New Lang: Igassik

Hey all,

I've started on a new conlang. The grammar is bearly touched at this point,
but I'm having lots of fun with phonology. Telek was rather dull in this
respect, so I'm making up for it now. (Okay, truth be told, I'm doing field
work on a phonologically interesting language and I've been inspired. PIMA
ROCKS!) I'm calling it Igassik for now, but the name will undoubtablly
change since Igassik is the Telek word for it.

The orthography I'm using right now is sure to change. I don't like it so
much, but I will have to have digraphs and am not sure which ones will work
best yet.

BTW, I'm inventing the words in the phonology section. They don't have any
meaning.

10 Vowels:
i y     ue u
e oe    ^ o
  ae    a

i, y, e, oe, ae are front vowels
ue, u, ^, o, a are back vowels

This is important, because the language has vowel harmony. Thus, the
following are possible words: kaethsim, nervoet, tluj^f, ba~xuel. However,
the next are not: kaethsum, nervot, tlujoef, ba~xyl.  Either all the vowels
are front or all the vowels are back; front and back can never be mixed.

i, e, ae, ue, ^, a are unrounded
y, oe, u, o are rounded

This is important, because the language has vowel harmony in rounding when
the vowels are separated by labials or glottals. That is, you can have
drubym but not drubim; ko'oez but not ko'ez; obvyks but not obviks. On the
other hand, it is perfectly acceptable to have something like dhuetel,
because the vowels are separated by an alveolar. /ae/ and /a/ don't count
for rounding harmony.

25 consonants:

   T t k '
b D d g
f th s x h
v dh z
m N n ng ~
w j
r l

T and D are interdental stops.
th and dh are interdental fricatives
N is an interdental nasal
~ is a "free-floating" nasal (more on this below)
l is an alveolar lateral
r is a retroflex tap.

/~/ is basically nasalization that attaches itself to a preceding sound. If
the preceding sound is a vowel, then the vowel is nasalized: the phonemic
sequence /a/ + /~/ becomes [a~:] (long nasalized vowel). If the preceding
sound is a stop, then /~/ becomes a nasal of the same place of
articulation: the sequence /b/ + /~/ becomes [bm]. /~/ can never be the
last sound in a word final cluster. If a word begins with /~/ you don't
hear it in isolation. However, when it follows a word ending in a vowel,
the vowel in the previous word is nasalized.

inj and to; but to~ inj.

Syllable structure:

The syllable template is (C1)(C2)V(C3)(C4).

C1 may be any consonant, unless there is a C2, in which case C1 may only be
a non-glottal stop or fricative.

ta, 'e, lo, jy
*?thi, *hrae, *ndo, *wka, *lTue

C2 may be any be any consonant except a nasal. (This assumes that C2 only
exists if there is already a C1). Yes, sequences like /kt/ are possible!

kta, tle, gwe, Tjoe, bzae
*kngo, *tmoe

C3 may be any glide, liquid, or nasal; or it can be a voiceless stop or
fricative. (Final devoicing for all you German or Pima fans.) This doesn't
get changed by having a C4.

alk, inr, yjm, ipth, ith
(See! I need to change my orthography -- <th> can be /th/ or /t/ + /h/).

C4 can be any glide, liquid, voiceless stop, or voiceless fricative. It can
also be a nasal if C3 is a glide.

akt, ufj, ojm, eks

A couple words about final glottals. Now doesn't it seem wierd to allow
something like /t/ + /'/ and /t/ + /h/? What would they sound like? Answer:
C plus glottal stop is unreleased for stops and clipped short for
everything else, and C plus /h/ is heavily aspirated.

Similarly, a C plus /j/ gives palatalized C's, and C plus /w/ gives a
labialized C.

Quite frequenty, the sequences V'V and VhV (where both V's are the same)
reduces to V: (long V). Generally speaking then, words like ba'ak and bahak
can only be distinguished in careful, slow speach. Typically, they both
sounds like [ba:k].

Misc:
Words may never have more than two syllables.
Stress is on the first syllable.


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Marcus Smith
AIM:  Anaakoot
"When you lose a language, it's like
dropping a bomb on a museum."
   -- Kenneth Hale
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