Dsh (Orcan) Phonology, and a preview of the grammar

First, the phonology.  (BTW, the language and the people are called Dóh;
that's capital D, O acute accent, H.

Consonants:

k, g [N], h  *Note the unusual value of [g].
c [c] or [tS], y [j]
d [t-retroflex], r
t, s, n, l
p, m, w (tends towards [v] among some)

Possible additional (or at least loanword) consonants:
f, x [x] or [ç] or [S], q [q] or [?]

Vowels: a e i o u

Tones: similar to the four tones of Mandarin or the four non-glottalized
tones of Vietnamese.  They are marked:

1) a (no diacritic) high/level tone
2) á (acute) rising tone
3) â (circumflex) falling-rising tone
4) à (grave) low/falling tone

Two more "tones" are also found, but they're marked by vocalic features
rather than tonality:

5) ã (tilde): nasalized tone (2)
6) ä (diaeresis): glottalized ("creaky") tone (4)

Also, some pronounce tone (4) with aspiration ("breathy").

Syllables are almost uniformly CVC (like Klingon), but syllables can begin
with two consonants provided that the second consonant is r, l, w or y.
Most words are of two syllables, with postpositions being one and more
compound words being three or more.  (Dóh is agglutinative with isolative
features, and word order is strictly SOV.  Semantic roles of nouns, not
grammatical cases, are marked with one-syllable clitics; this could possibly
be a trigger system.)

Dóh is not entirely a written language, but a semi-official Latin rendering
is used among the "cultured ones" (anyone who's ever been baptized and/or
circumcized, elected, or enrolled in some sort of institution of higher
learning; half of them end up killed by the other orcs anyway).  The Latin
script I used above is that aforementioned writing.

I'm working on a vocab based on Swadesh's list for now; the language will
not be based on any existing language, neither any protolanguage or even
Nostratic.  It is to be purely a language isolate.

More later...

Danny
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