Ithkuil:
A Philosophical Design for a Hypothetical Language
2 Morpho-Phonology | 7a Using Affixes | 12 The Number System | |
3 Basic Morphology | 7b Using Affixes (continued) | The Lexicon | |
4 Case Morphology | 8 Adjuncts | Revised Ithkuil: Ilaksh |
The phonology of a language essentially refers to its sound system, i.e., its systematic employment of consonants, vowels, and other vocalized phenomena such as pitch, stress (or accent), and tone in order to physically convey the meaningful content of the language itself. The phonological system of Ithkuil is detailed in the sections below.
The native script used to represent Ithkuil is both alien and complex (employing over 3600 characters). It is explained in Chapter 11. As a result of this complexity, a system of romanization is employed throughout this grammar to allow the reader to recognize the general phonetic structure of Ithkuil words. Due to the inadequacies of the Roman alphabet in transliterating the large number of phonemes (meaningful sounds) in Ithkuil, the following diacritics are necessary for a phonemic Romanization system: the acute, grave and circumflex accents, the umlaut or dieresis, the cedilla, a superposed dot, and the apostrophe. The uses of these diacritics are explained in the sections below. Additionally, digraphs with a superscript letter h are employed to represent various aspirated consonants.
In furtherance of morpho-phonological efficiency (one of the
language’s goals as explained in the introduction), Ithkuil must have
a large phonemic inventory, specifically 65 consonants and 17 vowels, illustrated
by place and manner of articulation in Table No. 1 below using a special romanized
orthography. Because this is far more than most Western languages, Ithkuil has
many sounds alien to speakers of English or other Western languages. Consequently,
readers other than trained phoneticians (or perhaps speakers of such obscure
languages as Chechen or Abkhaz) will likely have difficulty pronouncing the
language accurately.
Tables 1(a) and 1(b): Phonemic Inventory
Table 1(a): Consonantal Inventory
PLOSIVES |
AFFRICATES |
Fricatives |
Nasals |
Taps/ Trills |
Liquids |
Approximants |
||||||||
plain |
aspirated |
ejective |
plain |
aspirated |
ejective |
|||||||||
un- voiced |
+voice |
un- |
un- voiced |
un- voiced |
+voice |
un- voiced |
un- voiced |
un- voiced |
+voice |
+voice |
+voice |
+voice |
+voice |
|
BILABIAL | p |
b |
p’ |
_ |
_ |
_ |
_ |
_ |
_ |
m |
_ |
_ |
_ |
|
LABIO-VELAR | _ |
_ |
_ |
_ |
_ |
_ |
_ |
_ |
_ |
_ |
_ |
_ |
_ |
w |
LABIO-DENTAL | _ |
_ |
_ |
_ |
_ |
_ |
_ |
_ |
f |
v |
_ |
_ |
_ |
_ |
DENTAL | t |
d |
t’ |
_ |
_ |
_ |
_ |
n |
_ |
_ |
_ |
|||
ALVEOLAR | _ |
_ |
_ |
_ |
c |
c’ |
s |
z |
_ |
_ |
_ |
_ |
||
ALVEOLAR-RETROFLEX | _ |
_ |
_ |
_ |
’ |
_ |
r |
_ |
||||||
POST-ALVEOLAR | _ |
_ |
_ |
_ |
j |
’ |
_ |
_ |
_ |
_ |
||||
PALATAL | ’ |
_ |
_ |
_ |
ç’ |
ç |
_ |
_ |
_ |
y |
||||
VELAR | k |
g |
k’ |
_ |
_ |
_ |
x’ |
x |
_ |
_ |
_ |
|||
UVULAR | q |
q’ |
_ |
_ |
_ |
’ |
_ |
_ |
_ |
_ |
||||
PHARYNGAL | _ |
_ |
_ |
_ |
_ |
_ |
_ |
_ |
_ |
_ |
_ |
_ |
_ |
|
GLOTTAL | ’ |
_ |
_ |
_ |
_ |
_ |
_ |
_ |
h |
_ |
_ |
_ |
_ |
_ |
LATERAL | _ |
_ |
_ |
_ |
_ |
_ |
_ |
_ |
_ |
_ |
l |
_ |
||
VELARIZED LATERAL | _ |
_ |
_ |
_ |
_ |
_ |
_ |
_ |
_ |
_ |
_ |
_ |
_ |
Table 1(b): Vocalic Inventory
FRONT |
CENTRAL |
BACK |
||||
unrounded |
rounded |
unrounded |
rounded |
unrounded |
rounded |
|
High |
î |
ÿ |
_
|
ü |
ï
|
û
|
Mid-High |
i |
_
|
_
|
_
|
_
|
u |
Mid |
ê |
ø |
_
|
_
|
ë
|
ô |
Mid-Low |
e |
ö |
_
|
_
_ |
_
|
o |
Low |
ä |
_
|
a |
_
|
â |
_
|
1.2.1 Pronunciation of Consonants
The following are approximate descriptions of the consonantal sounds of Ithkuil. In addition to these descriptions, the corresponding symbol of the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA) is provided in brackets, as well as their X-SAMPA equivalents for those readers who may be familiar with these phonetic representation systems. Sound files of actual Ithkuil words have been provided for those consonants which are uncommon or difficult to pronounce for English speakers, as well as in other cases to compare and distinguish two similar but distinct phonemes, e.g., k versus , or c vs. vs. , etc.
1.2.1.1 Aspirated Consonants: The consonants are all unaspirated, i.e., without the accompanying puff of air characteristic of English voiceless stops and affricates. In Ithkuil each of these has an aspirated counterpart, pronounced like the unaspirated version but with a distinct expulsion of air, more so than in English. These aspirated counterparts are written with a following superscript h; thus: Example sound files:
1.2.1.2 Ejective Consonants: The same eight consonants immediately above also have ejective counterparts, which do not exist in any major Western language, but are found in languages such as Armenian, Amharic, Georgian, most of the Caucasian languages, and many American Indian languages. Ejectives (also called glottalized consonants) are consonants accompanied by simultaneous closure and sudden release of the glottis (vocal chords), which gives the sound a distinct “popped” or explosive quality. Ejectives are indicated by an apostrophe following the consonant, thus: . Note: the lateral affricate has an allophone (alternate pronunciation) as an ejective as well. Example sound files:
In addition to the above ejectives, there are three additional ejective consonants, all of them affricates, ç’, x’, and ’, whose rather difficult and exotic pronunciations are described below.
1.2.1.3 Syllabic consonants. Six consonants, , can be pronounced as full syllables in absence of a vowel. The phenomenon of syllabic consonants is fairly common and occurs in colloquial English expressions such as ‘hmm’ (as when pondering a thought), ‘mm-hmm’ (an expression of approval or agreement), as well as with the consonants n and l as in the second syllable of words like button and little. Syllabic nasals are also found in Navajo, as in the words nda ‘no’, and ndíghílii ‘sunflower.’ In Ithkuil, these six syllabic consonants can appear as word-initial syllables preceding a consonant as in However, they also occur in special geminate (i.e., doubled) clusters where the second “half” of the geminated cluster is pronounced as a separate syllable. Examples: .
There are 17 vowels, all of which are pure sounds, not glided into diphthongs as in English. These include the five primary vowels a, e, i, o, u. The vowel a is phonetically an unrounded central low vowel, IPA [a], as in Spanish or Italian. The vowels e and o are similar to the vowels in American English let and short, phonetically IPA [] and [], although both sounds are actually somewhat higher, being between low-mid and mid in height. The vowels i and u are lower than in Romance languages: i is about halfway between the vowels in English pit and machine; u is halfway between English cook and kook. Sound files: a e i o u
The vowel â is pronounced as in Western U.S. all, IPA []; ê and ô are mid-height, IPA [e] and [o] as in Spanish estos or in French poésie; î and û are high (i.e., fully closed) as in Spanish or Italian i and u, IPA [i] and [u]. Example sound files: â ê î ô û
The vowel ä is slightly higher than the vowel in American English sat but not as high as in set, IPA [æ^]. The vowel ö is the rounded equivalent of e, that is, the vowel in French boeuf or German könnte, IPA [œ]. The vowel ë is pronounced somewhat like the vowel in American English cut or nut, although, more exactly, it is the Ithkuil vowel ô but without rounding of the lips, a vowel which occurs in Estonian, IPA []. The vowel ï is pronounced as an unrounded û, an obscure vowel found in Turkish and Japanese, IPA . The vowel ü is pronounced as a high central rounded vowel, as found in Norwegian hus or the Highland Scottish pronunciation of English book or good, IPA []. The vowel ø is the rounded equivalent of ê, as in French feu or German schön, IPA [ø]; the vowel ÿ represents the front rounded vowel of French du and German über, IPA [y]. Example sound files: ä ë ï ö ø ü ÿ
Allophonic distinctions are the phonetic variances in the pronunciation of a particular phoneme depending on the phonetic environment in which that phoneme occurs. These variances, while audible to a trained linguist, are often indistinguishable to lay native speakers of a given language, in that these allophonic variances do not change the meaning of a word and thus play no functional role in the language. As an example, compare the two t-sounds in the English words top and stop. The former is aspirated (i.e., accompanied by a distinct puff of air), while the latter is unaspirated, giving the two sounds a different phonetic quality. However, because consonant aspiration does not function phonemically in English, the difference in the two t-sounds is unnoticeable to most native speakers of English, even though it would be highly noticeable to speakers of languages where consonant aspiration is phonemically relevant (e.g., Hindi and many other Indic languages).
Although such allophonic distinctions are arbitrary within a given language, they are not random; rather, their patterns are completely regular and predictable for any given language (as is true for consonant aspiration in English). Failure to follow the rules for allophonic distinctions when learning a foreign language will result in the speaker having a noticeable “foreign accent” to native speakers of the language (as do most French, Italians, and Spanish-speakers when trying to pronounce English “top” without aspirating the initial t-sound, due to the lack of consonant aspiration in Romance languages.)
The particular phonetic variants of a particular phoneme are known as allophones. The significant allophonic distinctions for Ithkuil are as follows:
1.3 PHONOLOGICAL PROCESSES AND RULES |
Besides the actual inventory of consonant and vowels, all languages
have phonological processes which affect how those consonants or vowels are
combined and phonetically articulated. Through these phonological processes,
the possible number of word-forming syllables in the language is expanded. Ithkuil
productively utilizes consonantal gemination, shifts in syllabic stress, and
tone (pitch intonation) to achieve these ends.
Gemination refers to the audible “doubling” in length of a particular sound, usually in reference to consonants. While gemination does not occur in English on true phonological grounds, it does occur on morpho-phonological grounds, as seen in the difference in pronunciation of the phrase ‘a natural’ versus ‘unnatural.’ There are many languages, however, where phonologically-based gemination is an intrinsic component of the phonology (e.g., Italian, Japanese, Finnish).
In Ithkuil, most consonants can be geminated. Also noteworthy is that gemination of certain consonants is allowed in both word-initial and word-final position. The following are the specific rules for consonant gemination in Ithkuil:
1.3.1.1 Intervocalic Gemination. All consonants are capable of intervocalic gemination (i.e., when between two vowels) except for y and w.
1.3.1.2 Word-Initial and Word-Final Gemination. The following consonants, in addition to being capable of intervocalic gemination, are also capable of being geminated in both word-initial and word-final position:
The consonant can be geminated in word-initial position.
1.3.1.3 Pronunciation of Geminated Consonants. Consonants which are continuants (i.e., able to be sounded for an indefinite duration), specifically are simply pronounced for twice as long in duration when geminated. Geminated r is pronounced as a rapid apico-alveolar trill like rr in Spanish or Italian. Example sound files:
The non-aspirated plosive consonants b, d, g, , , k, , p, q, and t, when geminated, are momentarily held, then released, much like the two d-sounds in the English phrase bad dog when spoken rapidly. Example sound file:
The aspirated plosives are likewise held momentarily before release, the aspiration occurring upon release, much like the two t-sounds in the English phrase hot tar when spoken rapidly. Similarly, the ejective plosives k’, ’, p’, q’, and t’ are also held momentarily before release, the glottalic ejectivization occurring upon release. Example sound files:
The pronunciation of affricates () when geminated depends on whether or not they are in word-final position. If not in word-final position, they are pronounced by momentarily holding the initial stop (plosive) component of the affricate before releasing it into the fricative or sibilant portion. Aspiration or ejectivization, if present, occurs during release of the plosive into the sibilant or fricative component, e.g., is pronounced as IPA [ttš]. For those affricates which can appear as word-final geminates (), geminated pronunciation in word-final position is achieved by simply lengthening the sibilant continuant portion of the affricate (i.e., the second sound of each affricate). Thus, in word-final position is pronounced as IPA [tšš], as IPA []. Example sound files:
1.3.1.4 Romanized Orthography of Geminates. Single character consonants are simply written double when geminated, e.g., bb, dd, nn, šš. Aspirated digraph-consonants have the first letter of the digraph written doubled followed by a single superscript h, e.g., Geminated ejective consonants are likewise written with the initial character doubled followed by a single apostrophe, e.g., Exceptions to this rule exist for the ejective affricates ç’, x’, and ’. Because the non-apostrophed forms of these three characters do not correspond to non-ejectivized versions of the apostrophed form, these geminates are written as
Ithkuil is a tone language like Chinese, Vietnamese, and other Southeast Asian languages as well as most of the sub-Saharan African languages and some American Indian languages. This means that pitch or tone of voice is used to convey grammatical information, unlike Western languages which use tone and pitch changes “supra-segmentally” to mark various morpho-semantic features. For example, in English rising intonation of the voice signals a question, while other specific pitch contours signify emphasis, disgust, irony, and other attitudes. Ithkuil marks such features morphologically, i.e., within the words themselves (such as with affixes or variances in mood categories).
There are five tones used in Ithkuil, one of which, mid-low tone, is considered morpho-phonologically neutral. The other four tones are falling, high, broken (i.e., mid to low to mid-low), and rising (i.e., mid-low to mid-high) and are considered functionally significant. Each word carries one significant tone, pronounced beginning with the stressed syllable and continuously carried through any following syllables until the end of the word. Unstressed syllables prior to the stressed syllable have neutral mid-low tone. Therefore, the function of mid-low tone is solely to indicate the start of a new word since any preceding word must end in a tone other than mid-low. Like most tone languages, the tones do not correspond to any exact pitch, but are relative for each individual speaker and utterance. The relative pitch of the tones is illustrated below:
(mid-low) |
falling |
high |
broken |
rising |
The four significant tones are indicated in the Roman transliteration by small superscript symbols at the end of each word, as follows: falling tone is unmarked, high tone is marked by a superscript hyphen (or macron), broken tone by a superscript backslash, and rising tone by a superscript forward slash. This is illustrated in the example words/sound files below.
Stress normally falls on the penultimate (next-to-last) syllable but can shift to either the ultimate (last) syllable of a word, to the antepenultimate (third-from-last) syllable, and occasionally to the preantepenultimate (fourth-from-last) syllable, as determined by morphological (grammatical) considerations.
When transliterating Ithkuil into Roman characters, the number of vowels in Ithkuil requires the use of diacritics due to the limited number of Roman vowel characters. As a result, the orthographic representation of stress using the system of romanization becomes complicated. It is explained as follows:
1) | All monosyllabic words are unmarked for stress. |
2) | The grave accent ( ` ) designates an unstressed syllable when stress would otherwise be misinterpreted, e.g., in distinguishing monosyllabic diphthongs such as au and ei from dissyllabic vowel conjuncts aù and eì. |
3) | Penultimate stress. Polysyllabic words having penultimate stress are unmarked for stress, except for those containing the dissyllabic phonemes ì or ù as the penultimate syllable, which, if stressed, take an acute accent, e.g., the word iskoùt (stress on the o), if adding the syllable -ma, becomes iskoútma (stress on the u). |
4) | Ultimate stress. Polysyllabic words which have ultimate stress indicate this in one of the following ways: |
|
|
5) | Antepenultimate stress. To show antepenultimate stress (third syllable from the end): |
|
|
6) | Preantepenultimate stress. To show preantepenultimate stress (i.e., fourth syllable from the end) apply the same rules as for antepenultimate stress above, but to the preantepenultimate syllable. |
Note that the acute accent on the stressed second member of the bi-syllabic geminate clusters distinguishes them from their standard geminate counterparts .
In addition to phonological processes such as gemination, stress-shifting, and tone, all languages employ their own individual and arbitrary rules as to what combinations of consonants and vowels are permissible in a syllable or word. This concept is called phonotaxis and such rules are known as phonotactical rules. These rules, peculiar to each language, explain why sprelch could be a hypothetical word in English, while znatk could not be, even though znatk is as easily pronounced by a linguist as sprelch. Rules governing syllable structure, diphthong formation, and overall phonetic euphony are all part of phonotaxis
Equally important are the optional rules each language employs to achieve euphony and greater ease of pronunciation, known as phonaesthetics or phonaesthetic rules. Together, phonotaxis and phonaesthetics are greatly responsible for the phonetic “character” or subjective “sound” of a given language. The phonotactic and phonaesthetic rules for Ithkuil are described in the sections below.
The permissible syllable structure depends on whether the syllable forms a monosyllabic word, is a word-initial syllable, a word-final syllable, or is word-medial (i.e., between two other syllables). These structures are shown in Table 2 below, where (C) represents an optional consonant and V represents a mandatory vowel or diphthong.
Table 2: Syllabic Structure
Syllable
Type |
Structure |
Examples |
Consonantal Word | C(C)(C)
where final consonant is a nasal, liquid, or voiceless
fricative continuant |
s, h,, ll, mm, pçç |
Monosyllabic | (C)(C)(C)V(C)(C)(C) |
a, ui, öt, isk, du, tuil, kleb, tliqs, pskarn, xxoršt |
Word-initial | (C)(C)(C)V(C)-
or l, ,
,
m, n, |
uran, tahin, ui’wá, prinu, klatma, xmoiskra, kstollap, ltuirbis, mpeilt’um |
Word-medial | -(C)(C)V(C)(C)-
or l, ,
,
m, n, |
kialun, ruentik, isteixlam, ïkspûzqai, |
Word-final | -(C)(C)V(C)(C)(C)-
or l, ,
,
m, n, |
lua, antoi, tial, eifqés, poxšurn, ultrönn, |
The following rules apply:
An Ithkuil syllable may contain one diphthong (a combination of two vowels pronounced together as one syllable). All Ithkuil diphthongs are “falling” diphthongs, i.e., the first vowel of the diphthong receives the primary articulation while the second becomes semi-vocalic (sometimes referred to as semi-consonantal or an “off-glide”). There are 24 diphthongs in Ithkuil, described as follows:
Pronounced as in Spanish
or Italian; like English i in white or ice.
|
|
No English Equivalent. A combination
of the Ithkuil vowel ä plus an English y-sound.
|
|
As in Spanish or Italian; like English
ai in rain or ei in rein. |
|
No standard English equivalent; a combination
of the vowel sound in American English rut + an English y-sound.
Somewhat like a rural British dialectal pronunciation of the i
in ice. |
|
As in Spanish or Italian; as in English
boy or voice. |
|
No English Equivalent. A combination
of the Ithkuil vowel ö plus an English y-sound.
Somewhat like the French word oeil. |
|
As in Spanish or Italian; no English
equivalent. A combination of Spanish or Italian “pure” u
(i.e., without the glide into -w as in English rude)
+ an English y-sound. The speaker should avoid allowing this
diphthong to become a “rising” diphthong where the u-sound
is reduced to a w- (the result sounding like English wee).
|
|
As in Spanish or Italian; like English
ou in loud or ow in cow. |
|
No English Equivalent. A combination
of the Ithkuil vowel ä plus an English w-sound.
|
|
As in Spanish or Italian; no English
equivalent. A combination of “pure” e (i.e., without
the glide into –y as in English they) + an English w-sound.
|
|
No standard English equivalent; a combination
of the vowel sound in American English rut + an English w-sound.
Somewhat like a rural British dialectal pronunciation of the word oh!.
|
|
No English equivalent; a combination
of the Ithkuil vowel i (which is more open than the Spanish
or Italian “pure” i (i.e., closer to English i
in bit) + an English w-sound. |
|
Like the o + w-glide
of English road or mode. Also as in Brazilian Portuguese
roupa. |
|
No English Equivalent. A combination
of the Ithkuil vowel ö plus an English w-sound.
Somewhat like an exaggerated upper class British pronunciation of the
word oh!. |
|
|
Each of these is a combination of a
vowel with the back central vowel ï. No English
equivalents, although the sound can be approximated by pronouncing the
first vowel followed by the velarized “dark” l-sound
of American English lull but without touching the tip of the
tongue to the gum ridge behind the upper teeth; the tongue tip should
remain low instead. The resulting diphthongs should sound somewhat like
English all, ell (as in bell), ull
(as in dull), eel, ole (as in pole),
and ool (as in tool), as pronounced by someone speaking
in an indistinct, slurred voice. For those familiar with IPA, these diphthongs
may be represented as |
As with the series of diphthongs immediately
above, these are combinations of the Ithkuil vowels ä,
ö, and ü with the back central
vowel ï. IPA |
|
No English equivalent. A combination
of Ithkuil a + ê. Sounds like
a more “open” version of Ithkuil ai. Tolkien’s
Sindarin language also has this diphthong. |
All other combinations of vowels are dissyllabic, i.e., are pronounced as two separate syllables. Care should be taken to avoid collapsing the many two-vowel combinations beginning with u- and i- into “rising” diphthongs beginning with a w-sound or y-sound. This is especially important when the second vowel of these combinations receives the syllabic stress.
All the vowels, diphthongs, and dissyllabic vowel conjuncts previously mentioned can occur in any syllable in any position with the following exceptions:
Table 3 below shows the permissible structures for word-initial consonant conjuncts, while Table 4 shows the permissible structures for consonant conjuncts in word-final position. Note that not all the possible conjuncts are shown, merely examples of each type of combination. There are many combinations of consonants permitted in Ithkuil which would never be allowed as conjuncts in Western languages.
Table 3: Permissible Structure of Initial Consonant Conjuncts
Table 4: Permissible Structure of Word-Final Consonant Conjuncts
Phonaesthetic rules refer to the generally applied rules and preferences peculiar to each language for structuring the patterns of phonemes for purposes of phonological euphony. The following such principles apply to Ithkuil.
Proceed to Chapter 2: Morpho-Phonology >>
2 Morpho-Phonology | 7a Using Affixes | 12 The Number System | |
3 Basic Morphology | 7b Using Affixes (continued) | The Lexicon | |
4 Case Morphology | 8 Adjuncts | Revised Ithkuil: Ilaksh |
©2004-2009 by John Quijada. You may copy or excerpt any portion of the contents of this website provided you give full attribution to the author and this website.