Kythish

Introduction

Kythish (cwiþeś), also known as Hacean, is a Germanic language spoken in the cantons of Kythe, on the world of Oktosii. It is derived from Old English, with a substrate of Celtic.

Phonology

Alphabet

Kythish is written using a variant of the Latin alphabet, omitting some letters and adding several more. The collation order is as follows:

a á b c ć d ð e é f g ǵ h i í j l m n ŋ o ó p r ŕ s ś t þ u ú v w ẃ ƿ y ý z ź

In addition, there are four glyphs used exclusively for more divergent dialects, these are as follows:

ç ḉ (collated between ć and d)

ø ǿ (collated between ó and p)

There are also 7 consonantal digraphs, 6 standard and one dialectal, which result from initial consonant mutation. In the rare occurrence that they need to be collated, they are placed directly between the parent consonant and the next letter in the alphabet. These digraphs are as follows:

bh ch çh dh gh ph th

Note: Sometimes hƿ is considered a digraph, due to pronunciation differences, but it has no special collation position.

Phonemes

Vowels

Kythish has 7 'short' vowels (a, e, i, o, u, w, and y) and 7 roughly equivalent 'long' vowels (á, é, í, ó, ú, ẃ, and ý). The terminology is based on the fact that long vowels, when stressed, have a longer duration than their short equivalents.

Vowel	IPA Equivalent	Notes
a	[æ]	Heightened to [ɛ] in a diverse number of dialects.
á	[a]	[aː] when stressed.
e	[ɛ]
é	[e]	[eː] when stressed.
i	[ɪ]
í	[i]	[iː] when stressed.
o	[ɔ]	Relaxed to [ɞ] in eastern dialects.
ó	[o]	Relaxed to [ɵ] in the east; [oː] ([ɵː]) when stressed.
u	see notes	Ranges from back open-mid ([ʌ]) in the north and west through back near-open, near-back near-open in the south and centre to central near-open ([ɐ]) in the east. Most lexicographers give it as [ʌ], as this is the pronunciation most often heard in and around hácei.
ú	[ɑ]	[ɑː] when stressed.
w	[ʊ]
ẃ	[u]	Relaxed to /ʉ/ in the east, or retained as /y/ or /ʏ/ in many rural areas; /uː/ (/ʉː/, /yː/, /ʏː/) when stressed.
y	[ə]	In some dialects, [ɘ] when stressed.
ý	[ɜ]	[ɜː] when stressed.