ʔ\].

Phonotactics

Tinnermockaar allows for (C)V(V)(C) syllables, which is to say, an optional onset composed of a single consonant, a mandatory nucleus composed of a vowel or diphthong (possibly bearing glottalization or rhoticity) and an optional coda consonant.

Notice that prenasalized stops and affricates are counted as single consonants and that rhoticity and glottalization are not regarded as adding codae, thus a syllable such as ttsə̀rmp'' /tsʼɜˀɹ̆mp/ conforms to the allowed CVC pattern.

Codae are only allowed in word-final position. As a result, consonant clusters are not allowed to occur within a word. Vowel clusters (ie sequences of onset-less syllables) are allowed freely, with a hyphen being used to separate syllables in these cases as in enav̀-aakvvr ('they heated it').

Ejectives are realized as plain stops in word-final position (such that att and at would both be pronounced /at/) while fully voiced stops are realized as partially-voiced ones (abb and ab would both be pronounced /ab̥/). The original pronunciation surfaces when a suffix is added.

Although no phonotactical rule requires it, the fact that Tinnermockaar morphology often revolves around CVC roots which take either vowel initial prefixes or vowel final suffixes makes it so a vast majority of Tinnermockaar words either begin in a vowel and end in a consonant (V...C) or vice-versa (C...V). These two possibilities also relate to Tinnermockaar parts of speech, with verbals being overwhelmingly vowel-initial (and consonant-final) whereas nominals tend to be consonant-initial (and vowel-final).

Suprasegmentals

The language does not have phonemic tones nor stress. Word tend to be stressed on their first syllable.