Tłkaw

Tłkaw is the most spoken modern Zoomic language, and served as a lingua franca in the Zoomosphere (in the conworld Verse:Tricin) in the modern era before Clofabosin became more prominent in the information age. It's inspired by Irish and German (it's the latest incarnation of my Tíogall and Wiebian).

Phonology

Orthography

Largely phonetic; use ligatures for clicks

Consonants

A lot of clicks - voicing and/or aspiration is neutralized in post-tonal clicks, however.

Vowels

/a i u a: i: u: ai au ə/ a i u â î û ai au e

/ə/ is a common outcome of vowel reduction and can only occur in unstressed syllables.

Prosody

Intonation

Tłkaw has a distinctive intonation paradigm, similar to Irish English or Valspeak.

• In declarative sentences, the stressed syllable of the focus word (if there is no focused constituent, the last word) has a lower pitch than the immediately preceding syllable. ("...mid ꜜ LOW mid...") This originates from discursive uptalk in older forms of Tłkaw, which has since generalized to all declarative sentences. A few relatively isolated accents do not use this pattern.
• In interrogative sentences, the stressed syllable of the focus word has a higher pitch than the syllable immediately before. ("... mid ꜛ HIGH mid ... ?")
• In exclamations, the pattern is "... mid ꜜ LOW-HIGH mid ... !", possibly with a gradual drop to low pitch in the end. Angry or indignant questions also use an exclamatory intonation.