Cuinaom

Setting
Cuinaom (IPA: kʷinɔm) is an a-priori language created by John Stevens. It is spoken by a clan of 200 gnomes.

Phonology
Cuinaom has a somewhat large phoneme inventory consisting of 28 consonants and 12 vowels. Most of the consonants come in pairs, one plain (non-labialized) and one labialized. There is no tone or vowel length, and there are no diphthongs.

Allophony
Allophony is not a major feature of Cuinaom. Voiceless /s sʷ ʂ ʂʷ/ may become voiced intervocalically. /x/ and /xʷ/ may become palatal ([ç] and [çʷ]) after front vowels. Initial /x/ may be debuccalized to [h]. There is little to no allophony in the vowel system.

Phonotactics
Morphemes may be up to three syllables long. Non-morpheme-final syllables have the structure CV(C), and morpheme-final syllables have the structure CV. The structure of monosyllabic, disyllabic and trisyllabic morphemes is therefore as follows: monosyllabic: CV; disyllabic: CV(C)CV; trisyllabic: CV(C)CV(C)CV. Only the consonants /m n nʷ ŋ ŋʷ l lʷ ɾ ɾʷ/ can occur in the syllable coda. The CV combinations /ɰɯ/, /ɰu/, /wɯ/ and /wu/ are impossible. Two-consonant clusters formed across syllable boundaries feature consonant harmony, whereby either both consonants are labialized or both consonants are non-labialized. The following is a list of permitted consonant clusters in Cuinaom words:

/m/ + /p ɓ s ɬ l ɾ/ /n/ + /t ɗ s ɬ l/ /nʷ/ + /tʷ ɗʷ sʷ ɬʷ lʷ/ /ŋ/ + /k s ɬ l ɾ/ /ŋʷ/ + /kʷ sʷ ɬʷ lʷ w ɾʷ/ /l/ + /p t k ɓ ɗ f s x m ɰ/ /lʷ/ + /tʷ kʷ ɗʷ sʷ xʷ w/ /ɾ/ + /p t k ɓ ɗ f s ɬ ʂ x m n l ɰ/ /ɾʷ/ + /tʷ kʷ ɗʷ sʷ ɬʷ ʂʷ xʷ nʷ lʷ w/

Orthography
Cuinaom is written in the Latin script. Its alphabet is entirely transparent, with one symbol corresponding to one sound. The tables below show the consonants and vowels of Cuinaom written in orthography, with IPA notation in square brackets. As can be observed, labialized consonants are transcribed by adding the letter "u" after the letter for the corresponding plain consonant. When two labialized consonants occur next to one another in a two-consonant cluster, the letter "u" is added only after the second consonant, and indicates that both consonants are labialized. This causes no ambiguity, as consonant clusters always consist of either two labialized consonants or two non-labialized consonants, never one of each.

Basic grammar
Coming soon.