Garla

General Information
Garla (natively Jókt er Garlá /hoktɚgaɚla/ or Garláíjhókt /gaɚlajokt/) is a member of the Ngalryn language family, a subfamily of the large Edalith language macrofamily on the Planet Patrona.

Consonants

 * 1) Voiceless stops are aspirated before vowels.
 * 2) /f/ is occasionally bilabialized [ɸ] in imitation of Alemarese speakers.
 * 3) /s/ is optionally and informally voiced between vowels.
 * 4) /ʃ/ is an affricate in some rural dialects.
 * 5) /ɣ/ is devoiced before voiceless consonants.
 * 6) /h/ is fricated [x] before a consonant or word-finally.
 * 7) /r/ is a retracted post-alveolar approximant, similar to the American English r-sound.
 * 8) /w̃/ is typically merged with /w/ is most dialects.

Vowels

 * 1) /eɚ/ is usually pronounced lower than its representation would suggest, as [ɛɚ].

Stress
Stress is always on the second syllable unless it would be placed on an /ə/, in which case it’s on the third, unless there’s no third, in which case it’s on the first. Proclitics are counted when determining stress.

Writing System
Garla is written with an adapted Alemarese alphabet. Here it is transliterated into the Latin alphabet. A notable feature of Garlan orthography are the many sounds with several representations.

Nouns
Nouns decline according to number with suffixes, and according to definiteness with a proclitic.

Number
There are three classes of nouns, determined by their unique plural suffixes.
 * 1) singular -t, plural -és, compound -é, ex. rínt "person"
 * 2) singular -0/er/ut, plural -es, compound -ú, korímer "stick"
 * 3) singular -0/ir/it, plural -ís, compound -í, tiphúr "tail"

Definiteness
Definiteness is indicated with a proclitic ki and nasalization of the noun, ex. rojé /rɔhe/ "a cloud" > ki nrojé /kinɔhe/ "the cloud".

Compounding
In a compound word in Garla, the first element is declined in its compound form, and the second element is lenited, ex. pordhéjhért /pɔɚɣeeɚt/ "tarp-house, tent". The first element is always a noun or adjective, whereas the second element could be any lexical word.