User:Shadowlemur/draft/Cife

Cife vowels are classed in two groups, called the ‘strong’ (ìmsy) and ‘weak’ (rŷknŷ) vowels. There are six ‘basic’ vowel lettrs – a, e, ı, o, u, and y, as is normal in Latin orthography – and of these, a, ı, and o are ‘strong’ whilst e, y, and u are considered to be their respective ‘weak’ counterparts. Cife employs two diacritic marks: the indı, applied to strong vowels, and the ùrna, applied to weak ones. The pronunciation of the basic vowels varies slightly by dialect (of which more discussion later on), but the generally accepted, proper pronunciations are as follows:

Letter	Name	Sound	Diacritic modification
a	ara	/ä/ to /a/	ȧ – /ɑ/
ı	ımno	/ɪ/	i – /i/
o	od	/o/	ȯ – /ɔ/
e	emnê	/ɛ/	ê – /e/
y	yrde	/ə/ (unstressed) /ɤ/ (stressed)	ŷ – /ɘ/ (unstressed) /eĩ/ (stressed)
u	undry	/ʌ/ (unstressed) /ʊ/ (stressed)	û – /u/

Stress on a given word is determined by a schematic list of sorts, which is reproduced below. The most important element is the stress diacritic (`), the only other diacritic used in Cife. Start at the top; if the syllable described is not in the word, continue down until you find a condition that does apply. If two syllables meet the condition described, apply the stress to the one that appears first in the word.

1. The syllable with a stress diacritic takes the emphasis, e.g. ˈrùkogzŷ (to know innately)
2. The syllable with an unaccented strong vowel takes the emphasis, e.g. ketˈoni (bread)
3. The syllable with an unaccented weak vowel takes the emphasis, e.g. ˈdevrŷ (to make music)
4. The syllable with an accented weak vowel takes the emphasis, e.g. ȧpˈrêtwh (brandy)
5. The first syllable takes the emphasis, e.g. ˈidzgȯ (oak)

The stress diacritic cannot be applied to a vowel which already has a diacritic mark. For combined diacritics, two symbols are used: the mirȧn (¨), to represented a stressed, modified vowel, either strong or weak: e.g. qänŷ (rock depression) or üngra (hollow).

Consonant letters in Cife are usually pronounced similar to European Latin-script languages, while consonant digraphs are somewhat idiosyncratic. The native English speaker should note the following aspects:

Letter	Name	Sound
b	bënı	/pj/
c	cigo	/s˕/
d	di	/tj/
j	jerŷ	/j/
r	rota	/r/
p	pjore	/pʰ/
q	qe	/tʃ/
t	tilön	/tʰ/
w	wê	/ɸ/
’	cirotco mer	/ʔ/

Most diagraphic consonants have a trigraphic form used when the sound is at the end of a word.

Digraph	Trigraph	Sound
wv	—	/β/
ssc	chw	/ʃ/
tw	twh	/θ/
zt	tzw	/ð/
gz	—	/ʒ/
dg	dzg	/dʒ/

The most common consonant sounds occurring in Cife are r, k, t, c, d, and p; the rarest are j, zt, and gz. Note that in some dialects, dg is virtually unvoiced, and is almost indistinguishable from q.

The following is a simple parallel text which emphasis grammatical forms. Don't expect to be able to learn all the words and grammar used here: just use it as a pronunciation exercise, and acclimatize yourself to the "mouthfeel" of Cife.

English	Cife	Notes
Pava went to the store yesterday to buy pork.	Favrea Pava mi a kenratwh, andê, ae kenbrŷ hangre.	Note the distinction between mi (physical destination) and ae (goal; so as to), which are both translated as "to" in English.
	Went Pava to the store, yesterday, to buy pork.
Today, he goes to the store to buy a box of apples.	Fabre wi amdga mi a kenratwh ae kenbrŷ aun ȯcta'an karòne.	Word order in Cife is somewhat flexible (this will be discussed in detail later), but for now, it is worth noting that this sentence could also be written "amagda, fabre wi mi..." [today, goes she to...] or "fabre wi mi a kenratwh amagda" [goes she to the store today]
	Goes she today to the store to buy a box of apples.
Tomorrow, he will go to buy some herbs and spices.	Ekta, favrien wi ae kenbrŷ scal migrade se wästorse.	Note how the omission of "to the store" does not significantly change the sentence structure. Note also how plurals are constructed.
	Tomorrow, will go she to buy some herbs and spices.
Jadga has a train ticket to New Sydney.	Kes Jadga aun êlenti mi New Sydney.
	Has Jadga a trainticket to New Sydney.
The trip is about two hours; he leaves at noon.	Cel a pömadga qın sèla; emwabre wi ben awva.	The reader who has not already noticed the relation between fabre wi (they go) and emwabre (they leave) is encouraged to do so. The infinitive roots are fabrŷ and emwabrŷ.
	Is the trip about two hours; leaves he at noon.

Next lessons:
➫ Conjugation
➫ Greetings