Language of the North

Alphabet
The language of the North has originally used its own alphabet. However, centuries of exposure with languages using the Latin alphabet made it necessary to develop a romanization. Nowadays, only the Latin alphabet is used to write the language of the North.

Vowels Diphthongs are formed by putting together the single letters according to the individual sounds of the diphthong.

Consonants All vowels and all consonants marked with an * can be either short or long - the length is important as it can alter meaning. If a sound is represented by a single letter, the letter is doubled for the long sound. If a sound is represented by a digraph or trigraph ending with "h", the h is doubled for the long sound. The long form of the digraph "ng" is "nng".

If two sounds follow each other and their letters together form a digraph or trigraph, an apostrophe (') is added between the letters. If no apostrophe is used, you always have to form diphthongs or digraphs or trigraphs.

Phonotactics
Diphthongs

All diphthongs can be used in word stems - the only exception are diphthongs ending with "i". These are solemnly used in declensions or cunjugations and do not appear in word stems. Consonant clusters

All types of word stems can only have consonant clusters in the onset (beginning of a syllable). Consonant clusters in the coda (end of a syllable) are solemnly used in declensions or conjugations and do not appear in word stems.

Because there are only very few coda clusters, only onset clusters are listed below.

Stress
In the language of the North, stress follows a regular pattern.


 * 1. The stress is always on the word stem.


 * 2. If the stem ends in a vowel, the penultimate is stressed.


 * 3. If the stem ends in a consonant, the ultimate is stressed.