Krudic

=Phonology=

Consonants
Krudic distinguishes 35 different consonant sounds. The palatalised stops /tʲ/, /dʲ/, /kʲ/ and /gʲ/ and lateral /lʲ/ are all treated as seperate phonemes, for example woedje "soup" vs woede "vase".

The consonant inventory is typically european, with phonemes that are present or can be approximated by most common european languages.

Allophones
There are occasional allophonic relationships between sounds, particularly when it comes to nasals. Although each of the four native nasal phonemes /m/, /n/, /ɲ/ and /ŋ/ can occur seperately, for example in the words em "erm..", en "chair", enj "maybe" and eng "spring", there are certain environments where only one particular nasal can appear. Only /m/ can appear before /b/, /p/, /pf/ and /bv/, only /n/ can appear before /t/, /d/, /s/, /z/, /ts/, /dz/, /r/, /l/, /ʃ/, /ʒ/ etc, only /ɲ/ can appear before /ç/, and only /ŋ/ before /k/ and /g/.

Consonant Clusters
One of the most noticeable characteristics of Krudic is the common consonant cluster tb, which is pronounced as /tb/ by Krudic speakers, and /təb/ by English speakers and speakers of other languages. It is commonly found at the beginning of words, for example tba "woman", tboešer "bone", tbesk "to say", which may be difficult for English speakers to pronounce absoloutely correctly.

The combinations /pf/, /bv/, /ts/, /dz/, /tʃ/ and /dʒ/ are not seen as sequences of consonants, rather as affricate consonants - and treated as seperate sounds.

Vowels
Krudic distinguishes 8 (occasionally 9) monopthong vowels. In addition, /æ/ (and /ɛ/ sometimes) both reduce to a schwa [ə] sound at the end of a word and in unstressed syllables.

When appearing in stressed syllables, the central vowel /ɨ/ can become [ɪ], like English big.

The vowel /y/ can occasionally appear in careful or pedantic speech, in words derived from Greek which contained the letter upsilon. However, most commonly the /y/ is pronounced /i/, and this rarely causes confusion. Whatever the pronunciation, the former upsilon is represented by the glyph <ü>, for example rütem "rhythm" and müt "myth".

=Orthography= Krudic employs regular use of all of the 26 basic Latin letters, as well as numerous digraphs and diacritics to aid pronunciation.

Basic Alphabet
There are 26 basic letters of the Krudic alphabet, although there are numerous characters with diacritics which are seen frequently in Krudic writing. The status of these characters is uncertain, although many consider them to be seperate letters. The letters 'b', 'd', 'e', 'f', 'g', 'h', 'k', 'l', 'm', 'n', 'p', 's', 't', 'v', 'w', 'x' and 'z' are pronounced as in english, with the only particularly unusual pronounciation being the use of 'q' for /kʲ/, similar to the sound in acute.

Diacritics
In addition to the 26 basic latin letters, Krudic employs regular use of diacritics to help with pronunciation, and in some cases to indicate that the letter produces a significantly different sound than it usually would.


 * The acute accent is seen on e and o to produce é and ó. This shows that the letter is pronounced higher than its usual value, for example é for /e/ and ó for /ɔ/. The letter <é> is often pronounced /ej/ word-finally or in stressed syllables. These letters are often treated as letters in their own right, although usually collated with  and  respectively.


 * The caron is seen on c, s and z to produce č, š and ž. It shows that the letters are pronounced postalveolar rather than the usual alveolar way. These letters are often treated as letters in their own right.


 * The grave accent is seen on a, e and u to differentiate between homophonic words. For example, an "the" and àn "he/she/it", tupoe "that" and tùpoe "which?". On , it is also used to show that a word-final e has become a reduced vowel /ə/, as in opoloesè "window".


 * The trema is used on e and u to show that two vowels are pronounced seperately, rather than forming a dipthong, as in baëdu "to nag" pronounced [bæ(j)ɛdu], rather than baedu which would be pronounced [beːdu]. It is used on rarely for this effect on 'u' as in kontinuüm "kontinuum". The letter 'ü' is most often used in words that originate from greek, where the 'ü' shows that there was originally an uspilon, as in müt "myth".

Digraphs
In order to represent certain sounds (particularly less common consonants), there is a system of digraphs employed in regular use in Krudic.


 * AE - the digraph 'ae' represents the lengthened vowel /eː/, sightly longer in duration, although with no difference in articulation from the character <é>.
 * OE - represents the long vowel /oː/.
 * BV - represents the afficate /bv/, as in bvég "eye".
 * CJ - represents the consonant /ç/, as in wécje [weçɛ] "witch".
 * DJ - represents a palatalised plosive /dʲ/, as in djogter "lizard".
 * DZ - represents the affricate /dz/, i.e. a voiced 'c'.
 * GJ - represents a palatalised plosive /gʲ/, as in gjer "grass".
 * HH - represents the consonant /ɦ/. Often, it is not pronounced at all, as in hhukod "sister", and is often pronounced [j] intervocalically, as in mehhed [mɛjɛd] "wasp".
 * NG - represents the same sound as it does in english: /ŋ/, as in kengè "artichoke".
 * NJ - represents the palatal nasal /ɲ/.
 * PF - represents the affricate /pf/ as in pfég "tooth".
 * WJ - represents the approximant /ɥ/ - pronounced like /j/ but with rounded lips, as in French huit.

S and Z
As in many Western European languages, /s/ is voiced to /z/ between vowels. Therefore, the consonant /z/ is often represented by the letter 's'. For example rosen "strawberry" is pronounced [ɾɒzɛn]. A double s 'ss' is used to represent the sound /s/ intervocalically, as in rossen "brown" [ɾɒsɛn].

The letter 'z' is used usually at the beginning and end of a word, where it represents /z/, however it occasionally appears intervocalically kozen "eel", and in the digraph 'dz'.

Homophone Distinction
The most common method of homophone distinction is the use of the Grave Accent. It is used on 'a', 'e' and 'u' to distinguish two words that would otherwise be graphically identical. There is a list of words that are specifically supposed to contain a letter with a grave accent for homophone distinction.

The E with Grave (è) appears in a great deal more words, where it represents the schwa (reduced vowel) sound. As this is used to show a change of pronunciation, rather than differentiating identically-spelt words, these words are not contained in the list above, only the ones in which è is used for differentiation.

Etymological Spelling
The etymology of words usually takes a back seat when it comes to spelling Krudic words. The only time that etymology is really taken into account is in Greek loanwords. The greek letter 'chi' is represented by the digraph kh, as in arkhitekt "architect", the letter 'upsilon' is represented by the glyph 'ü', as in sünkope "syncope". Other letters are represented by the closest native Krudic letter.

Ligatures
In some texts, the common digraphs 'ae' and 'oe' are replaced by 'æ' and 'œ' - for example in tupœ wer "that man". This is often an attempt to give the text a more latinate or græcian æsthetic.