Vanala/Phonology

The phonology of Vanala is pretty simple - it only possesses 5 different vowels (actually 7 but 2 of them are "umlauts" and therefore not counted) and 17 consonants.

Vowels
Vanala considers itself to only have 3 vowels - represented by the letters A, O and U. While A is always pronounced /a/ - the vowel length doesn't matter - O and U both have different sounds for their short and long realizations: O is pronounced /ɔ/ or /o:/ and U is pronounced /ʊ/ or /u:/.

The length of a vowel is dependent on stress - a stressed vowel is always long while an unstressed vowel is always short.

As mentioned above, both O and U  have "umlauts" which are written using the the letters Ö and Ü. An umlaut is always triggered by change of stress: If an O or U that is usually unstressed suddenly becomes stressed (because of declension or conjugation) it changes to its umlaut to represent this change.

Diphthongs don't exist in Vanala.

Consonants
Vanala only uses 17 different consonants - all of which are represented by the letter that also denotes the sound in IPA (except /t͡s/ which is written as C and /ŋ/ which is written as N and which only appears before G or K).

Clusters of consonants are strictly regulated. The only possible clusters include:
 * The affricate /t͡s/
 * nasal consonants + plosives (both nasal and plosive consonant in a cluster have to be either bilabial, alveolar or velar)
 * /s/ or /l/ + unvoiced plosives (/p/, /t/ or /k/)

Stress
Vanala's stress depends on how a word ends.

If a word ends with a vowel the penultimate is stressed and if it ends with a consonant the ultimate is stressed. This different stress is also the cause of Vanala's "umlauts".