Akih

Akih Aqačjä
Type
Agglutinative
Alignment
Ergative/Transitive
Head direction
Final
Tonal
Yes
Declensions
Yes
Conjugations
Yes
Genders
No
Nouns decline according to...
Case	Number
Definiteness	Gender
Verbs conjugate according to...
Voice	Mood
Person	Number
Tense	Aspect

General information

Akih is an Akaric language.

Phonology

Vowels

Akih has ten vowels distributed more or less evenly in the vowel space. Normally they aren't distinguished by quantity: all differences stem from vowel quality.

	Front	Central		Back
High	i (i)	ɨ (y)	ʉ (w)	u (u)
Mid	ɛ (ë)	ɜ (e)		ɔ (o)
Low	æ (ä)	a (a)		ɒ (å)

Vowels in Akih have something that resembles tone. Each vowel can either have a normal or low tone. The actual realisation of these tones is more akin to modal/breathy (interchangeable) and creaky voice, respectively. In isolation, when applied to /a/, they can be transcribed in the IPA as: [a̤] (normal) vs. [a̰] (low).
Tone isn't usually written in regular text. Normal tone is implied; low tone can be written with either a superscript pharyngeal fricative or just an apostrophe (either <aˤ> or <a'>).
Low tone rarely occurs in syllables that have both an initial and final consonant.

Consonants

		Labial	Dentialveolar	Retroflex	Velar	Uvular	Glottal
Plosive	Tenuis		t (t)	ʈ (ṭ) ʈʂ (č)	k (k)	q (q)	ʔ (x)
	Glottalised			ʈʼ (ṭ') ʈʂʼ (č')	kʼ (k')	qʼ (q')
Fricative			s (s)	ʂ (š)	x (h)
Liquid		v (v)	r (r)	ɽ (ṛ)	j (j)

Glottalisation is neutralised word-finally.

Phonotactics

Akih has some elementary rules that govern word shape:

• Consonant clusters can at most be made up of two consonants.
• Initial and final geminate plosives are disallowed
• No glottalised plosive except for /ʔ/ can precede consonants

Morphology

Nouns

Nouns in Akih inflect for several categories:

1. Case
2. Number
3. Definitess and Proximity