Létë

Setting
Tintaletya is a language spoken a humanoid alien race in another galaxy. They are beyond what any human could dream of - tall, slender, beautiful eyes and flowing hair. In fact they love nature and delight in all its beauty, and this is reflected in their language. When they first became civilised, they were experimenting with all sorts of sound they could make, taking delight from being able to speak and sing. As their civilisation evolved, so too did their language, moulding around their specific aesthetic taste. Thus producing Tintaletya ("joyous words, joyous speaking, speaking in delight"). This had evolved from Old Tintaletya, which evolved from Tit-letjâ. This ancient language was among five daughter languages - Deyhâ, Ledrê, Tit-letjâ, Dlêdê, and Upavî - that evolved from the most primitive and ancient language, Detegh.

Consonants
 Notes

 1.  n is always pronounced as in never except when before g, in which case it is pronounced as in English anger. However, it is always spelt “n”.

 2.  hl is just voiceless l as in lamp; hw is just voiceless w as in some English dialects which, white; hy is just voiceless y as at the start of the word, before pronouncing the vowel, hue; and hr is just a voiceless alveolar tap (explained below).

 3.  d, b, and g cannot exist by themselves in words; they are only present in consonant clusters such as nd, mb, ng

 4.  r is pronounced as an alveolar flap or tap, as in Japanese ri, some English dialects in words like better and ladder, where tt and dd are pronounced pretty much the same. Hr is just a voiceless version of this. When geminated (lengthened) it will appear as rr in which case it is pronounced as an alveolar trill, which is just an alveolar tap repeated several time quickly, as in many European languages.

Vowels
 Notes

 1.<span style="font: 7pt/normal "Times New Roman"; font-size-adjust: none; font-stretch: normal;">  i is pronounced as in bit, when it is between two consonants, but even then it is still pronounced closer to see than bit. When at the start of a word, in a diphthong, or next to a vowel which it is not in a diphthong with, it is pronounced see but shorter.

<p style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt 36pt; text-indent: -18pt; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1;"><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin;"> 2.<span style="font: 7pt/normal "Times New Roman"; font-size-adjust: none; font-stretch: normal;">  Long o and e, when pronounced correctly, are not only longer, but “closer” than their short counterparts.

Diphthongs are au, iu, eu, ai, ui, oi, pronounced as [au, iu, eu, ai, ui, oi] respectively. Any other group of two sequential vowels cannot form a diphthong. These vowels consequently always belong to separate syllables.

Orthography
While it has its own script, this is for the romanised version. Consonants and vowels appear as above. E has a diaeresis when at the end of a word to show it is pronounced, and when with a or o to show they are pronounced separately. However, when in proper names and this e would be capitalised, the diaeresis moves to the a or o. E.g. enë, harëa, Eönwë. This diaeresis has no effect on the pronounciation.

Phonotactics
Tintaletya has a strict set of phonological rules. It is restriected to a fixed set of cosonant and vowel clusters that are allowed, and if a conjugation or declension would violate those rules, the consonants or verbs would have to change.

Vowels can never be three in a row; ie, you could not have a word like laio. Diphthongs and long vowels can never end a word, nor can they ever precede a consonant cluster (note, this does not include ly, ny, ry, ty).

Consonants are confined to a strict set of consonant clusters. Note that while the semi-vowels y and w are consonants and never vowels, when preceded by one consonant, the consonant cluster does not act as a cluster