Appendix:Sondiv pronunciation
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] | |||
/f/ is only found in loanwords, or as an allophone of /v/ before voiceless consonants in native words. /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.
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/.
The same consonant can appear twice in a row, and the vowel sequences /ie iɛ̃ ui ue uɛ̃ ei eɛ̃ oi oe oɛ̃ ai ae aɛ̃/ 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, but a final /z/ can resurface in case of suffixation. /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 to /v/ when this happens.