Tendraads

=Phonology=

Consonants
Tendraads distinguishes 17 consonants, although many sounds have several different variants. It is notable for its lack of many basic european sounds.

Voiced Plosives
The voiced plosives /b/, /d/ and /g/ are not traditionally counted as native Tendraads phonemes. However, they each have slightly different situations in regards to their place in Tendraads phonology.

The phoneme /b/ is found in several common loanwords, for example autobus "bus" and banaana "banana". Although it is not traditionally a native sound, it is almost always pronounced as it should be /b/. Some recent words derived from foreign words containing /b/ include banaa "yellow". See the section: Loan Letters for more information on the use of the letter 'b'.

The consonant /d/ has a slightly better, more established situation than either /b/ or /g/. It is a regular, weak version of the phoneme /t/ intervocalically, and as such it is commonly encountered in native words between vowels. It is also seen in loan words in positions other than between vowels in several loan words, for example Dänmaak "Denmark".

In contrast, /g/ is never encountered in Tendraads, although the letter 'g' is sometimes encountered (see section: Letter G). Foreign words that contain 'g' are replaced with 'k', for example goal! is changed to kol!.

Labial Fricatives
The two common labio-dental fricatives /f/ and /v/, which are commonly encountered in the vast majority of european languages are almost unheard of in Tendraads. As with the voiced plosives mentioned above, they are occasionally encountered in loanwords, where they normally represent their original pronunciation, Fraans "France", velor "velar".

'Weak' D
Although the sound /d/ is commonly regarded as a weak variant of /t/, there is the native sound /ð/ which is regarded as an even weaker 'd'. It descends from the historical phoneme /θ/, which later became [h] word-initially and [ð] between vowels. It is represented by the digraph dh.

=Orthography=

Alphabet
The most basic, 'pure' Tendraads alphabet contains the following 26 letters:

A Ä Ç D E G H I J K L M N O Ô Ö P R S Ş T Ţ U Û Ü Z

The letters with diacritics are treated as letters of their own, collated seperately from their parent letters. The letters 'd' and 'g' are also counted, as, despite not representing particularly native phonemes, 'd' is found in several native words and 'g' has several uses.

There is also another 'extended' alphabet which is used due to the large number of loanwords containing letters which represent phonemes not native to Tendraads. The extended alphabet contains 34 letters.

A Ä B C Ç D E F G H I J K L M N O Ô Ö P Q R S Ş T Ţ U Û Ü V W X Y Z

Additional Letters
There are several additional letters employed to represent native Tendraads sounds. These include the letters with umlaut ä, ö and ü, the letters with cedilla ç, ş and ţ and the two letters with circumflex ô and û. These letters are treated as seperate letters, rather than letters with diacritics.

Loan Letters
There are numerous letters in Tendraads which are only ever encountered in loanwords, and as such they are not included in the basic Tendraads alphabet (although they are included in the 'extended').
 * B - the letter 'b' is encountered solely in loanwords, for example banaana and bromium, where it represents /b/, as there is no way in the traditional Tendraads alphabet to represent this sound.
 * C - the use of 'c' is encountered only in foreign place names and proper names. This is because loanwords that contain any of the regular 'c' sounds /k/, /s/ or /ts/, the 'c' can be replaced with the native Tendraads letters k, s and ţ respectively. For example karbon "carbon", the "c" is replaced by "k", whereas "b" is not replaced, as there is no native Tendraads way of representing this sound.
 * D - 'd' can theoretically be placed in this list, as it is only seen as a result of the weakening of 't' between vowels. However, it is nowadays considered a native Tendraads letters as 'd' is commonly encountered in native Tendraads words. It is also commonly encountered in the Digraph 'dh', further backing up its status as a native Tendraads letter.
 * F, V - 'f' and 'v' are only ever seen in foreign words, for example Frans "France" and velor "velar". As there is no native Tendraads way of representing the sound /f/ and /v/ that they usually represent, the letters 'f' and 'v' are used to represent these sounds.
 * Q, W, X and Y - these letters are seldom ever encountered in Tendraads, as their usual values can be represented by usual Tendraads letters. For example quasar is now spelt kuasar, xylophone is spelt zilöfön.

Letter G
The letter 'g' is one of the most unpredictable letters of Tendraads. It is encountered in native Tendraads words, however the pronunciation is sporadic and is a remnant of the historical phoneme /x/ which has since been lost. Although the vast majority of it's original locations in Tendraads words have been removed, it is restored in a few common native words - as in teget, where it represents [j], and tollg where it is silent. It is also seen in the Digraph 'ng'. As a result, it is nowadays usually considered to be a native letter.

In foreign words, the letter 'g' is replaced by 'k' (or 'z'), as the phoneme /g/ is particularly troublesome to pronounce for Tendraads speakers. For example goal! becomes kol!, general becomes zeneräl.

Digraphs
There are just two digraphs which have regular usage in Tendraads:
 * DH - represents the voiced dental fricative (as in English that). It is only ever encountered between vowels.
 * NG - represents the velar nasal (as in English sing). It is not found word initially, but is a common sound found word-finally.

=Basic Grammar=

Cases
Tendraads has a rich system of noun cases, of which the vast majority are types of Locative cases, indicating different types of location. Each case has two different case suffixes, one for Auto Vowels and one for Södükeesü Vowels, depending on the vowel structure of the noun itself.