Stilio/Phonology

Snakes have vastly simplified mouths compared to human-beings. We are capable of making every sound they make, though some are easier than others. Snakes have no lips. Their soft-palate is occupied with the vomeronasal organ (Jacobson's organ), which acts as a sense of smell. Snakes have no uvula. Their glottis can move aside when eating.

Sentient and non-sentient snakes hiss their entire volume of air without interruption, so a Parseltongue utterances cannot be longer than about ten seconds. Stops are typically initial, and in a verb. Whatever vocal-cords they are graced with by magic, snakes cannot speak very loudly or vary pitch beyond very low frequencies. Humans speaking above a loud whisper, voicing consonants and vowels, are something like "shouting barbarians" to the snakes we were allowed to interview.

Snake mouth anatomy

Given snake anatomy, even with the aide of magic, Parseltongue

• has no labial consonants
• has no uvular consonants
• has no voiced consonants
• has no corarticulated consonants
• has clicks
• prefers to end an utterance with a sibilant/fricative or a vowel
• has ejective forms of the stops (and affricates)
• has ingressive sounds in certain circumstances

There is a non-phonemic sound that snakes are readily capable of making, the trilled 'r'. However, /r/ is a highly erotic sound which no snake would make in polite company!

Non-parselmouths should take care not to "round" any consonants or vowels when speaking to a sentient snake. Snakes have no lips, so this can render one's speech unintelligible. English speakers should take greatest care with words beginning with 'r' or any 'sh' sound.

Consonants

Consonants (IPA above, Romanization below)
	Dental	Alveolar	Lateral	Retroflex	Palatal	Velar	Radical	Glottal
Nasal	n̪̊	n̥		ɳ̊	ɲ̊	ŋ̊
	m	n		ṇ	ñ	ŋ
Unaspirated Stop	t̪	t		ʈ	t͡ʃ~c	k	ʡ~ʛ̥	ʔ
	p	t		ʈ	c	k	`	'
Aspirated Stop	t̪ʰ	tʰ		ʈʰ	cʰ	kʰ		ʔʰ
	ph	th		ʈh	ch	kh		'h
Ejective Stop	t̪ʼ	tʼ		ʈʼ	c	kʼ
	p'	t'		ʈ'	c'	k'
Click	ǀ	ǃ	ǁ	‼
	pq	tq	zq	ʈq
Nasal Click	ᵑ̊ǀ	ᵑ̊ǃ	ᵑ̊ǁ	ᵑ̊‼
	npq	ntq	nzq	nʈq
Fricative	θ̟	s	ɬ	ʃ~ʂ	ɕ~ç	x
	f	s	z	ṣ	ç	x
Approximant			l̥	ɻ̊	j̞̊	ɰ̊	ħ	h
			l	r	j	w	g	h

The dentals are actually all interdental, with the tongue protruding far out between the teeth.

The retroflex consonants are like those found in Hindi or Tamil. That is, the tip of the tongue is not actually curled backwards, only pushed back past the alveolar ridge. However, most humans have to articulate the retroflex click with the tongue actually curling back on itself (but snakes do not).

The palatal stop /c/ can be said in the way common to those unfamiliar with such a sound (i.e. /tʃ/) with no loss of clarity to a Parselmouth or a snake.

For those unfamiliar with the sound /ɰ/, pronounce a 'w' but leave off the lip-rounding. The lateral fricative (z) is found in Welsh but may be very unfamiliar to English-speakers elsewhere. The pharyngeal approximant (g) is a very raspy 'h', produced as far down the throat as possible. The epiglottal stop (`) is produced very differently in snakes and humans, but is moderately similar to the sound many people use to imitate strong swallowing sounds, only whispered.

Clicks

The dental click (pq) is used in the English "tsk tsk tsk", while the lateral click (zq) is used to spur on a horse. The alveolar click (tq) is made by placing the tongue at the top of the mouth and then letting it slap down. The African version of this click - where the mouth produces an overly loud, hollow sound - should be avoided. The retroflex click (ʈq) is made by curling the tongue tip backwards and then sucking in. Because there are ingressive, ʈq and nʈq are not normally parts of words, but exclamatory interjections and ideophones.

Clicks are most often "pre-nasalized", in which case they are written with the letter n before hand (i.e. npq, ntq, nzq, and nʈq). In practice, the nasal quality may match the click in place of articulation or more often be the velar nasal ŋ. Such difference are not phonemic, so all version are spelled the same.

Stop Harmony

	"None" (º)	"Breathing" (ʰ)	"Biting" (')
m/f	p	ph	p'
n/s/z/l	t	th	t'
ṇ/ṣ/r	ʈ	ʈh	ʈ'
ñ/ç/j	c	ch	c'
ŋ/x/w	k	kh	k'
g/h	'	'h	`

Most verbs in Parseltongue begin with a stop (in the indicative). These stops are most often underspecified. That is, they conform in place of articulation to the nasal, fricative, or approximant of the subject's classifier.

The names of the three classes of stops are calques of the Parseltongue names themselves. Underspecified stops are as a T with the class symbols as a small superscript, e.g. ŋaTʰaşo = ŋakhaşo.

Ingressive

There are a small number of ingressive words in Parseltongue, mostly interjections, ideophones and onomatopoeias. There is no special notation for these words: they are either italicized or set off in down-arrows before and after (e.g. ↓kss↓). The retroflex clicks (i.e. ʈq and nʈq) are ingressive, but not marked as such in any way.

Allophony

• k/x + l > /ɫ̥/
• k/x + z > /ʟ̝̊/
• m/f + l > /l̪/

Gemination

English does distinguish between geminate and non-geminate consonants (cp. "hiss seal" and "hiss eel") but it is often irrelevant. In Parseltongue, however, it is of great import. Stops cannot be geminated.

Vowels

Vowels (IPA above, Romanization below)
	Front	Center	Back
High	i		ɯ
	i		u
Near-high	ɪ		ʊ̜
	ï		ü
High-mid	e		ɤ
	e		o
Low-mid	ɛ		ʌ
	ë		ö
Near-low	æ	ä
	a	ä

Like the Niger-Congo family of languages in Africa, Parseltongue has a system of five vowels, each of which has a twin with Advanced Tongue Root (ATR). These five vowels can be arranged in a 'V', with i in the top-left. e is in the middle-left and a at the bottom. The unrounded (because, again, snakes have no lips) versions of o and u are the right-middle and top-right components of the 'V'. With this pattern in mind, one can see how i and u are "high", while e and o are "mid". a is "low". i e a are "front" and u o a are "back". Notice how, in regards to frontness/backness, a is both.

Like consonant gemination, all vowels exist in long and short versions.

There are no vowel-vowel diphthongs, but any vowel can be coupled with j or w. When vowel hiatus occurs (which is often), snakes and Parselmouths do not glide between vowels, but neither are there excrescent glottal stops.

Vowel Harmony

	Front	Back
High	i/ï	u/ü
Mid	e/ë	o/ö
Low	a/ä

Like Finnish, Parseltongue has vowel harmony. Like Mongolian, however, it is based on Advanced Tongue Root (ATR). In every case, pushing the tongue forward is indicated by removing the umlaut/diaeresis from the letter. Hence, ï is /ɪ/ as in "kit" and i is /i/ as in "keep". a is /æ/ as in "Sally", while ä is /ä/ as in "father".

Vowels have three attributes:

• +high vs. +mid vs. +low
• +front vs. +back (a/ä is both)
• +ATR vs. -ATR

Underspecified vowels are written as a capital V with the set attribute(s) in small superscript, e.g. t^+high,+frontsä = tësä.

Phonotactics

Like the Salish language of the Pacific-Northwest, Parseltongue can be extremely difficult to analyze phonotacticly. Even with enunciating as one would to a fool or simpleton, snakes never cease a continuous airstream. We managed to persuade our Burmese python to geminate stops (normally forbidden by Parseltongue phonotactics) but could not get her to supply prolonged glottal stops to ease our analysis! Syllable boundaries, therefore, are highly arbitrary. The same snake we interviewed regard this as an unimportant, human problem, akin to transcribing choking or sneezing!

Under our analysis, there are four over-arching types of syllables with regard to nuclei: vowels, liquids, clicks, and fricative. Affricates -- whether they share place of articulation or not -- are simply counted as stop + fricative.

1. Vowel nuclei (of either length)
   1. May have neither onset nor coda: V(:)
   2. May have an onset consonant: CV(:)
      1. which may have a coda sonorant (which can be geminate): CV(:)R(:)
   3. May have just a coda sonorant (which may be geminate): V(:)R(:)
   4. May have a fricative plus approximant onset cluster: FAV(:)
      1. which may have a coda sonorant (which can be geminate): FAV(:)R(:)
2. Liquid nuclei (with or without gemination)
   1. May have neither onset nor coda: B(:)
   2. May have a fricative onset (which may be geminate): F(:)B(:)
3. Fricative nuclei (with or without gemination)
   1. May have neither onset nor coda: F(:)
   2. May have an onset stop: SF(:)
4. Click nuclei (without without gemination)
   1. May have neither onset nor coda: Q(:)
   2. May have a sonorant onset (which may be geminate): R(:)Q(:)

• F = any Fricative (f + s + z + ṣ + ç + x)
• N = any Nasal (m + n + ṇ + ñ + ŋ)
• B = N + r + l
• A = any Approximant (l + r + j + w + g + h)
• R = Sonorants (F + N + A)
• S = any Stop (including aspirated versions)
• Q = any Click, including pre-nasalized Clicks
• O = Obstruents (S + Q)
• C = any Consonant (R + O)
• V = any Vowel (a + ä + e + ë + i + ï + o + ö + u + ü)

While nasals can be geminate, one nasal may never be followed by another (across syllable boundaries).

Aesthetically, snakes find it undesirable to have stops in the middle of an utterance. Hence, while it would be possible through appropriate case use to have any word order, verbs almost always come first.

Accent is very hard to detect at times in Parseltongue. It appears that almost all words are emphasized on the first syllable, though pronouns tend to be enclitic. Unusually stress patterns are marked with an acute on the nucleus (e.g. Nagíni).

↓1st\2nd→	m	n	ṇ	ñ	ŋ	p	t	ʈ	c	k	'	f	s	z	ṣ	ç	x	l	r	j	w	g	h	ǀ	ǃ	ǁ	‼
m	Y	No	No	No	No	Y	No	No	No	Y	Y	Y	No	No	No	No	Y	l̪	No	No	No	Y	Y	No	No	No	No
n	No	Y	No	No	No	Y	Y	No	No	No	Y	No	Y	Y	No	No	No	Y	No	No	No	Y	Y
ṇ	No	No	Y	No	No
ñ	No	No	No	Y	No
ŋ	No	No	No	No	Y
p	No	No	No	No	No	No	No	No	No	No	No	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	l̪	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y
t	No	No	No	No	No	No	No	No	No	No	No	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y
ʈ	No	No	No	No	No	No	No	No	No	No	No	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y
c	No	No	No	No	No	No	No	No	No	No	No	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y
k	No	No	No	No	No	No	No	No	No	No	No	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	ɫ̥	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y
'	No	No	No	No	No	No	No	No	No	No	No	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y
f	Y											Y
s													Y
z														Y
ṣ															Y
ç																Y
x																	Y
l																		Y
r																			Y
j																				Y
w																					Y
g																						Y
h																							Y
ǀ																								Y	Y	Y	No
ǃ																								Y	Y	Y	No
ǁ																								Y	Y	Y	No
‼																								No	No	No	No

Orthography

Gemination is indicated by doubling the letter. Like English, Parseltongue has several sounds that are written with two letters, called digraphs. Even more unusual, the pre-nasalized clicks can be written as trigraphs, that is, one sound that takes three letters to write. The Latin alphabet orthography is a mixture of European, African, and Dravidian techniques. (There is also a Devanāgarī mode.) The sequence is given below in its full order, with Z-SAMPA transcriptions.

• a is [ä] as in Sally
  • ä is [Â] as in father
• b is not used
• c is [c\], much like English 'ch' in church, but not made of two parts (t + sh), and without an accompanying breath-out
  • ch is [c\_h]like c, but with the breath of air
  • c' is [c\_>]the ejective of c, as in beatboxing
• ç is [C]like 'sh' + 'y' said quickly, as in mesh yet
• d is not used
• e is [e] as in bet
  • ë is [E] as in Scottish bet, like the vowel in thanks said rapidly (no diphthong)
• f is [T] as in thin, never they (with the tongue-tip sticking farther out between the teeth)
• g is [X\] like a harsh 'h' said low in the throat
• h is [h] as in harpie (and can end a syllable!)
  • also used after p, t, and k to produce aspirated stops
• i is [i] as in sheet
  • ï is [I] as in shit
• j is [j] as in "yes" (In Parseltongue, it is like /ɪ/ - not /i/ - made into a consonant)
• k is [k] as in "kit", but without a breath of air
  • kh is [k_h] the same as k, but with the breath of air
  • k' is [k_>] as in beatboxing 'k'
• l is [l] or [l_d] or [l`] or [L] or [L\] as in lull, but can also be velarized, or dental

N=nmñŋņ C=pdtʈc T=q S=szxfşç R=rljghwy V=aäeëiïoöuü	(.)b|$1$1	SV NV RV V NVS SVS RVS NVR SVR RVR SRV CV CVS CVR CRV TV SS
http://zompist.com/gen

• m is [n_d_0] as in tenth
• n is [n_0] as in nun whispered
  • ñ is [J] as in Russian nyet whispered
  • ṇ is [n`_0], like English n but with the tongue tip curled further back.
  • ŋ is [N_0], as in sing (but can begin a syllable!)
  • A generic n is also used in trigraphs to indicate nasalized clicks
• o is [ë] like 'foe' without the lip rounding (not a diphthong, like Spanish)
  • ö is [Ë] like an English cot without lip-rounding
• p is [t_d] like the 't' in uncouth talk, said rapidly, with the tongue between the teeth, but without a breath of air
  • p' is [t_d_>], an ejective dental t, as in beatboxing
  • ph is [t_d_h]the same as p but with the exhaled breath
  • pq is [=\], the dental click, like spurring a horse on
    • npq is [n_!]
• q is only used in digraphs to produce clicks after p, t, ʈ, and z
• r is [r\`_0] as in peruse whispered (be careful not to put the tongue-tip behind the alveolar ridge)
• s is [s] as in sass
  • ṣ is [S] or [s`] as in shush (without lip-rounding and with the tongue-tip further back)
• t is [t] as in star', without a breath of air
  • t' is [t_>], an ejective 't' as in beatboxing
  • th is [t_h] the same as t but with the exhaled breath
  • tq is [|\] the alveolar click, like children imitating horses trotting
    • ntq is [J_!], the nasalized alveolar click
• ʈ is [t`] a 't' but without the breath of air escaping and with the tongue-tip curled further back
  • ʈ' is [t`_>], an ejective 't' as in beatboxing
  • ʈh is [t`_h] the same as ʈ but with the exhaled breath
  • ʈq is [!\] the retroflex click
    • nʈq is [n`_!]
• u is [ï], an unrounded version of shoot
  • ü is [Ï], an unrounded version of cut
• v is not used
• w is [M\_0], like a whispered 'w' without lip rounding
• x is [x], as in loch or Bach
• y is not used
• z is [K], like the Welsh 'll'
  • zq is [|\|\]the lateral click
  • nzq is [n_7]
• ' is [?] the glottal-stop, like the dash in uh-oh
  • 'h is [?_h] the aspirated glottal stop, if you will uh-ho
  • ` is [>\] or [q_<\] the epiglottal stop or the unvoiced ingressive velar stop, like a whispered imitation of swallowing

Devanāgarī

• does not use syllabic variants as themselves
• does not use diphthongs
• uses anunāsika only on nasalized clicks
• uses voiced stops as ejectives
• uses aspirated voiced stops as ejectives
• uses 'v' for 'w'
• glottal stop, aspirated, and epiglottal uses qa, kha and g.a