Bircena
Background
Bircena is a language spoken on the planet Halonia, in the north of the country Viržura, by both humans and the dominant sentient machines on the planet, the aureli.
It is an a priori language with some loose inspiration from Russian phonology.
Phonology
Consonants
Bilabial | Alveolar | Post-alveolar | Palatal | Velar | Labiovelar | Glottal | |
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Nasal | m | n | ń | ŋ | |||
Plosive | p b | t d | č ǰ | c j | k g | q ğ | |
Fricative | v | s z | š ž | ś ź | x | x̌ | h |
Approximant | l | r | y | ɫ | w |
/č/ and /ǰ/ represent postalveolar affricates, not plosives, but they behave phonologically as plosives, whereas forms with accute accents represent palatalized consonants, rather than true palatals.
Vowels
Front | Near-front | Central | Near-back | Back | |
---|---|---|---|---|---|
Close | i [i] | ÿ [y] | u [u] | ||
Near-close | ï [ɪ] | ü [ʊ] | |||
Close-mid | |||||
Mid | é [e] | ö [əʷ] | o [o] | ||
Open-mid | e [ɛ] | ||||
Near-open | ä [ä] | ||||
Open | a [æ] | à [ɑʷ] |
Phonotactics
The syllable structure is generally V or CV, with a marked but not complete aversion to codas.
Consonant clusters are only permitted if the consonants are (relatively) homorganic, of two different manners, and follow the sonority hierarchy. Therefore, "tsa" and "tla" are acceptable syllables, but "tfa" and "tna" are not. As obstruents are relatively equally sonorous, "sta" is also valid.
Some exceptions occur at morpheme boundaries, but these are generally interrupted in speech production by an epenthetic schwa (or harmonized vowel).
There is a minor form of vowel harmony, wherein a "weak" vowel will assimilate in height, backness, and/or rounding when surrounded by two identical vowels:
- kažö "throw" + -la "simple past" --> kažäla "threw"
- hünö "shine" + -tüvä "perf. future" --> hünütüvä "will have shone"
- hiźe "run" + -hi "pres. prog." --> hiźïhi "running"
- bure "tilt" + -suvo "incho. future" --> burosuvo "will become tilted"
This harmony never occurs within a root, but as a morphosyntactic process.