Iltârer Phonology

Iltârer phonology is distinctive among the Thekashi languages in that it is strongly frontal; there are no back vowels and no velar consonants. It also strikes most hearers as a "precise" or "crisp" phonetically, with voiceless consonants and vowels that always receive some degree of stress and clarity of articulation.

Consonants

Consonants are distinguished by place and mode of articulation, but not by voice:

	Labial	Dental	Alveolar	Palatal
Stop	p /p/	ht /t_d/	t /t/	c /c/
Fricative	ph /p\/	th /T/	s /s/	ch /C/
Approximant		r /r\_d/	l /l/
Nasal	m /m/	n /n/		ñ /J/

[The SAMPA IPA notation is used for phonetic transcription.]

In casual speech, consonants are often voiced between vowels, but voiceless forms are preferred and used exclusively during formal, careful speech.

There is some variability in the place of articulation of the "liquids", r and l. The r tends to be more dental, but it is the tongue configuration that distinguishes these phonemes, not the place of articulation.

Note for English speakers. The difficult sounds are ph, ht, r, and ch, and (in some positions) c and ñ. Substituting a labiodental /f/ for the labial /F/ and an alveolar /r/ for the dental /r\_d/ are acceptable practices, although they give one's speech an obvious accent. Substituting the palatal-alveolar /S/ for the palatal /C/ is a worse offense, but still intelligible. The dental stop /t_d/ must simply be mastered, as /t/ and /t_d/ are distinct phonemes in the language. Native speakers tend to aspirate /t_d/ more strongly than /t/, and this may be a helpful practice to emulate.

Vowels

Back vowels are not used in Iltârer. There are two front vowels, i and e, and a central vowel a. Each has one form with lip rounding, and one without, making a total of six:

	Unrounded	Rounded
High	i /i/	î /y/
Mid	e /E/	ê /9/
Low	a /a/	â /&/

Vowel quantity is quite variable.

Note for English speakers. The vowel /a/ may be difficult for American English speakers, falling between the a of father and the a of cat. The rounded vowels may be quite difficult; it is acceptable (although very imprecise) to pronounce them as diphthongs, with the basic vowel followed by a u or w sound, but minimizing the duration of the sound and the separateness of the components. To many English speakers, â may sound like an oddly pronounced short o or u.

Syllables

The basic syllable pattern is (C)V(n|l)(C), where (n|l) represents a nasal or liquid (r, l). The initial and final consonants (C) cannot be liquids (a few contracted inflectional endings excepted), and if (n|l) is a nasal followed by a final consonant, it must have the same place of articulation as the consonant. Syllables with initial consonants are much more common than those with final consonants, and two-phoneme final clusters are quite uncommon.

There is a light stress, which invariably falls on the first syllable of a word.

In Proto-Iltârer, there appear to have been distinct pauses between syllables, as attested by the fact that many roots show no evidence of assimilation between abutting syllables with incompatible final and initial consonants, and by a number of roots that are phonologically identical except for syllable division (e-ne and en-e, for example). In the Northern language, assimilation toward the locus of the second consonant became the norm. In the Southern language, e was typically interposed between incompatible consonants. (Compare NI ñihtthil with SI ñipethire, both from PI *ñip-thi.)

Return to Hendir

Return to Telperion Grove