Habyela

Habyela (pronounced [xæ̀bʲɛ̀ɫɑ̀] is another language spoken in my far-future Antarctic conworld. It is descended from a mixture of languages spoken around the NE Indian Ocean area, with the greatest influence coming from Amharic. Other languages that heavily influenced Habyela were Swahili, Arabic, Urdu and Bengali. Later on, it received areal influence from surrounding languages, which can be seen in its simple phonotactics, vertical vowel system, ergative alignment and by how it distinguishes alienable and inalienable possession. However, it retains some features that are atypical for the area, such as SOV word order.

Phonology

Vowels

Habyela has a vertical vowel system, distinguishing /a/, /ə/ and /ɨ/, but making no contrasts for frontness or backness. All of these vowels have front or back allophones depending on the surrounding consonants.

There are no phonemic diphthongs, however, word-finally [ai] and [au] are heard. However, it simplifies the phonology to analyse these as /aj/ and /aw/ respectively.

Vowel Allophony

The situation here is very similar to neighbouring languages such as North-East Antarctican. Even though there is no phonemic contrast between front and back vowels, this does not mean that sounds such as [i], [u] and [e] are absent from the language. Front and back vowels occur as allophones of their corresponding central vowels e.g. /ˈhɨ̰mːʲɨ/ - "fjord" is pronounced [ˈhḭmːʲḭ], and /ˈtʷɨ̤pːasɨ/ - "digestion" is pronounced [ˈtʷṳpːasɨ].

There is no difference between how consonants influence the preceding vowel and the following vowel. So if /ɨ/ is between /j/ and /w/, in both cases it will be pronounced /y/, no matter whether the sequence is /jɨw/ or /wɨj/.

The allophones of each vowel are given in the table below. Note that a "lowering" consonant is defined as a retroflex or uvular consonant (labialised or non-labialised, including /ɫ/):

Environment	/ɨ/	/ə/	/a/
Default	[ɨ]	[ə]	[a]
Adjacent to a Palatal or Palatalised Consonant	[i]	[e]	[æ]
Adjacent to a Non-Labialised Lowering Consonant	[ɤ]	[ʌ]	[ɑ]
Adjacent to a Labialised Non-Lowering Consonant	[u]	[o]	[a]
Adjacent to a Labialised Uvular Consonant	[ʊ]	[ɔ]	[ɒ]
Adjacent to a Labialised Palatal Consonant	[y]	[ø]	[œ]
Between a Lowering Consonant and a Labialised Non-Lowering Consonant	[ʊ]	[ɔ]	[ɒ]
Between a Palatal / Palatalised Consonant, and a Labialised Non-Lowering Consonant	[y]	[ø]	[œ]
Between a Palatal / Palatalised Consonant, and a Labialised Uvular Consonant	[ʏ]	[ɵ]	[ɐ]
Between a Palatal / Palatalised Consonant, and a Non-Labialised Lowering Consonant	[ɪ]	[ɛ]	[ɐ]

Consonants

Habyela has a complex system of consonants, contrasting many secondary articulations.

	Labial	Pal. Labial	Dental / Alveolar	Lab. Alveolar	Alveolo-Palatal	Retroflex	Palatal	Velar	Uvular	Lab. Palatal	Lab. Velar	Lab. Uvular	Glottal / Placeless
Nasal	m	mʲ	n	nʷ			ɲ			ɲʷ			ɴ
Stop	p b	pʲ bʲ	t d	tʷ dʷ			c ɟ	k g	q	cʷ ɟʷ	kʷ gʷ	qʷ	ʔ
Affricate					tɕ dʑ	ʈʂ ɖʐ
Fricative	f	fʲ	s	sʷ	ɕ		ç	x		çʷ~ɸʲ	xʷ~ɸ
Flap / Trill									ʀ			ʀʷ
Lateral							ʎ		ɫ	ʎʷ		ɫʷ
Semivowel							j			ɥ	w

/çʷ/ and /ɸʲ/ are in free variation, as are /xʷ/ and /ɸ/.

Although /ɫ/ and /ɫʷ/ are strictly speaking uvularised dental laterals, in the phonology they pattern as uvular consonants.

/ɴ/ is similar to the Japanese moraic nasal, or the Burmese placeless nasal. It only occurs in syllable codas. At the end of words, it is heard as nasalisation of the preceding vowel. Otherwise, it assimilates in place of articulation to the following consonant.

Phonotactics

Habyela phonotactics are quite simple. The only possible syllable shapes are CV and CVC. In a non-word final syllable, the only possible coda consonant is /ɴ/. In word-final syllables, /j/ and /w/ are also possible as coda consonants, but only after /a/.

When a word ending with /j/ or /w/ takes a suffix, the /j/ or /w/ is deleted, however it turns into secondary articulation on the first consonant of the suffix (if the resulting consonant would be legal in Habyela).

For example, the word for "leaf" is /paɴtaj/. When it takes the possessive suffix /-mà/ - "her", the result is /paɴtamʲà/ - "her leaf". The /j/ has assimilated with the /m/ to become /mʲ/. But, when the same suffix is attached to /banàw/ - "beach", the result is /banàmà/ - "her beach", since there is no consonant */mʷ/. However, when /banàw/ - "beach" is combined with the diminutive suffix /-jɨtə/, the result is /banàɥɨtə/ - "little beach", since /j/ can labialise to /ɥ/.

Timing

Habyela is mora timed, like Japanese. Syllables ending in /j/, /w/ or /ɴ/ count as two morae, all the others count as one. So /banàw/ - "beach" consists of three morae ba-na-w, and /paɴtaj/ - "beach" consists of four morae pa-ɴ-ta-j.

Pitch Accent

Habyela has a pitch accent system reminiscent of Japanese. Any mora can either be accented or unaccented. An accented mora (marked with an acute accent e.g. /à/) always has low pitch. An unaccented mora has high pitch by default, but this changes to low pitch if there is an accented mora earlier in the word. The result of this is that pitch can either remain level or fall across a word, but cannot rise.

For example, /banàw/ - "beach" has accent on the second mora, so the pitch pattern is High-Low-Low. But /paɴtaj/ - "leaf" has no accent, so every mora is pronounced with high pitch. In contrast, /xàbʲəɫa/ - "Habyela" has accent on the first mora, so the pitch pattern is Low-Low-Low.

If a process such as affixation would result in more than one accented mora, the first accented mora determines the pitch pattern of the word, and the others are ignored. For example, /paɴtamʲà/ - "her leaf" is pronounced with the pitch pattern High-High-High-Low, with the pitch only dropping on the final vowel /a/. However, /banàmà/ - "her beach" is pronounced with the pitch pattern High-Low-Low (not High-High-Low).

Word-final coda /w/ and /j/ can also bear accent, for example in the word /kaẁ/ - "lord". When these words take a suffix (which deletes the /w/ or /j/), the accent shifts onto the first mora of the suffix e.g. /kaɥɨ̀tə/ - "minor lord".