Aelatha/Phonology

General
Aelatha is a highly phonetic language. All words are written as they sound based upon the language's phonological rules.

Consonants

 * 1: These sounds appear only in certain non-standard dialects.

Stress
Aelathan words may receive two separate stresses. The primary stress of a word is slightly louder than the secondary.

The primary stress is on the final vowel of the word's root (noun infinitive) or on the vowel of a single-syllable word. If a root loses the stressed vowel due to morphology, the new stress is marked on the antepenultimate syllable of a multi-syllable word, or the penultimate syllable of a disyllable word.

Only words of five or more syllables receive a secondary stress. The secondary stress is placed on the first syllable of a word whenever that syllable begins with a vowel. The secondary stress never changes the pronunciation of vowels in a word, that alone is controlled by the primary stress.

Vowels and stress
Vowels represent different phones based on the proximity toward the stressed syllable in a word.

Vowel harmony

 * Main: Vowel harmony in Aelatha
 * See also: Noun gender in Aelatha

In the roots of words and within many affixes, words change the sound of their vowels in order to agree with Aelatha's vowel harmony based off the word's gender. Vowel harmony is loosely derived from the vowel's backness, with "masculine" vowels being more central, "feminine" vowels being more often front or back vowels and "neutral" vowels filling the entire spectrum. Vowels began to follow less this pattern in Middle Aelatha.

Aspiration
Standard Aelatha makes a distinction between aspirated and unaspirated consonants. Consonants are made aspirated through the use of a succeeding [h]. With the exceptions of [r], [l], [þ] and [ð], all consonants have an aspirated form.

In some dialects the aspirate [h] renders voiced consonants voiceless, [bh] changes from /bh/ to /p/, similar to the affect of rhotic r.

Palatalization
Beside aspirated consonants, a distinction is made for palatal consonants as well in standard Aelatha with [j]. Unlike the aspirate [h], all consonants can be palatalized.

In some dialects, the palatal [j] articulates non-standard phonemes (see comparison of dialects). Non standard phoneme articulation is made with [ch] as well.

Rhotic r
Rhotic r (˞), found only between a vowel and a consonant, renders voiceless consonants after it voiced, with the exceptions of:
 * [ch] which has no voiced counterpart,
 * [h] which is always silent after [r] and [l],
 * [j] which palatalizes all consonants,
 * [r] which is trilled when doubled
 * [l] which can never appear beside [r] as part of the same syllable.

The change in the following consonant's pronunciation is written out only on enclitics, such as the honorific or noun case. This allows the root to keep its original spelling in order to distinguish between homophones.

Þ and ð
After a vowel, the consonants [þ] and [ð] are written for the phonemes /θ/ and /ð/ respectively.

When preceded by another consonant as part of the same syllable, the phonemes are both written by the [þ] unless that consonant is a nasal. The post-consonantal [þ] assimilates with the preceding consonant, becoming voiceless /θ/ after plosives and approximate [r] and voiced /ð/ after fricatives, affricates and the lateral approximate [l].