Pkalho-Kolo 2

I. Phonology

As previously mentioned the phonological profile of Pkalho-Kölo is a little different from any other language. Its consonants are

p -  m  -  ph  -  pk -  v  -  fh  -  pkw  -  pw -   pr  -  rl  -  t  -  lh -   th  -  c  -  l  - cw  -  y -   fw  -  kw  -  w  -  hw  -  k  -  n  -  h

Easy ones first:    p is /p/       m is /m/     v is /v/ t is/t/        th is /θ/      c is /c/    y is /j/ w is /w/    k is /k/       h is /h/

pw and kw are self-explanatory. hw is the voiceless fricative w that we used to have in English in words like “hwæt.”

ph is the bilabial fricative written with the Greek letter phi, which I can't seem to paste here.

The r sound is /r/ a single flap between vowels. At the beginning of a word or at the end of a syllable it is /ļ/ which is why I write rl. pr is /pļ/ l is a “clear” palatal l; lh is a “dark,” slightly velarised interdental l, the tongue touching the bottom of the upper teeth: the sound is similar to ð. n is /n/ between vowels and before t, c, y and n. Before any other consonant it is /ŋ/

cw is similar to the labialised palatals they have in some Caucasian languages, but I think slightly different. In pronouncing it, the tip of the tongue should touch the bottom teeth, while the blade of the tongue touches the hard palate. fw is the corresponding fricative, similar to /çw/ but with the same difference. (I was trying to avoid diacritical marks, and I didn’t like sw, chw or xw, so I illogically write fw.)

pk is a sound peculiar to the city of Pkalho. Form the lips to pronounce a p and the back of the tongue to pronounce a k. The lips open with a pop (similar to a labial click) and at the same moment the k is released. Not difficult with a little practice. pkw is the labialised version. fh is the corresponding fricative, which could be written /fç/ I thought I had invented this sound, but in fact it is used by one of those obscure African languages that have 80 or more consonants. Who knows, one of them might have pk as well.

There are eight vowels, four rounded and four unrounded: Unrounded:    a  ë  e  i          Rounded:        ä  ö  o  u

a  e  i  o  u  are /a/  /e/  /i/  /o/  /u/      ö is /ø/ ä is the low rounded back vowel in British English “swan,” written with an upside-down a. ë is a central vowel, written with an i with a stroke through it. (I couldn’t find these symbols.)

There are twelve diphthongs, six “like” (rounded with rounded, unrounded with unrounded) and six “unlike” (one rounded, one unrounded.)

Like:         ea  oä         ei  ou         ie  uo

Unlike:       au  äi          ëu  öi          iu  ui

II. Phonotactics

What the heck, we’ve had phonology, let’s have phonotactics.

1. All root words end in a vowel 2. Syllables can end only in a vowel or the consonants m, n, rl, lh, or l. 3. A syllable can contain a diphthong or a final consonant, but not both. The exception is when a one-syllable word containing a diphthong takes the relative suffix in its reduced form -n. 4. Words do not begin with a diphthong, though three words, au, ea and ui consist of a diphthong. 5. Words beginning with a vowel have glottal onset. Elision occurs only when the neutral demonstratives e and o follow the suffixes -la, -rë or -pë. Thus “iturë en”, “(someone) said the following” becomes “itur'en”. (Also, the word “erä”, “person, human being”, loses its first vowel in compound words: “velya” (“to play music”) - “velyarä” (“musician”), “kaulo” (garden”) - “kaulorä” (“gardener”). 6. When a word beginning with a vowel takes a directional prefix, or is extended by aspectual stem-modification, an r is inserted. Thus “olkwela” (“it resembles”) - “pkärolkwela” (“they resemble each other”); “ilurë” (“a light shone”) - “yërilurë” (“a light flashed for a moment”). Word-initial rl keeps its pronunciation /ļ/ even after a prefix.

Minor points: after m, the consonants k and kw are realised as pk and pkw. The sequences m+kw and m+pkw I always write mkw, regardless of the original script. After m, r and l the consonant hw becomes the labialised form of the bilabial fricative written with the letter phi, which I can't seem to paste here. The sequence l+hw I write lphw, to distinguish it from the sequence lh+w. The double consonants mm, nn, rll and ll occur frequently: doubled lh ought also to occur, but it seems to have been replaced by the rather rare sequence lh+th, which I write lth.

III. And finally : Intonation.

Unlike English, Pkalho-Kölo does not have word-stress: each syllable is pronounced with equal weight, allowing for natural variation. It does however have pitch accent: accented syllables are pronounced at a higher pitch. Three rules roughly cover this:

I. Directional prefixes have an accent which they never lose.

II. One-syllable root words do not normally have an accent.

III. Two and three-syllable root words have an accent on the first syllable, which they lose when immediately preceded by a directional prefix.

Actually it’s a little more complicated than that, but that’s enough to be going on with.

I'm going to try to upload a couple of scans of Pkalho-Kölo in its own writing system. These were written a few years ago and the language has changed slightly since then, but they still give an idea of what the script looks like. Oh bother they're in the wrong order and I have no idea what to do about it.