Appendix:Sondiv pronunciation

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Sondiv Language Navigation: Home, Phonology, Grammar, Vocabulary, Orthography, Dialogue

The Sondiv language has 17 consonants and 8 vowels.

Standard Romanization

Letter IPA Example Notes
a a father It has both a front and back pronunciation.
an ɐ̃ - A nasal version of a regular a, but centralized.
b b bog
d d dog
e e bait
en ɛ̃ prince (French) A nasal vowel.
f f food Only appears as an allophone of /v/ in native words.
g g good
h h ham
i i beet
j ʒ azure Spelled with a j because the show takes place in New Orleans and the language is reminiscent of French.
k k skill
l l left
m m man
n n no
o o coat
on ɔ̃ on (French) A nasal vowel.
p p span
r ɾ battle
s s see
t t stop
u u rude
v v voice
w w wet
y j yawn
z z zoo

Phonetics

Sondiv has an average-sized phoneme inventory, but is notable for having nasal vowels.

Consonants

Labial Coronal Palatal Velar Glottal
Nasal m [m] n [n]
Plosive voiceless p [p] t [t] (ch [tʃ]) k [k]
voiced b [b] d [d] (j [dʒ]) g [g]
Fricative voiceless f [f] (th [θ]), s [s] (sh [ʃ]) h [h]
voiced v [v] z [z] zh [ʒ]
Lateral l [l]
Approximant w [w] r [ɾ] y [j]

/tʃ/, /dʒ/, /θ/ and /ʃ/ are only found in loanwords.

Vowels

Sondiv has 8 phonetically distinct vowels:

Front Central Back
Close i [i] u [u]
Mid e [e], en [ɛ̃] o [o], on [ɔ̃]
Open a [a] an [ɐ̃]

Stress

Stress always falls on a word's last syllable in Sondiv, the last syllable of a phrase usually gets the strongest stress.

Phonotactics

Sondiv's syllables generally follow a (C)V(C) structure, but some words end with underlying 2-consonant clusters whose second consonant is only pronounced if a word beginning with a vowel immediately follows and is a part of the same constituent, otherwise they are silent. Similarly, a Sondiv word may end with /h/, which is only pronounced if a word beginning with a vowel immediately follows, otherwise it stays silent.

Many Sondiv stems start with consonant clusters, but since stems do not appear without a prefix, these clusters can never appear word-initially. Most consonants can appear twice in a row, and some vowel sequences can also occur, there are no diphthongs, however. In consonant clusters, the first consonant agrees in voicing with the second.

Syllables may not end with a nasal consonant, since all syllable-final nasals were deleted after the vowels before them became nasalized. Words may not end with /z/, as /z/ merged with /s/ word-finally, /h/ does not appear after consonants, /j/ does not appear before /i/ and turns into /ʒ/ when this happens, and /w/ does not appear before /u/ and turns into /v/ when this happens.

The question particle yen is pronounced /jen/ before a word beginning with a vowel if both are emphasized, but if only yen is emphasized, it is always pronounced /jɛ̃/.