Crilatse - Phonology
Sounds
Crilatse phonology is unusual among Athanire languages for having no voiced plosives or fricatives and no nasal consanants whatsoever, as well as using several sounds not seen elsewhere. The near-exclusive use of voiceless consonants has given the Crilatse people the nickname "The Whisperers."
Consonants
| Bilabial | Dental | Alveolar | Postalveolar | Velar | Glottal | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Plosive | p <p> | t <t> | k <c> | ||||
| Trill | r <rr> | ||||||
| Tap/Flap | ɾ <r> | ||||||
| Fricative | ɸ <f> | s <s> | ʃ <ss> | x <hh> | h <h> | ||
| Lateral Fricative | ɬ <ll> | ||||||
| Lateral Approximant | l <l> | ||||||
Vowels
| Front | Central | Back | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Close | i <i> | |||
| ʏ <u> | ||||
| Open-mid | ɛ <e> | |||
| Open | a <a> | |||
Diphthongs
The only attested diphthong in Crilatse is ua. However, as vowels cannot occur next to each other except as part of a diphthong, others may exist.
Stress (curlac)
Crilatse words follow the following rules for stress:
- Monosyllabic words carry no stress.
- For words of two syllables, stress the first.
- For words of more than two syllables, stress the third-to-last (antepenultimate) syllable, unless the second-to-last (penultimate) syllable or last syllable contains a vowel plus r, in which case that syllable gets the stress.
- Vowels next to each other form diphthongs, so they count as part of the same syllable.
- For the purposes of stress, affixes are not counted, and they are never stressed.
Alphabet
I'm currently working on a font for the Crilatse alphabet. For the moment, below is a chart, showing both uppercase and lowercase letter forms. Uppercase letters are used for the start of lines of text, as well as for the start of proper names.
