Tanemantin

Tanemantin is one of the Ke:tic languages and a descendent of the classical language Sarim.

Phonology

Tanemantin distinguishes between 16 consonant phonemes

	Labial	Dental	Alveolar	Palatal	Velar	Glottal
Plosive/Affricate	p /pʰ/ b /p/	t /tʰ/ d /t/		j /ʨ/	k /kʰ/ g/k/
Fricative	f /f/	th /θ/	s /s/	x /ɕ/		h /h/
Nasal	m /m/		n /n/
Liquid	w /w/		r /ɾ/ l /l/	y /j/

The ten vowel phonemes are a e i u ā ē ī ū ai au /a e i u a: e: i: u: aj aw/. Vowel length is phonemic, and length alteration a fairly important part of Tanemantin morphology. /aj aw/ are considered to be long vowels, and their corresponding short forms /i u/.

Syllable Structure

Tanemantin has a (C)V(C) syllable structure. The vowel is the only compulsory element of a syllable, and CC clusters only occur word-internally. Most potential clusters are attested in the language except for fricative-fricative clusters, which simplified to single fricatives at an earlier stage (in the native orthography fricative-fricative clusters still appear, e.g. axu the Moon is written ath.xu from Sarim *ɛtsɛxu ), and clusters including one of /j w/ (which presumably simplified before the modern orthography was set, e.g. danē yam from Sarim *θanwɛŋ. Word finally, only m t d n s th r l h occur.