User:2-4/My sandbox/Relay language

Phonology

Phonemic inventory

Consonants

	Labial	Coronal	Dorsal	Glottal
Nasal	m	n	ŋ
Plosive	p	t	k	ʔ
Affricate		ts
Fricative		s		h
Liquid		l · ɾ

There is also an archiphoneme |N| whose surface forms are described under Phonotactics and allophony.

• /ŋ ʔ ts ɾ/ are written g x c r.
• Other consonants are written as in IPA.

Vowels

There are three tones: high, mid and low.

	Front	Central	Back
High	i
Mid			o
Low		a

There are also two diphthongs /ai̯ ao̯/. As with the monophthongs, any diphthong can have any tone.

• Diphthongs are written without an inverted breve located under the offglide.
• Mid tone isn't marked with any diacritic.
• Vowels are otherwise written as in IPA, including tone marking as well.

Phonotactics and allophony

• The general syllable structure is (C)V(|N|).

• The archiphoneme |N| has six surface realisations:
  • It is realised as [m], written m, before /p/.
  • It is realised as [n], written n, before /t/ and word-finally.
  • It is realised as [t], written t, before the liquids /l ɾ/.
  • It coalesces with /s/ to [dz], written c.
  • It coalesces with /k/ to [ɲ] before front vowels and to [ŋ] elsewhere, written g.
  • It has zero surface form before the nasals /m n ŋ/ and the glottals /ʔ h/.

• Plosives, bar the glottal plosive, affricates, and fricatives voice intervocalically to [b d g dz z ɦ].
• The velars /ŋ k/ and the glottal /h/ palatalise before front vowels.
  • The non-intervocalic palatalised allophones of /k h/ are [c ç].
  • The intervocalic palatalised allophones of /k h/ are [ɟ ʝ].
  • The palatalised allophone of /ŋ/ is always [ɲ], both non-intervocalically and intervocalically.
  • The liquid /l/ is velarised to [ɫ] after /ò ō ó àò̯ āō̯ áó̯/.

• All vowels are nasalised before nasals.
• The vowels /ò ō ó àò̯ āō̯ áó̯/ are raised to [ù ū ú àù̯ āū̯ áú̯] next to labial consonants.