Middle Nyángar

Phonology

Phonemes

Consonants

Middle Nyángar contrasts 28 different consonant sounds:

Consonants
	Bilabial		Labiodent.		Alveolar		Palatal		Velar		Uvular		Glottal
Nasal		m				n				ŋ
Nasal Geminate		m:				n:				ŋ:
Plosive	p	b			t	d				g	q		ʔ
Plosive Geminate										g:
Ejective					tʼ						qʼ
Implosive		ɓ				ɗ
Fricative	ɸ			v	s̺	s̻						ʁ
Fricative Geminate					s̺:
Lateral Fricative					ɬ
Lateral Approximant						l
Approximant		w						j

Vowels

Despite the moderate consonant inventory, the language only contrasts 3 vowel qualities, also contrasting short and long quantities.

Vowels
	Front		Central		Back
Close	i(:)					u(:)
Open			a(:)

There are also 3 diphthongs, each with a corresponding long diphthong:
/ɑe æu øy/ and /ɑ:e æ:u ø:y/

Orthography

Middle Nyángar uses a modified version of the Latin alphabet in writing. It is a somewhat deep orthography, that is, there is no one-to-one correspondence between phoneme and grapheme. Here are the phonemes again with their corresponding graphemes.

Consonants
Phoneme					Grapheme
m, m:					m
n, n:					n
ŋ, ŋ:					ng
p					p, ph
b, ɓ					b
t					t
d, ɗ					d
g, g:					g
q					c, k
ʔ					h
t'					t, th
q'					c, k, kh
ɸ					f
v					v
s̺, s̺:					s
s̻					z
ʁ					r
ɬ					l, lh
l					l
w					w
j					j

Vowels
Phoneme					Grapheme
ɑ					a, ä
i					i, ï ie
u					o, u, ü
ɑ:					ai, oe
i:					e, ë, ee, ui
u:					iu, ue, uu
ɑe					ia, í
æu					eu, ou
øy					o, ö, eo
ɑ:e					ae, ei, í
æ:u					á, io, ou, oou
ø:y					á, ou, oou, ú

Spelling

In general, spelling is quite straightforward; it just so happens that there are multiple ways to write many of the sounds, and in a few cases, some spellings have multiple pronunciations. There aren't any patterns to this, spelling just has to be learned with pronunciation.

The diaeresis (ä ë ï ö ü) has a specialized function. As you can see, each single vowel has a diaersis counterpart that is pronounced essentially the same as its non-diaeresis version. The diaeresis is only used when a vowel follows another vowel and it creates two syllables, rather than a diphthong.

In general, a glide is inserted in between the two vowels in pronunciation (either [j w ɥ]). Those that introduce a [j] are: aï, aë, eä, eö, eü. Those that introduce a [w] are: aü, iä, iö, iü. Those that introduce a [ɥ] are: oä, oë, öi.

There are also some unusual spelling quirks that are introduced due to the diaeresis, shown in the table below:

Irregular Spelling
Should be					Is Spelled
aä					a, aa
aö					o
eë					ee
eï					ee
ië					ee
iï					ee
oö					oou
oü					oou
uö					uu
uü					uu

In general, these are pronounced as would be expected: aa [ɑ:], ee [i:], oou [æ:u] or [øy], uu [u:] (when the ö comes from [u])

Additionally, uä, uë, uï, uö are pronounced [ɥɑ], [ɥi:], [ɥi], [ɥø] (when the ö derives from [øy])