Gomain Phonology

Gomain possesses a wide variety of consonants, as shown in the following table. Allophones are indicated with the Romanization that the allophones share, as well as with yellow lines between them.

J, z, b, m, n, f, v, th, sh, h and y are pronounced as in English. Stops are lightly aspirated in the Ánhrush dialect; their pronunciation varies in other dialects. Additionally, t and d vary in their exact point of articulation depending on their environment; they are dental when not in any cluster and before or after n, but alveolar in clusters with sonorants. Ng is only pronounced as in sing, never as in finger. Dh is pronounced as the voiced th in these clothes. S is pronounced as in sorry, never as in is (which is z). Zh is pronounced as the s in measure. Kh is normally velar, but becomes uvular when near a back vowel. R is rolled, as in Spanish perro. L is always “light”, as in light; “dark” l (as in milk) is covered below. Doubled consonants are pronounced twice as long as singles; compare the nkn in penknife to the nn in penny and imitate the former. Geminate consonants sometimes form minimal pairs with normal-length consonants (for example, consider shéngén “bled” vs. shénngén “clot”), making this distinction important.

Gomain possesses the following seventeen basic vowels, again shown with their IPA symbols. Once again, allophones have been indicated using their shared Romanization.

In addition, there are also six diphthongs, four falling and two rising: ai /aj/, oi /oj/, ou /aw/, ei /ej/, yú /ju/, and yu /jυ/. Their exact pronunciation varies in some dialects; some speakers lower the first vowel in each of the falling diphthongs, while others raise it. Also, some dialects pronounce the rising diphthongs as falling diphthongs, specifically /iw/ and /Iw/. The pronunciations given here are standard in the Ánhrush dialect.

Three word-final sounds also exist: ⁿ (nasalization of the preceding vowel, as in French un bon vin blanc), ^y (palatal off-glide), and ^e (very briefly-pronounced schwa). In transcriptions, they are always superscript, as they are here. Furthermore, there is also a syllabic approximant, transcribed as ŕ, which varies in exact manner of articulation depending on dialect; the most common variants are IPA /r,/ and /ɹ̩/.

Allophony: E is normally schwa, but backs when stressed or word-final; it opens to harmonize with a following a or á. O closes when followed by r and to harmonize with é and a.

Syllables may begin with any vowel or single consonant except ng. Possible onset clusters include:

• a fricative (but not sibilant) + a liquid other than hw (fl, thr, khw etc; dhy and dhw are not allowed initially)

Syllables may end with any single vowel or consonant except y, w, or hw. H may only end a word if it is part of a cluster. Coda clusters include:

• a nasal + a stop pronounced at the same point of articulation (nt, mb, ngk, etc; ngg [ŋg as in finger] is not allowed finally)

• an unvoiced stop + an unvoiced sibilant (ps, ksh, ks [transcribed as x] and psh; tsh becomes ch; ts is not allowed here)

Note also that ⁿ may only follow vowels; ^y and ^e, consonants. Moreover, ^y cannot follow liquids. When stems ending in these sounds have suffixes added to them, ^e elides, while ^y and ⁿ become full-fledged consonants, respectively y and n. Furthermore, when a suffix beginning with a consonant is added to a word ending in ^y, an epenthetic í is inserted before the suffix.

Medially, syllable onsets may freely follow any coda; this may also result in geminates, whether on their own or as part of a cluster. However, there are a few restrictions:

• With one exception (the cluster mg), nasals must share the point of articulation of a following obstruent.

• Nasals cannot precede sibilants without an intervening stop that shares voicing with the sibilant and point of articulation with the nasal.

• Hw may not follow a nasal + h cluster as a phoneme; however, it is the allophone of w in this position, as h commonly devoices any following sonorant.

• W is the only semivowel that can follow a liquid. Liquid + y clusters historically have elided the liquid.

• The sequence ty can only exist if preceded by a sonorant. In the past this cluster, on its own, palatalized to ch.

• Onset obstruent + sonorant clusters may only follow coda sonorant + obstruent clusters if each sonorant is different.

A note on spelling: The orthographic representation of doubled affricates and some fricatives is not as straightforward as that of other geminates. Fricatives that are normally transcribed with a digraph only double the first letter, e.g. sh doubles to ssh, etc. This differs from the native Gomain alphabetic representation, where the fricatives’ letters are doubled in full. For geminate affricates, however, the Romanized version of the Gomain alphabetic representation is used, as it is both intuitive and phonetically accurate: doubled ch becomes tch, and doubled j becomes dj.

Medial clusters in compound words do not always follow the above rules, especially if the compounds are recent coinages. Most compounds coined in the Middle Gomain period and earlier, however, have clusters that have assimilated into the rules over the centuries. Additionally, certain morphological affixes do not mutate word stems to obey these constraints, while those that begin with nasals allow any obstruent of the same point of articulation to precede them.

Ó cannot precede r. Vowel hiatus is not allowed, and so vowel clusters may only occur if the first vowel is ŕ or a diphthong. Consonants are added between vowels to avoid all other clusters, as follows: h follows open and open-mid unrounded vowels, y follows close and close-mid front vowels, and w follows all other vowels. This is most commonly done when adding subject prefixes, although there are other instances in morphology where it is necessary.

When affixation would produce an illegal double consonant cluster, an epenthetic voiced stop (most commonly d) is inserted to create a legal triple cluster.

Normally, the first syllable of the stem word receives primary stress. However, the primary stress shifts to the second syllable when schwa or ŕ is the first syllable’s nucleus (unless one of those nuclei is also in the second syllable), or when the second syllable contains a glide (even if the first syllable also contains one). Also, vowels between two consonant clusters receive stress. In long words, secondary stress falls on every other syllable after the primary; affixes never receive primary stress.

Where stress falls on a syllable other than those specified here, the vowel of that syllable is marked with a grave accent if the vowel is normally unmarked, and with a circumflex if it is normally marked with an acute accent; irregularly stressed vowels written as digraphs have a grave on the first vowel letter. Vowels marked with any other diacritic never receive stress in unpredictable ways.

Above are all the letters used to write Gomain. This alphabet is meant to be written much like the Arabic script, with few breaks between letters; therefore, the letters are shown here in both their independent and medial forms. Most letters are comprised of a core element, which is used as the medial form; and two end elements, which are used in the independent, initial and final forms. The initials and finals can be derived by removing the appropriate end element; i.e. remove the element to the right to derive the initial form, and the one to the left for the final. Aside from name initials and a few single-letter words, independent forms are only used to signify acronyms, in which case they are written with no spaces between them.

The Pékrif, as it is called, is a descendant of a much older script originally used in the ancient kingdom of Hām-Ham. This progenitor script, while still an alphabet in nature, was highly ornamental, and it was frequently used as a kind of hieroglyphics. The letters’ current, simplified forms arose over the centuries after Hām-Ham fell; their arrangement dates back to the middle of the First Republic, around 1350-1400 HwÁ. The letterforms were codified, and the letters named and arranged, about this time; not incidentally, the Great Temple of Yávé was built during these years. The names were intended to not only contain the sound that letter represented, but also to be euphonious. Since then, the letters fin, víl, hoi, hued and khü have become obsolete, as the sounds they represented underwent changes that resulted in their loss. However, they have been retained in the modern letter sequence, despite their lack of use. Their Romanization, as given above, reflect their former sounds. In addition, the ligature exólt, representing the combination of kón and sód, has been appended to the end of the alphabetic sequence. The only other significant change between then and now is the standardization of core elements; until the Renaissance, they only contained the strokes or dots that distinguish them from each other in their medial forms, using the end elements to fulfill that role. Today, the core element is the same in all positions.

Because Ánhrush is the dominant nation of Askath, the Gomain alphabet is used internationally. Since there are also many other languages within Ánhrush, many of which use phonemes not present in Gomain, letters representing these phonemes have been derived from pre-existing letters. They are shown in the diagram below with their names and standard transliterations.

• Shó Wŕin, or High Esh, represents the German ich-Laut, or voiceless palatal fricative /ç/.

The mákyúshák or comma is used, as in English, to indicate a brief pause in speaking or reading. As in common English usage, they are used to separate subordinate clauses, nouns in the vocative case, and items in lists.

The khoestoukrif or question mark replaces the period at the end of a question.

The rodîyákrif or exclamation mark is used as in European languages, at the end of an exclamation or interjection; it also replaces the period.

The nougétkákrif or interrobang is used similarly to the khoestoukrif and ródîyákrif and is used to indicate passionate incredulity, much like a combination of the question and exclamation marks in English. These three marks also appear at the beginning of clauses, as in Spanish orthography.

The vethúkrou or hyphen is sometimes used in place of the comma when separating subordinate clauses. It also comes before citations, both of people and literature, and separates literary titles and parts of large numbers.

The gásnordhimá or quotation marks are used, as in English, to separate quotations from the rest of the text. Unlike English usage, however, they are only placed at the beginning and end of quotations, not at the beginning of new paragraphs within them.

The vetheriná or parentheses set off asides and other statements that we would normally place within them.

The mákyúj or semicolon indicates a longer pause than the comma, but not as long as the colon or period. Typically, the length of such a pause is twice that of a comma. It also separates numbers in literary citations and time abbreviations.

Similarly, the mákyúdrush or colon indicates a longer pause than the semicolon – about thrice as long as that of a comma. It also prefaces a quote.

The rékrif or uncertainty mark ends a sentence where one wishes to represent a tone of uncertainty or doubt in the preceding sentence.

The yújóx or ellipsis is used to indicate the end of a long quotation, or that the source of a quote continued speaking before, during, or after the quote.

The prátchákrif or accent mark is written below a vowel which receives irregular stress. While it is not normally used with words containing a case prefix, it is written in situations where case-marking creates a homophone pair distinguished only by position of stress: consider úmá (plural indefinite article) vs. úmâ (to/for many).

The tátpirkí or identifying mark serves to distinguish abbreviations from similar, fully-spelled words, as well as to alert readers to a textual note. Scientists and mathematicians use it to indicate special operations, quantities, and units of measure. In electronic media, it is often used for emphasis, similar to our own asterisk.

Romanized transcriptions follow the Gomain usage, except where that would confuse readers. The only significant difference is the use of italics or quotation marks to indicate literary titles, along with the underlining of proper names.

The standard letterforms are suitable for elaboration and decoration in both printing and handwriting. Over the centuries, written letterforms have changed into what we might call a cursive script, suitable for a flowing hand. While some degree of aesthetic alteration is permissible when writing, the letters must recognizably resemble their printed forms. Due to the standardization of core elements, end elements are not normally written, except with the few discontinuous letters. Furthermore, since the modern letterforms are simplifications of the aforementioned older script, little additional change is typically employed beyond rounding or looping of corners.

Numbers do not take case prefixes. The names of the cardinal numbers, along with their ordinal, fractional, and repetitive forms, are as follows:

	Cardinal	Ordinal	Fraction	Repetitive
0	zí
1	oi	oish	oich	oif
2	ung	uj	ungk	umf
3	ŕ	ŕsh	ŕch	ŕf
4	ou	oush	ouch	ouf
5	fai	faish	faich	faif
6	uer	uerdh	uert	uerf
7	ár	árth	árkh	árf
8	shou	shoush	shouch	shouf
9	yúl	yúlth	yúlkh	yúlf
10	ro	rosh	roch	rof
11	jai	jaish	jaich	jaif
12	lá	lásh	lách	láf
144	lálei	láleish	láleich
1728	lásei	láseish	láseich

The numbers 13-23 are formed by prefixing lá- to the appropriate number, or láh- (with a non-silent h) before those numbers that begin with a vowel. Thus the number for 13 is láhoi, that for 17 láfai, and so on. Multiples of 12 are formed by adding the suffix –wó to the appropriate number; this gives numbers like ungwó (24), ouwó (48), and jaiwó (132).

Higher numbers are straightforward enough: multiples of hundreds, thousands, and the like are written as two words – first comes the multiplying basic number, then the hundred, thousand, etc. (Note that I am referring to duodecimal hundreds and thousands here; their decimal values are given in the table above.) Thus one may construct numbers like ŕ lálei (300₁₂, or 432₁₀) and shou lásei (8000₁₂, 13 824₁₀). Examples of other large numbers include:

lámusung – ŕ lálei rowó ár lámusoi – ou lálei lájai lásei – shou lálei faiwó ou (1 3A7 41B 854₁₂, 6 400 000 000₁₀)

Powers of 12 are written with combinations of the numeral 12. This is the only common use of its numeral, though some use it in writing 145-155 and 1729-1871. In such cases, the numeral 12 is the first digit, followed by the units place (in the case of 145-155) or the tens and units places (in the case of 1729-1871).

The operators are written first, mimicking the spoken form of equations; therefore, the first of the example operations in the following paragraph would be Romanized as + 2 1 = 3. Note that the power, root, ordinal, and fraction notations are attached at whichever end of the numeral is appropriate; i.e. powers and roots are always indicated at the beginning of numerals, and ordinals/fractions at the end. A bar is used to separate the numerator and denominator.

Equations are spoken using the verb forms of the respective operations. What English represents with “equals” or “is/are”, Gomain represents with “becomes”. Thus addition/subtraction equations follow the form “add two to one; it becomes three” (ámóleit ung sim oi; mevéch ŕ). Similarly, multiplication/division equations are spoken like “multiply four with two; it becomes eight” (gánóleit ou bék ung; mevéch shou). For exponents, the derived verb ékbámin is used, resulting in spoken equations such as ékbámindleit fai sim ŕ; mevéch rowó fai ("raise five to the third power; it becomes 125). Percentages are indicated by saying án lálei "of the hundred" after the percentage. Variables are represented with letters, as they are on Earth, with the key difference that the first variable introduced is always exólt, with all additional variables assigned the previous letter in the alphabet (i.e. the second variable is dan^e, the third is yád^y, etc.).