Lǔfsata

General information
Lǔfsata [ɺɚ̹ˤɸsata] is an agglutinative language with few irregularities spoken as a national language in the kingdom of Lǔfsevias.

Lǔfsata is generally written using the Lǔfsatan alphabet, but it can be accurately transcribed to the Latin alphabet using several romanization methods.

Consonants
Lǔfsata possesses a moderately large consonant inventory with a considerable amount of fricatives and affricates.


 * /k/ only occurs in loanwords.
 * /p͡θ/ has a wide variety of realizations, including but not limited to /p͡f/, /p͡ɸ/, p̼͡ɸ̼/, and /t̪͡θ/, as well as /pʰ/ in some dialects.
 * Lüfsata possesses a single nasal phoneme pronounced in isolation as /m/ whose realization varies according to surrounding sounds.
 * It is /n/ when preceding /t/, /d/, /t͡s/, /d͡z/, or /t͡s’/ and when following /s/, /z/, /s’/, /t͡s/, /d͡z/, or /t͡s’/.
 * It is /ŋ/ when preceding /k/ or /g/.
 * It is /m/ elsewhere.
 * /l/ is /ɾ/ when following a plosive other than /t/ or /d/.
 * /l/ is /ɺ/ before /ɚ̹ˤ/ and between vowels.
 * /ʔʰ/ is always aspirated and is often analyzed as a glottal affricate.
 * /ʔʰ/ may be /ʔʱ/ or /ɦ/ in a few dialects. In these dialects, the corresponding palatal and lateral fricatives change along with them: /ˀç/ to /ˀʝ/ or /ʝ/, /ˀɬ/ to /ˀɮ/ or /ɮ/.
 * /ɕ’/ is not listed as a phoneme because /s’/ cannot occur in the onset of a syllable, however, this sound does occur when /s’/ and /j/ coincide between syllables (e.g. paşyav [paɕ’aβ] 'hand').
 * /ɰᵝ/ is rounded to /w/ in some dialects and is raised to /ɣᵝ/ at the end of a syllable and before /ɯᵝ/.
 * Sonorants /l/ and /j/ (not /ɰᵝ/, however, as it always occurs alone in the syllable onset) change the pronunciation of several other consonants when immediately following them:
 * /j/ changes glottal consonants as well as alveolar central fricatives and affricates to their palatal (or alveolo-palatal in the case of alveolars) counterparts: e.g. /hj/ to /ç/, /ʔʰj/ to /ˀç/, /sj/ to /ɕ/, /d͡zj/ to /d͡ʑ/, etc.
 * /l/ changes glottal consonants to alveolar laterals and alveolar plosives to lateral affricates: /hl/ to /ɬ/, /ʔʰl/ to /ˀɬ/, /tl/ to /t͡ɬ/, /dl/ to /d͡ɮ/.

Vowels
All diphthongs are permitted with the exception of those beginning with /ɚ̹ˤ/.

The Lǔfsatan vowel system contains six vowels. Open and close vowels are written in the Lǔfsatan alphabet with a single line, and each of them are moved to mid level with the addition of a dot or dash to the Lǔfsatan vowel letter. /i/ and /ɯᵝ/ go through no other changes while /a/ becomes rounded, rhotacized, and pharyngealized (or pronounced with advanced tongue root).

Phonotactics
Lǔfsatan syllable structure can be summarized as follows, in which parentheses enclose optional components:

(C(C)(R))V(V(V))(C)

While a maximum of three vowels can be considered a syllable, there is no maximum of vowels that can occur in succession.

Vowels may be doubled to become long (e.g. sooi [sɤ̞ᵝːi] 'again') Long vowels are considered sequences of short values rather than separate phonemes. Example of maximal onset: sflasa /sɸlasa/ ('north')
 * Onset
 * First consonant (C): Can be any consonant other than an ejective fricative.
 * Second consonant (C): Can be /ɸ/ or /β/ if and only if the first consonant is /s/ or /z/ respectively. Thus, the only consonant clusters permitted in the onset that do not contain liquids are /sɸ/ and /zβ/.
 * Liquid (R): Can be either /l/ or /j/ provided the first consonant is not a voiced approximant.
 * Nucleus
 * First vowel (V): Can be any vowel.
 * Second Vowel (V): Can be any vowel provided the first vowel is not /ɚ̹ˤ/.
 * Third Vowel (V): Can be any vowel provided the second vowel is not /ɚ̹ˤ/.
 * /ji/ cannot occur. /ɰᵝɯᵝ/ is permitted, but is commonly realized as [ɣᵝɯᵝ].
 * Coda
 * Consonant (C) Can be any fricative, affricate, nasal, or approximant with the exception of /h/, /l/, and /j/ as well as all plosives.

Example of maximal nucleus: ḥaoev /ʔʰaɤ̞ᵝe̞β/ ('behind')

Example of maximal coda: com /t͡sɤ̞ᵝm/ ('person')

Romanization
Lǔfsata uses three (potentially four) different methods of romanization available for use depending on access to special characters and the target audience's familiarity with the language.

Ḥevaloma
Ḥevaloma (lit. 'Roman characters') is the most commonly used method of romanizing Lǔfsata. It is a one-to-one romanization of each Lǔfsatan letter.

Pyǔhiza Ḥevaloma
Pyǔhiza Ḥevaloma (lit. 'standard Roman characters') is a method of romanization which abandons one-to-one representations in favor of avoiding diacritics and unusual characters (such as the thorn þ). It is used in places where accuracy is necessary, but diacritics are not available to type (such as text messaging). There are two types of Pyǔhiza Ḥevaloma romanization:

Standard Pyǔhiza
This uses various digraphs and other similar letters to replace diacritics.

Eksi Pyǔhiza
This replaces diacritics by using the letter without its diacritic followed by an X, similar to how Esperanto may be typed. It is the least commonly used method.

Acfa Vuyas Ḥevaloma
Acfa Vuyas Ḥevaloma (lit. 'simplified Roman characters') is the method used for transcribing Lǔfsatan words to those who may be unfamiliar with the language.