Hantic

In the real world, Hantic is an a prior artlang. In its conworld, however, it is an ancient dead language that has something like the status that Sanksrit or ancient Greek have for Western culture in the real world. Its use is mainly limited to religious or magical ritual and stage works, both spoken and musical. New stage works are written in the language, so it does have a partially living tradition.

Hantic Phonology

Phoneme Inventory

Consonants
	Bilabial		Labiod.		Dental		Alveolar		Post-alv.		Palatal		Velar		Uvular		Glottal
Nasal		m						n
Plosive	pʰ	p			t̪		tʰ						kʰ	k
Fricative			f	v	θ		s		ʃ				x				h
Affricate							ts
Approximants												j
Trill															ʁ
Lateral Approximant								l

Vowels
	Front		Near-front		Central		Near-back		Back
High	i	y								u
Near-high
High-mid			e	ø					ɤ	o
Mid
Low-mid
Near-low			æ
Low					a

Diphthongs /aɪ/ /aʊ/ /æʏ/ /eɪ/ /œɪ/ /ɔɪ/

Orthography and Allophony

Graphemes are bold, phonemes within slashes: "//", and allophones in brackets: "[]"

• p /pʰ/ [pʰ]
  • [p] in some clusters
• b /p/ [p]
  • [b] intervocalically
  • [m] before nasal or liquid
  • [v] before stop or fricative
• d /t̪/ [t̪]
  • [d̪] intervocalically
  • [d̪ʰ] word-finally
  • [ð] before stop or fricative
• t /tʰ/ [tʰ]
  • [t] in some clusters
• k /kʰ/ [kʰ]
  • [k] in some clusters
• g /k/ [k]
  • [g] intervocalically
  • [ɣ] before any consonant
• f /f/ [f]
  • [v] after b, d, and g
• v /v/ [v]
• z /θ/ [θ]
  • [ð] sometimes intervocalically and after b, d, and g
• x /ʃ/ [ʃ]
  • [ʒ] intervocalically and after b, d, and g
• q /x/ [x]
  • [χ] following low-to-mid back vowel
  • [ç] before high front vowel
  • [ɣ] following g
• h /h/ [h]
  • [ç] before high front vowel
• c /ts/ [ts]
• m /m/ [m]
• n /n/ [n]
• r /ʁ/ [ʁ]
  • [ʀ]
  • [r]
  • [ɾ]
• l /l/ [l]
• a /a/ [a]
  • [ɑ]
• à /æ/ [æ]
• e /e/ [e][e] tense and when geminate
  • [eɪ]narrow closing when stressed
  • [ɛ] lax
• è /ɤ/ [ɤ] stressed
  • [ə] unstressed
• i /i/ [i] tense and when geminate
  • [ɪ] lax
  • [j] word initially
• o /o/ [o] tense and when geminate
  • [ɔ] lax
• ö /ø/ [ø] tense and when geminate
  • [œ] lax
• u /u/ [u] tense and when geminate
  • [ʊ] lax
• ü /y/ [y] tense and when geminate
  • [ʏ] lax
• ai /aɪ/
• au /aʊ/
• àeü /æʏ/
• ei /eɪ/
• öei /œɪ/
• oi /ɔɪ/

Other Orthographic Conventions

• aê A circumflex is used on the second syllabic vowel following hiatus, e.g. [a.ˈe]
• j [j] epenthetic glide to avoid vowel hiatus following a high front vowel
• ÿ ligature of i and j, e.g. seij = seÿ
• ` light epenthetic [θ] or [əθ] before some verbs in formal speech