Parseltongue

Parseltongue-inspired
Pronounced:	n.a.
Timeline and Universe:	Harry Potter world
Species:	Ophidic (snakes and snake-likes)
Spoken:	All over the HP world
Total speakers:	unknown
Writing system:	n.a.
Genealogy:	Isolate
Typology
Morphological type:	Inflecting
Morphosyntactic alignment:	Accusative
Basic word order:	SOV
Credits
Creator:	Eugene Oh
Created:	July 2005

Parseltongue is a fictional language spoken by snakes in the Harry Potter series of novels (author: J. K. Rowling), whose known human speakers include the Lord Voldemort and Harry Potter. This language has, however, not been publicly described by Rowling and has no known form.

The Parseltongue referred to below in this article refers to Parseltongue-inspired, a hypothetical form of the abovementioned snake-speak. Because the tongue has no written form, the text samples appearing hereafter are in romanised form.

Phonology

Being a language spoken by snakes (and the like), Parseltongue is rich in sibilants and other fricatives.

Place of articulation →	Labial		Coronal				Dorsal				Radical				(none)
Manner of articulation ↓	Bi­la­bial	La­bio‐ den­tal	Den­tal	Al­veo­lar	Post‐ al­veo­lar	Re­tro‐ flex	Pa­la­tal	Ve­lar	Uvu­lar		Pha­ryn‐ geal		Epi‐ glot­tal		Glot­tal
Nasal	m	ɱ	n			ɳ	ɲ	ŋ	ɴ
Plosive	p b	* *	t d			ʈ ɖ	c ɟ	k ɡ	q ɢ				ʡ		ʔ
Fricative	ɸ β	f v	θ ð	s z	ʃ ʒ	ʂ ʐ	ç ʝ	x ɣ	χ	ʁ	ħ	ʕ	ʜ	ʢ	h ɦ
Approx­imant	β̞	ʋ	ɹ			ɻ	j	ɰ
Trill	ʙ		r			*			ʀ				*
Tap or Flap	*	†	ɾ			ɽ							*
Lateral Fricative			ɬ ɮ			*	*	*
Lateral Approx­imant			l			ɭ	ʎ	ʟ
Lateral Flap			ɺ			*	*	*