Binese language

General information
The Binese (pronounced like "Chinese" with a B) language (natively Pin [bɪ:n] or [bi:n]) is a language spoken by the inhabitants of a few small islands in the North Sea. Although the language is an isolate and not related to the Germanic languages of Central/Northern Europe, the Binese have adopted a very "Germanic" alphabet to make communication easier.

Vowels
Vowel length is not phonemic in Binese - only the quality of a vowel changes the meaning of words. However, speakers of Binese tend to pronounce stressed vowels as long vowels and unstressed vowels as short vowels.

The following pairs of vowels are allophones: The first of the two sounds is considered the "real" sound and the second sound is just a variation of it that only appears in stressed vowels (as a long vowel).
 * /ɪ/ and /i/
 * /ɔ/ and /o/
 * /œ/ and /ø/
 * /ʊ/ and /u/
 * /ʏ/ and /y/

Vowel harmony
Binese possess a vowel harmony - this means that one word can only contain vowels from the same "group". Binese has the following 2 groups of vowels:
 * The "front group" contains all front and near-front vowels (/ɛ/,/ɪ/, /i/, /œ/, /ø/,  /ʏ/ and /y/)
 * The "back group" contains all back, near-back and central vowels (/a/, /ɔ/, /o/, /ʊ/ and /u/)

Consonant harmony
Binese also possess a consonant harmony that is linked to the vowel harmony - this means that one word can only have consonants of one group in the same word depending on which vowels are in word. Binese has the following 3 groups of consonants:
 * The "soft group" contains all voiced consonants that appear in a consonant pair (/b/, /d/, /g/, /v/, /ð/, /z/ and /ʒ/) and can only appear with the vowels of the "front group"
 * The "hard group" contains all voiceless consonants that appear in a consonant pair (/p/, /t/, /k/, /f/, /θ/, /s/ and /ʃ/) and can only appear with the vowels of the "back group"
 * The "neutral group" contains all other consonants (/m/, /n/, /ŋ/, /ʔ/, /ç/, /h/, /j/, /r/ and /l/) and can appear with all vowels and all consonants.

Stress
Binese stress lies on the penultimate in words ending in a vowel or on the ultimate in words ending in consonants.

Orthography
The Binese alphabet is a variation of the Latin alphabet that was brought to the islands by Germanic merchants.

The sound /ʔ/ doesn't have its own letter - it occurs in the beginning of words starting with a vowel.