Nother/Drake phonology
Vowels
Drake has a fairly standard set of vowel positions, /a e i o u/. The vowels /a i u/ may be short or long.
| Vowels | ||||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Front | Near-front | Central | Back | |||||||
| High | i iː | u uː | ||||||||
| High-mid | e | o | ||||||||
| Low | a aː | |||||||||
Any vowel may also have creaky voice applied: /a̰ a̰ː ḛ ḭ ḭː o̰ ṵ ṵː/.
| Examples | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| /a/ |    |
ṭalā | /θàlaː/ | "into" |
| /aː/ |    |
ḳāneze | /xaːnèze/ | "three" |
| /a̰ː/ |   |
ʼā̰gā | /ʔâ̰ːɡaː/ | "bread" |
| /e/ |   |
ḍeġele | /ðeɣèle/ | "sacrificial animal" |
| /ḛ/ | cs |
cḛġeṭeso | /cçḛɣeθèso/ | "she mixes" |
| /i/ | |
ni | /ní/ | "and" |
| /iː/ |  |
ġīno | /ɣîːno/ | "wine" |
| /o/ |   r |
hokkere | /(h)okkère/ | "wisdom" |
| /u/ | s |
ġuhse | /ɣù(h)se/ | "he pours" |
| /uː/ | s |
sūne | /sûːne/ | "they" |
Consonants
| Consonants | ||||||||||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Bilabial | Dental | Alveolar | Post-alv. | Retroflex | Palatal | Velar | Glottal | |||||||||
| Nasal | m | n | ŋ | |||||||||||||
| Plosive | t | d | k | g | ||||||||||||
| Fricative | θ | ð | s | z | ʃ | ʂ | ʐ | x | ɣ | (h) | ||||||
| Affricate | tʂ | dʐ | ||||||||||||||
| Approximants | j | |||||||||||||||
| Tap | ɾ | |||||||||||||||
| Lateral Approximant | l | |||||||||||||||
It's unclear how /ʃ/ manages to survive on its own (or if it actually does exist as a phoneme), and whether the retroflex series is actually supposed to be retroflex; they might, perhaps, be palatal, but all I'm certain of is that my notes explicitly state them to be at a different POA than /ʃ/. Many (all?) consonants may be geminated.
Though /h/ was still represented in writing, it was not pronounced in the speech of most; it does not continue into the later ages of the language.
| Examples | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| /m/ | m |
mīne | /mîːne/ | "house" |
| /n/ | r |
noġeḍor | /noɣèðor/ | "of a seed" |
| /ŋ/ |  |
ŋe’ā̰ | /ŋèʔa̰ː/ | "dragon" |
Accent
Drake has a pitch accent on the penultimate syllable (2R). When the penult is long, it is a circumflex or falling accent; when it is short, it is grave; in monosyllables with an accent the accent is acute.
