Ralinu

Consonants
The click /ǃ/ is also featured in the language, albiet rarely.
 * Pronounced in some dialects as /ɾ/

Orthography
Because the language features consonant and vowel harmony, many of the symbols are not counted as letters. Only voiced consonants, their corresponding vowels, and neutral consonants are counted in the alphabet, with the other consonants being seen as allophones. Some sounds are written in several different ways, depending on the vowel following it.

The actual alphabet consists of:

These letters (except for the neutral dh, h, j, l, m, n, ǹ, r, and ') are seen as inferior to the voiceless consonants and their corresponding vowels, and so the consonants change and the vowels shift to accommodate.

The corresponding letters are:

The sounds /ʒ/ and /c/ can be written in several different ways.


 * For /ʒ/
 * Zj: at the beginning of a word
 * Ç: anywhere else in a word


 * For /c/
 * Kj: before the letter "e" or diphthong "ae"
 * Tj: before the letter "i" or diphthong "oe"
 * C: before the letter "y" or diphthong "uy"

The vowels a, o, and u (the original vowels) never shift completely to their corresponding vowel (the goal vowels). Instead, they shift to a median of the two vowels (the product vowel), which is written as a diphthong.

Vowels and diphthongs can be marked with either the grave or acute accents. The grave accent marks abnormal stress in the word (the language does not have much stress, because of the varying vowel lengths). The acute accent marks a longer vowel [IPA: ː], such as in the word tí (/tiː/, road). No more than one accent may appear in a word, so the vowel must be written twice if the more than one vowel is of abnormal length. Some people, however, write the vowel twice anyway (in the style of Finnish and Estonian), because of either a personal choice or software incompatibility. In diphthongs, the acute accent is marked on the first letter, such as the word fáehyysi (/fæːhy/, purple house). If more than one diphthong is long, the second diphthong's first letter is written twice, such as in lóepaaenylle (/løːpæːnylːe/, flying fairy). Consonants can also be doubled by writing the letter (or the first letter in a digraph or trigraph) twice, such as in 'ykkyllaepoe (/ʔykːylːæpø/, strange plant) or jaemaettsiní (/jæmæt͡ʃiniː/, rough river).

Phonotactics
Depending on the type of word, there are different consonant-vowel patterns. Lengthened consonants, lengthened vowels, and diphthongs each count as one consonant or vowel.

Non-declined nouns can take on a combination of CVCV and CVCCV clusters. Noun declensions are a CV suffix. Adjectives can also be CVCV, but have the unique cluster VCV. Infinitive verbs are always CVCVC, and the last consonant is always an "r" or an "m". Conjugations usually replace the last C, and the suffixes are usually CV, CCV, or CVCV (for the last one, the final C is usually '). Prepositions and other words usually follow a CVCCVC pattern.