Repilian languages
The Repilian languages were a large and internally diverse macrofamily of languages spoken across the northern half of the continent of Rilola on the planet Teppala.
Despite their diversity, all Repilians were extremely feministic cultures, and the traits of their languages came to be seen as indicative of feminism and female empowerment.
Phonological characteristics of the Repilian languages
Vowels
All Repilian languages have small vowel systems. The commonest types are:
- A three-tiered vertical system, /a ɜ ɨ/, which may be transcribed as {a e i} in the interest of beauty. Languages with this system always have consonants with coarticulated labialization, although these labialized consonants are often distributed in a very asymmetrical fashion, meaning that, for example, the allophone [u] might appear only after velar and/or bilabial consonants, and never after coronals.
- A three-vowel system of /a i u/. These languages often also have labialized consonants, and these consonants increase the roundedness of adjacent vowels, meaning that allophones of these vowels exist in a very similar way to those of the vertical-vowel type.
Thus, Repilian languages tend to be very "consonant-strong", in that the consonants in each word strongly affect the pronunciation of surrounding vowels, but vowels have no effect at all on the pronunciation of surrounding consonants. Although consonants in Repilian languages do have allophones, they are driven entirely by the presence of other consonants, not vowels.
Consonants
Repilian languages often have multiple series of velar consonants, which affect the pronunciation of surrounding vowels. However, different consonants only appear where they are acoustically distinct in isolation. Thus, for example, there is never a distinction between a true velar-labial [w] and one that is slightly further front or back; however, distinctions of this type among stops are common.
