Telnan

Telnan /teɫnən/, endonym: Telná /telnaː/ is a Romance language spoken in the nation of Telna in the center of the Black Sea.

Introduction

Telnan is an Indo-European Romance conlang, most similar to Romanian and Italian. However, some features do come from the earlier languages spoken on the island, and there are some loanwords from Slavic languages, Turkish and Romanian.

Phonology

Vowels

[i], [iː]	[u], [uː]
[e], [eː]	[o], [ɔː]
[a], [aː]

There are also two diphthongs: [ʊ̯ɔ], [i̯e]

Consonants

[p], [b]		[t], [d]			[k], [g]
[m]		[n]		[ɲ]	[ŋ]
		[r]
[β]	[f], [v]	[s], [z], [ʃ], [ʒ]		[ç]	[x], [ɣ]
				[j]
				[ʎ]
		[t͡s], [d͡z], [t͡ʃ], [d͡ʒ]

Syllable structure

Syllable structure in Telnan is always either CV or CVC, where C represents either one or two consonants and V represents a vowel.

Orthography

Alphabet (with IPA)

Aa	[a]
Bb	[b]
Cc	[t͡s]
Čč	[t͡ʃ]
Dd	[d]
Ee	[e]
Éé	[e] at start of word, [eː] otherwise
Ff	[f]
Gg	[ɣ] before [i], [g] otherwise
Hh	[x]
Ii	[i]
Íí	[i] at start of word, [iː] otherwise
Jj	[j]
Kk	[k]
Ll	[l]
Mm	[m]
Nn	[ŋ] before [k] or [g], [n] otherwise
Oo	[o]
Óó	[o] at start of word, [oː] otherwise
Pp	[p]
Qq	[k]
Rr	[r]
Ss	[s]
Šš	[ʃ]
Tt	[t]
Uu	[u]
Úú	[u] at start of word, [uː] otherwise
Vv	[β] in consonant clusters, [v] otherwise
Xx	[ks] at end of word, [gz] otherwise
Yy	[i]
Zz	[z]
Żż	[dz]
Žž	[ʒ]

Stress

In Telnan, the penultimate (second-to-last) syllable is stressed, although this can differ in certain words or loanwords.