Phonology & Orthography
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A look at the sounds and letters of the Sarasque language
This public article was written by [Deactivated User], and last updated on 10 Feb 2018, 01:10.
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5. Sarasque Names
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The phonological system of Sarasque is fairly simple with characteristic features found in many languages, such as retroflex fricatives and nasal vowels.
The Sarasque vowel system consists of eight oral monophthongs, two nasal monophthongs and eleven diphthongs.
| Front | Central | Back |
|---|---|---|
| i [i] | y [ɨ] | u [u] |
| Front | Central | Back |
|---|---|---|
| ę [ɛ/ɛ̃] | N/a | ą [ɔ/ɔ̃] |
| Front | Central | Back |
|---|---|---|
| N/A | a [ə] | N/A |
| Front | Central | Back |
|---|---|---|
| N/A | a [a] | N/A |
The nasal vowels do not feature uniform nasality over their duration. They do not occur except in word-final positions. When ą or ę appear before stops, they indicate an oral /ɔ/ or /ɛ/ followed by a nasal consonant homorganic with the following consonant. For example, mąt (a male's older sister), is pronounced [mɔnt], as if they were spelled mont. Before fricatives and affricates, the nasality is lost altogether and the vowels are pronounced as oral [ɔ] or [ɛ].
Sarasque vowels are full in that they generally do not undergo any type of gradation or sound change based on stress and intonation. There is, however, an exception. The letter a is pronounced as a schwa [ə] when unstressed at the end of a word.
There are eleven diphthongs found in the Sarasque language.
| Written | Pronounced |
|---|---|
| ai | aj |
| ao | au |
| Written | Pronounced |
|---|---|
| óa | wa |
| óe | we |
| ói | wi |
| óo | wo |
| óu | wu |
| ie | je |
| ia | ja |
| io | jo |
| iu | ju |
The Sarasque consonant system is more complicated. However, they are more or less pronounced as they would be in English. The exceptions are shown below.
| Letter | IPA | Name |
|---|---|---|
| c | t͡s | ce |
| ć | t͡ʃ | će |
| j | ʒ | je |
| ł | ʎ | eł |
| ń | ɲ | eń |
| ś | ʃ | eś |
| x | x | xe |
| ź | d͡ʒ | źe |
| ż | ʐ | że |
There are also several digraphs used in Sarasque. They represent the retroflex consonants, palatal consonants and mutations.
| Letter | IPA |
|---|---|
| cz | ʈ͡ʂ |
| sz | ʂ |
| rz | ʐ |
| dz | d͡z |
| dź | d͡ʐ |
| li + vowel | ʎ |
| ni + vowel | ɲ |
| ki + vowel | kʲ |
| gi + vowel | gʲ |
| ph | f |
| kh | x |
| th | h |
| dh | j |
| gh | x |
| bh | f |
| bm | m |
| dn | n |
| gn | ŋ |
| nr | r |
Polish obstruents are subject to voicing and devoicing in certain positions. In a Sarasque consonant cluster the obstruents are either all voiced or all voiceless. To determine whether a given cluster has voiced or voiceless obstruents, examine whether the last obstruent in the cluster appears to be voiced or voiceless.
Example
- barda ['bardə] ('daughter'), /d/ stays the same
- bardkova [bart'kovə] ('daughter' - honorific), /d/ → [t] before the voiceless k
At the end of a word, obstruents are pronounced voiceless. For example, the /v/ in epąv ('state', 'authority') in pronounced [f].
The predominant stress patter in Sarasque is penultimate stress - in a word of more than one syllable, the next-to-last syllable is stressed. Each vowel represents one syllable, although the letters i and ó normally does not represent a vowel when they precede another vowel.
Palatalized Consonants
The spelling rule for the palatal consonant sounds /ʎ/, /ɲ/, /kʲ/ and /ɡʲ/ is as follows: before the vowel i that is followed by another vowel, the place letters (l,n,k, g) are used; before other vowels and at the ends of words the diacritic forms (ł, ń) are used. K and g do not have diacritic forms so they always appear plain.
In addition to the palatalizing effect on the previous consonant, the letter i, if followed by another vowel in the same word, usually represents /j/. For example, nion ('back') is pronounced [ɲjon].
Homophonic Spellings
There are eight sounds in Sarasque that can be spelled in two different ways, depending on the word. In the following table, the first column represents the original spelling and the second column represents the spelling that results from mutation. The exceptions are the final two examples where the second column just represents alternative spellings.
| Original Spelling | Mutated/Alternate Spelling |
|---|---|
x | kh |
h | th |
i + vowel | dh |
v | bh |
m | bm |
n | dn |
u | ó1 |
ż | rz2 |
1- the letter ó, always used for diphthongs containing the /u/ sound, sometimes represents /w/ before or after a vowel; it is also used to differentiate verb tense forms
2- the spelling rz is used when ż is followed by a vowel
Loanwords often keep their original spellings. This is usually the case for technical terms. For other loanwords, both the foreign spelling and the revised Sarasque spelling are correct. For some words for which the Sarasque form was common even before the reform of 2000, the foreign version is no longer allowed.
The letter q in Sarasque appears only in loanwords.
In loan words from French, Spanish and Portuguese, spelling and accents are usually preserved.
Names are generally capitalized in Sarasque as in English. This includes personal names, months, days of the week, and adjectives and other forms derived from proper nouns.
However, titles and their abbreviates are not capitalized, unless used in polite address.
While use of almost all of the same punctuation marks are identical in Sarasque and English, there are a few differences.
One-part Punctuation Marks
Period
- Used to separate the elements of a date
- Used to separate every three digits when writing numbers
- Not used after abbreviations of measurement
Comma
- Used as a decimal point
Two-part Punctuation Marks
Colon
The colon is much more common in Sarasque than in English. It may introduce direct speech; a citation; or the explanation, conclusion, summary, etc.
Guillemets
Like French, Sarasque uses the guillemets (« ») to show quotations. They are usually used only at the beginning and end of an entire conversation. Unlike in English, where any non-speech is found outside of the quotation marks, in Sarasque guillemets do not end when an incidental clause is added. To indicate a new person is speaking, a dash is added.
In Sarasque, the dash also shows an interruption or trailing off of speech. Also, the dash is used like parentheses, to indicate or emphasize a comment.
Semi-colon, Exclamation Point, Question Mark
The semi-colon, exclamation point and question mark are essentially the same in Sarasque and English. ✎ Edit Article ✖ Delete Article
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