Syrenian/Phonology

Vowels

It is helpful to subdivide the many vowels into 'normal', '+RTR', '+rounding' and '+RTR,+rounding'. On the following chart in each group of four vowels, the top left is 'normal'. Moving to the right is '+RTR' and moving down is '+rounding.'

Syreni vowels in IPA

	Front		Central		Back
High	i	ɪ	ɨ	ɪ̈	ɯ	u
	y	ʏ	ʉ	ʊ̈	ɯ̽	ʊ
Mid	e	ɛ	ɘ	ɜ	ɤ	ʌ
	ø	œ	ɵ	ɞ	o	ɔ
Low	æ	a	No		ä	ɑ
	No	No			No	ɒ

Under certain (common) conditions, vowels become their semi-vowel counterparts according to the following pattern:

	Front	Central	Back
High	/j/	/ð/	/w/
Mid	/l/	/ɻ/	/ʁ/
Low	/ɦ/	No	/ʕ/

Length is normal or long (e.g. a vs. aː). Vowel length is not intrinsic to the vowel, but part of the derivational pattern.

Consonants

First, there is the table of all sounds that occur:

	Bilabial	Dental*	Alveolar	Post-Alv.	Palatal	Velar	Uvular	Pharyngeal	Glottal
Nasal	m		n			ŋ	ɴ
Stop	b~ⱱ̟		d~ɾ			g	ɢ		ʔ
Fricative	β		z~z͎	ʒ~ʒꟹ		ɣ
Approximant		ð	l~ɫ	ɻ	j	w~ɰ	ʁ	ʕ	ɦ
Trill	ʙ	r̝͆	r				ʀ
Click	ʘ~ʬ		!

* Syreni teeth are very sharp, so their tongues do not ever go over the ridge of their teeth.

Affricates are phonemically distinguished (i.e. not separate letters unto themselves). The possibilities are bβ, dz, dʒ, dð, ɡɣ, ɢʁ