Latinization of Sohlob

Letter values in Sohlob romanization are like IPA, except for the following:

p, t, c, k are aspirated.

Voiced stops and fricatives are devoiced word-finally before a voiceless sound and utterance-finally.

f is [v] word-internally between voiced sounds.

c is [tɕʰ]. Alternative transcriptions are tj and ch.

j is [dʑ] or [ʑ]. Alternative transcriptions are dj and zj. The [ʑ] zj variant occurs mainly before d. A j not preceded by any of the letters d, s, t, or z can only be /dʑ/, since in the ASCII transcription j is not used outside these digraphs.

ç is [ɕ]. Alternative transcriptions are sj and sh.

y is [j], except in Linjeb where it is actually the vowel [y]!

æ is (surprise ☺) [æ]. It may be written ae without confusion, since the rules of Sohlob vowel harmony don't allow a and e together in the same word.

e is [ɨ] in Classical Sohlob and Heleb. In Kidilib and Linjeb it is [ɛ].

o is [ɒ] in Classical Sohlob, Heleb and. Kidilib. In Linjeb it is [ɔ].

ny is [ɲ], except in Linjeb.

ng is [ŋ], except in ngr, which is actually [ŋɡr] and ngl, which is actually [ŋɡl].

hl is [ɬ].

hr (Kidilib) is [r̥] (voiceless trill).

çr (Classical Sohlob) is [ʂ].

hy (Kidilib) is [ç].

In Kidilib t, d, s before i, e are pronounced as c, j, ç, i.e. dentals and palatals merge before front vowels, and are pronounced as palatals but spelled as dentals in this position!

The letter ñ

Some may wonder that I don't use the letter ñ for ny [ɲ]. Alternately some people familiar with Tolkien's use of ñ for [ŋ] may wonder why I don't adopt that usage. The answer is, as you may already have guessed, exactly the fact that I've encountered conflicting usages of ñ, and so they make me confused, and I decided to use neither. In fact I do use ñ for Kijeb ŋ in my private vocabulary database, since it doesn't accomodate Unicode!

Heleb peculiarities

The Heleb dialect has a distinct pair of front rounded vowels ü and ö pronounced [y] and [œ]. The Heleb counterpart pf æ is ä but this is only a difference in transcription.

Heleb has distinctive vowel length. Long vowels are transcribed with doubled vowel letters.

e and a are fully back unrounded vowels [ɯ] and [ɑ] in Heleb.

ll indicates a velar(ized) /ɫ/ or /ʟ/ distinct from palatal l /ʎ/. This arose when front-back vowel harmony caused some formerly back vowels to become front and vice versa, since formerly *l had had a palatal allophone before front vowels and a velar allophone before back vowels; this difference became phonemic as the liquid retained its old quality when the following vowel changed its front/back value. There was a similar allophony in *r, but the palatal allophone merged with y. The remaining Heleb 'rhotic' r was probably realized as a retroflex fricative [ʐ] or [ɻ].

In the native script ll was written (from right to left) as rr, l as ir and r as r, if they were distinguished at all.