'ižiitsigh

'ižiitsigh is created by tvk. It grammaticalizes many constructions, using affixes where English and many other languages would require additional words or phrases. It is agglutinating with some inflecting characteristics. It is designed to be expressive and "attractively ugly" (muxši).

Phonology

Phoneme Inventory

Vowels are /a E i u U/, represented by <a e i u eu> Consonants: The basic stops are unvoiced /t c ?/ and voiced /b d J\/. These are represented by <t k ' b d g>. There are many fricatives: /s z s_j z_j S Z C j\/ <s z š ž sj zj x gh>. Note that the <j> grapheme doesn't mark palatalization, but a different point of articulation. This is because historically <š> and <ž> were /s`/ and /z`/, and <sj> and <zj> were palatalized alveolar fricatives. The affricates are /dZ/ and /tS/, represented by <dj and tj>. These are descended from palatalized stops and are considered monophonemic, although there are many other possible affricates that are considered consonant clusters. There is also a palatalized stop /k_j/ <kj>. There are two flaps /4 4_j/ <r ř> and two laterals, /l K/ <l lh>. The cluster /tK/ is considered one phoneme and written <tlh>. The nasals are /n m J/ <n m n>. The latter can only occur before another palatal consonant. There is one approximant, /h/ <h>.

Allophony

Word-finally, /4/ and /4_j/ are respectively [r\] and [z`].

In clusters, /C/ becomes [j\] before a voiced consonant, and /l/ becomes [K] after an unvoiced consonant. /n/ becomes [m] or [J] after a labial or palatal consonant, respectively.

A very short glottal pause may be inserted between other clustered consonants with different voicing.

Phonotactics

Syllable structure is CV(C). Clusters cannot occur word-finally, and the set of consonants that can occur word-finally is limited to the following:

<t b d k g tj dj x gh z ž zj š sj r ř n m l lh tlh '>

Consonants that can be the first element of a cluster are: <t d b g k x>. Consonants that can be the second element of a cluster are <l n r ř s š sj z ž zj>.

Lexicon

The vocabulary is a priori. There are two open classes, nouns (idi'itjun) and verbs (ixa'autjim). All other morphemes fall into the class of izje'ekrel or affixes. The category for all morphemes, including root words, is ižiitsigh.

Nouns fall into one of 8 classes. The first two, called iřuušidjim and ibuubedjim correspond to masculine and feminine. Nouns are assigned to the classes according to form, function, or association. All noun roots end in a consonant.