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: "[]"

Plosives

• 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

Fricatives and Affricates

• 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]

Nasals, Rhotics, Liquids

• m /m/ [m]
• n /n/ [n]
• r /ʁ/ [ʁ]
  • [ʀ]
  • [r]
  • [ɾ]
• l /l/ [l]

Vowels

• 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

Diphthongs

• 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

Syllable and Root Structure

Hantic allows fairly complex vowel and consonant clusters, and the language is particularly rich in fricatives and fricative clusters.

The basic syllable structure is as follows: (C)(C)V(C)(C)(C)

The syllable (and also word) onset may contain a maximum of two consonants. Word-medial consonant clusters may be a maximum of four consonants, with a syllable break occurring within the cluster.

Root structure is also relatively complex in that the language contains roots of up to five syllables, though there are several constraints:

• Roots must end with a simple vowel
• The simplest roots contain minimally a consonant and a vowel: CV
• Most roots are bisyllabic: (C)(C)VC(C)(C).(C)V
• Following the root onset, a maximum of three syllabic vowels may be present: (C)(C)V.(V).(V)
  • Only the first or second vowel in a root may be a diphthong
• Simple trisyllabic roots are as follows: (C)(C)VC(C)(C).(C)VCV
  • The root onset contains no more than two consonants
  • The second consonant cluster may contain as many as four
  • Following the second vowel, only single consonant is allowed
• Roots of four and five syllables follow the simple trisyllabic pattern by adding syllabic diphthongs or vowels after the root onset: (C)(C)V.V.VC(C)VCV
  • Only the first or second vowel may be a diphthong
  • No consonant cluster following a sequence of syllabic vowels may be longer than two consonants
  • No sequence of syllabic vowels may follow the second consonant cluster
  • Only a single consonant may follow the vowel following the second consonant cluster

The following sections list consonant and vowel combination constraints at each position within a word:

Word initial vowels:

1. All word initial vowels are preceded by a glottal stop [ʔ] – elision across word and proclitic boundaries is not permitted

Allowable word-initial consonants and clusters:

1. Any single consonant other than b, d, and g
2. Any (plosive or fricative) + r, except b, d, g, and h
3. Any ((labial or velar plosive) or (labial or velar fricative)) + l, except b and g (E.g. pl, ql, but not tl, xl, hl, etc.)
4. Any fricative + fricative, except geminates and h

Allowable vowel sequences:

1. Any single vowel may geminate, except è
2. The only permissible vowel hiatus is aê ([a.e] or [a.ɛ]) or aô ([a.o] or [a.ɔ])
3. i + epenthetic j + any single vowel, vowel geminate, diphthong, or vowel hiatus
4. Any fronting, closing diphthong + epenthetic j + any single vowel, vowel geminate, diphthong, or vowel hiatus
5. aê, aô, and au may not be followed by any other vowel
6. è may only appear word-finally

Examples:

• Permissible -- eije, aijo, àeüjaô, ijau, ijoo, eijè
• Not permissible -- aui, oai, üai, aaê, aêu

Permissible word-medial consonants and clusters:

1. Any single consonant, except h
2. Any geminate consonant, except c and h
3. Any consonant + r, except c
4. Any consonant + l, except c
5. r, l, m, or n + any allowable word-initial consonant or cluster
6. Any fricative + any non-uvular fricative (e.g. hz is permissible, but not zh)
7. Any ficative + (p, t, or k)
8. h + any allowable word-intial consonant or cluster
9. fzq, or (fzq + any labial or alveolar consonant), except b