Teycil

Teycil (pronunciation: [tejʧil]) is a constructed phantasy language.

Phonology

Consonants

Consonants
	Bilabial		Labio- dental		Dental		Alveolar		Post- alveolar		Palatal		Velar		Uvular		Pharyngeal
Plosive	p	b					t	d			ç	ʝ	k	g
Nasal		m		[ɱ]1			n							[ŋ]2
Vibrant								r
Fricative			f	v			s	z	ʃ	ʒ			x		χ	ʁ	ħ
Affricate									tʃ	dʒ
Approximants												j		w
Lateral approximants								l

Note:

• [ɱ]¹ and [ŋ]² are considered allophones of the normal nasal phonemes in front of [f]/[v] and [k]/[g] respectively.

Vowels

Vowels
	Front		Near- front		Central		Near- back		Back
Close		i(ː)								u(ː)
Near close			ɪ					ʊ
Close mid		e								o
Open mid		ɛː	œ							ɔː
Near open			æ
Open					aː			ɑ

In Teycil studies, the vowels are grouped in three sets:

• Long vowels [aː], [ɛː], [iː], [ɔː], [uː] are called strong vowels
• Short vowels [ɑ], [e], [i], [o], [u] are called normal vowels
• Some vowels, usually born by some kind of reduction of ancient vowels or diphtongs, [æ], [ɪ], [ɶ], [ʊ], are called weak vowels

As these names are more practical, we will keep on using them while speaking about vowels in this description.

While the strong vowels are thought to be only the long counterparts of normal (short) vowels, the difference is also in quality for three of them.

Diphtongs

Teycil is full of diphtongs. Nonetheless the only diphtong pattern allowed is Vj or Vw. While Vw-type diphtongs can be found in every position inside a word, Vj-type diphtongs can be found only inside a stressed syllable.

As the stress can move on every syllable of the word as it undergoes morphological changes, the Vj-type diphtongs can undergo something like a reduction process, turning into the so-called weak vowels:

• [ɑj] ai → [æ] æ
• [oj] oi → [œ] œ
• [uj] ui → [ʊ] ů
• [ej] ei → [ɪ] î

Examples:

• Paic [ˈpɑik] → pæca [pæˈkɑ]
• Glayc [ˈglɑiʧ] → glæjcīne [glæˈʧiːne]

Diphtongs with long vowel (V:j) are very rare. When unstressed they simply get shorter.

Orthography

Teycil uses the Latin alphabet to be written. Consonants are written with all available letters (except for w, which is not used); as the number of consonantal phonemes is higher than the letters, some digraphs are used (but they are not taken as single letters).

Vowels are more complicated. Long vowels are marked with a makron (¯) over the corresponding letter. Other types of letters are used to mark the weak vowels.

Consonants

Simple letters are used to mark these consonants, except for j, which is always part of a digraph, and y, which can represent the semivowel [j], but only as part of a digraph:

Letter

b

c

d

f

g

h

j

k

l

m

n

p

q

r

s

t

v

x

y

z

IPA

[b]

[k]

[d]

[f]

[g]

[x]

no IPA value

[ħ]

[l]

[m]

[n]

[p]

[χ]

[r]

[s]

[t]

[v]

[?]

[j]

[z]

There are some phonemes which are expressed by some digraphs:

Letter	jc	jg	jq	jr	js	jx	jz
IPA	[ʧ]	[ʤ]	[ʝ]	[ʁ]	[ʃ]	[ç]	[ʒ]

When these digraphs are used after a Vj-type diphtong, where the semivowel is marked by i, the sequence V + i + j + C is reduced to V + y + C. Some examples:

• Paic [ˈpɑjk] river
• Pajc [ˈpɑʧ] street
• Payc [ˈpɑjʧ] father

Vowels and semivowels

Vowels and semivowels are expressed by the same letters.

Letter

a

ā

æ

e

ē

i

ī

î

o

ō

œ

u

ū

ů

IPA

[ɑ]

[aː]

[æ]

[e]

[ɛː]

[i]/[j]

[i]

[ɪ]

[o]

[ɔː]

[ɶ]

[u]/[w]

[uː]

[ʊ]

Lexicon

Main article: Teycil-English dictionary