Síntári
Síntári developed due to inspiration from both Finnish and Basque. It shares characteristics of both languages, such a system of vowel harmony and polypersonal verb conjugation; it is, however, ultimately an a priori conlang. In addition, Síntári sometimes synthesizes features of both Finnish and Basque, as in its tripartite morphosyntactic alignment. Like the languages that inspired it, Síntári is a highly agglutinative language.
Phonology
Phoneme Inventory
| Consonants | |||||||||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Bilabial | Labiodental | Dental | Alveolar | Alveolo-Palatal | Palatal | Velar | Glottal | ||||||||
| Nasal | m | n | ɲ | ||||||||||||
| Plosive | p b | t d | k g | ||||||||||||
| Affricate | ʦ ʣ | ʨ ʥ | |||||||||||||
| Fricative | θ ð | s z | ɕ ʑ | x ɣ | h | ||||||||||
| Approximant | ʋ | j | |||||||||||||
| Trill | r | ||||||||||||||
| Lateral fricative | ɬ | ||||||||||||||
| Lateral approximant | l | ʎ | |||||||||||||
| Vowels | |||||||||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Front | Back | ||||||||||||||
| Close | |||||||||||||||
| Short | i y | u | |||||||||||||
| Long | iː yː | uː | |||||||||||||
| Close mid | |||||||||||||||
| Short | e ø | o | |||||||||||||
| Long | eː øː | oː | |||||||||||||
| Near open | |||||||||||||||
| Short | æ | ||||||||||||||
| Long | æː | ||||||||||||||
| Open | |||||||||||||||
| Short | ɑ | ||||||||||||||
| Long | ɑː | ||||||||||||||
Phonemic Length
Consonants, as well as vowels, have long forms. Geminate consonants are written by doubling the letter, while long vowels are written with an acute accent over them. In each case, Síntári contrasts the meaning of long and short vowels and consonants. Being that they are phonemic, there is a difference in meaning between the words halla and hala, which mean fish and air, respectively.
Phonotactics
Síntári is capable of building fairly complex consonant clusters. There can be at most four consonants in the onset, but this does not occur frequently and is limited to /vstr/. The syllable nucleus must be a vowel sound; Síntári does not allow syllabic nasals or liquids to occur. The coda usually ends in a single consonant, as any other consonants accompanying it will be moved to the onset of the following syllable. Exceptions can occur, however, as in a word like roumna, forest, where the [mn] occupies the same syllable.
Syllabification
Síntári divides open syllables into [CV.CV]. As mentioned above, a coda with two consonant sounds will likely be divided. For example, halla divides as [CVC.CV] as would similarly built words like halta, halda, or halka.
