Adzamasi
Background
The Adzamasi language is a fantasy lang created for the Adzamasiin, a nomadic desert people of the world of Mygith (a med-fantasy project). There are three major dialect groups: Tabiqa (most populous, 'standard') ; Adzamian (highest amount of borrowings) ; and Kilimbadi (the most otherwise divergent). Adzamasi took some original inspiration from Turkish phonology, but grammatically it much more closely resembles Athabaskan and Inuit languages. Adzamasi is highly agglutinative, polysynthetic, and its word order follows the animacy hierarchy.
Phonology
Consonants
Labial | Dental | Alveolar | Palatal | Velar | Uvular | Glottal | |
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Nasal | m | n | |||||
Plosive | b | d, t | c, ɟ | k | q | ||
Ejective | t` | c` | k` | q` | |||
Fricative | v | θ | s | ç | x | χ | h |
Approximant | w | l | j |
The Kilimbadi dialect also has /g/, and pronounces the uvular ejective as a glottal stop. The palatal stops are postalveolar affricates in Tabiqa.
Geminates are not permitted. il-dac-catt -> /ildacatt/, */ildaccatt/ "in the lake"
Fricatives are voiced intervocalically, or in clusters with a voiced sound or another fricative. tuusa, [tu:za] "long"
Vowels
Front | Central | Back | |
---|---|---|---|
Close | ɪ, i: | ʏ, y: | ʊ, u: |
Mid | ɛ, e: | ɶ, œ: | ʌ, o: |
Open | ɐ | ɑ: |
The phonemic diphthongs are ei [ej], ao [æo], ae [æe], and ea [eɐ].
Phonotactics
Onset clusters are not permitted, while complex codas are. Syllables must be of three morae or less - therefore long vowels may not be followed by a clusters.
Orthography
The romanized alphabet is fairly simply and based largely on the IPA. Ejectives are written with doubled plosive counterparts (e.g. [k`] = <kk>), the fricatives [θ ç χ] as <þ z r>, [j] as <y> and [ɟ] as <j>. The vowels are written single or doubled for long/short (/ tense/lax) as .