writing

Phonemes

Consonants

t, d, n, r and l cover the entire range from dental to postalveolar, but are never retroflex, þ and ð can be bidental

H is an affricate. It is pronounced by sliding from uvular trill, or unvoiced velar fricative, to standard alveolar trill. It is always long.

h and j are always short.

Affricates do not have their own symbols.

Vowels

y, u and o are all rounded.

The IPA chart shows the approximate standard spelling-positions for the short vowel phones, while the alternative chart shows the short vowel phonemes. The "taboo-area", for lack of a better translation, contains phones that must be avoided, and that never are allophones of e, a or o.

I've translated it to taboo-area because the sounds in this area are defined to be non-Taruven. Using them is considered bad manners, and marks the user as an outsider or enemy. This is probably due to the ancient war against the Machraz empire, whose language Machrom were known to be using these sounds.

Writing

h plays many roles in the orthography:

• h + V = hV: voiceless glottal fricative (h); h is short consonant
• V + h (+ V) = Vh(V): voiceless glottal fricative (h); h is short consonant
• C + h = Cʰ: short aspirated consonant; h is diacritic
• h + C = ʰC or C ̤: preaspiration, breathiness; h is diacritic
• h + V = ʰV or V ̤: preaspiration, breathiness; h is diacritic
• r/l + h = unvoiced or breathy r/l; h is diacritic

Length/gemination is marked by a macron on vowels and by doubling on consonants, eg. ē, ȳ, gg, mm.

Length

Long sounds are simply longer versions (1.5 to 2 times longer) of the short ones. All vowels can be long, as can all consonants except h, j and x. H is always long.

Stress

Changing the pattern of stress can't change the meaning of a word, changing the lenght of sounds may very well do just that, for instance run promise, oath vs. rūn finger.

However: one way of marking the topic of conversation is by increasing the stress on the second to last syllable, unless the first syllable happens to be the prefix na- house of, or the other, few prefixes of the that type. If this is the case, the first syllable after the prefix is stressed instead.

Double sounds and double vowels

Two neighboring short consonants of the same type are converted to a single geminate one, but this is not indicated in the orthography:

air + ra > airra

Such geminates are never syllabic.

A double vowel is two neighboring short vowels of the same type, as in summaál. The "aa" is either pronounced as two "a"s following eachother, stress on the second "a" and written aá, or as two "a"s following eachother, stress on the first "a", aà. The first case, stress on the second "a", is the most usual, and can safely be used for all words where the opposite isn't clearly stated. Double vowels are considered to be a single sound.

Multivowels

A multivowel is two or more vowels standing right next to eachother.

Two neighboring vowels can be pronounced as:

1. the first vowel, then a slide towards the second vowel, then the second vowel. This isn't quite like diphthongs, but close. See Glides below and Double sounds & double vowels above.
2. two separate sounds, like Anaïs (/ana-i/). This is the default case and therefore unmarked, thus Anaïs is written anai.
3. a double vowel, see above.

Three or more are either a combination of the above, for instance first a double vowel, then a separate sound, as in xaáil, or a variation of the first possibility above: a, then a -> b, b, then b -> c, c etc..

Comment to point two: Some affixes start or begin with an umlauted vowel, for instance the "i" in the generalizer-marker sï. These affixes never combine into a glide, and have their own symbol in the script.

Polyphthongs

Vowel glides are not quite as their terran counterparts, the diphthongs: english might have fire, but Taruven has sïaòyen winds, uleìneaþ song (accusative), uísge unicorn, oòo owl, aòō howl...

Glides in Taruven can be falling, that is from the previous vowel sound; or rising, that is towards the next vowel sound: the <uí> in uísge rises towards /i/, while the <eì> in uleìne falls from /e/. But in both, and for that matter all, cases, both the first and the second sound is clearly heard, the /i/ in <eì>, for instance, is just very short.

Which way the glide goes is always marked on the second in the pair, the middle in a triplet, the second and fourth in a quadruplet etc.

Syllables

A syllable consists of at least one, and only one, vowel or long sound, plus zero or more short sounds. Thus, saì consists of one syllable, nnta consists of two, and sïelle consists of three (sï, el, le) or four (sï, e, ll and e).

Summarizing the possible shape of a Taruven syllable in terms of combinations of "C"'s and "V"'s, standing in for consonants and vowels respectively, is a somewhat daunting task, but ((C)C)V(V)(C), V being one or more vowels and/or long sounds, C being zero or more short sounds, is a start.

Connecting this with the diagram: S, for syllable. O for onset (the ((C)C) part). R for rhyme (the V(V)(C) part). K for kernel (the V(V) part) and C for coda (the (C) part).

(Not all possible combinations of consonants are allowed, I'll upload a table of these once I locate those notes...)

Legal onsets

Up to three consonants of the same voicing, except sibilants may be unvoiced if being the first sound.

Consonant clusters

Legal kernels

Short vowel, long vowel, polyphthong, long consonant, double vowel, two vowels.

Legal codas

None, a single short, or one long consonant, no unvoiced plosives, b, d, g protected from devoicing by "extra-e" or "extra-h".

Dropping and simplification of sounds

In hurried speech, final [h] or [,] are dropped before consonants but retained before vowels.

Nasal sandhi

nasal + C assimilates the nasal to the place of articulation of the following consonant.

Compound sandhi

Since one might get three consonants in a row in a compound and Taruven only allows two consonants, it is necessary to simplify somehow.

Three identical C (long+short, short+long)

C:

C: + C

C+C

C + C:

C+C

C + CC

see the Compounding sandhi table

The Extra "e" and "h"

No bare Taruven word ends with a voiced stop, however, there are several words that end with a final <e> or <h>. Browse through the dictionary, you will sooner or later discover the words ending with <ge>, like uísge, which is the main example of this sub-chapter.

uísge and its kin lose the last e, the extra e, when it takes suffixes that starts with a vowel:

uísgan two "unicorns"
uísgin five "unicorns"
uísgen many "unicorns"

Otherwise, they keep the extra e:

uísgegal large "unicorn"

dubh and its relatives, however, always lose the final <'>:

duban two knives
dubin five knives
duben many knives

dubgal large knife

This is, in part, due to that they tend to be aspirated in a final position, and therefore easily confused with the voiceless stops.

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