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Hapi

sóasih-a=poh h́-akaó kòhóo íhaí-a=ka==kaí

spirit-PL=TOPIC 1SG:POSS-daughter ABIL speak.with-2/3=DECL==NVIS

‘As for ghosts, my daughter can speak with them.’

Notes

  • the topic disjunct affix =poh marks a noun for being the topic of the discourse; this contrast's with the constituent which is in focus: while the topic is usually encoded by the topic marker, the focus is not marked, but it is instead fronted (the topicalized noun is also fronted, but additionally receives the topic marker)
  • ...

apadchall #2 – still big

Bilabial Dental Retroflex Velar Uvular
fortis p’ t’ ʈ’ q
mid ʈʰ
plosives lenis p t ʈ k
voiced b d ɖ g
nasals m n ŋ
fricatives s ɕ~ʂ
liquids w ɾ~ɽ~l~ɭ χ

This was the second consonant inventory I did, and I wanted it to have many contrasts and some ejectives. So I went with this one. For the dorsal consonants I shifted the fortis and mid consonants a bit, they became /q/ and /χ/ respectively. The huge free variation in retroflex liquids is just a bit of rhotacism on my side – they all sound the same either way :p

I didn't want to go excessively crazy with the vowels, so I made a four-vowel system and lowered the front vowels a bit and introduced a vowel length distinction.

Front Center Back
High ɛ ɛː u uː
Mid e eː
Low a aː

That table isn't that accurate but I'm sure you know what I mean. I didn't bother with phonotactics that much this time, so here is the romanization.

Bilabial Dental Retroflex Velar Uvular
fortis p' t' rt' q
mid ph th rth
plosives lenis p t rt k
voiced b d rd g
nasals m n y
fricatives s c
liquids w l h
Front Center Back
High e ē u ū
Mid i ī
Low a ā

Yeah I know <y> /ŋ/ is a bit weird and all but I like it, feels very un-Eylish. This was today's four-day-ago's apad! See ya next time! Ūrthca!

apadchall #1 – a click-y start

As I'm adding the first apadchalls retroactively, I'll go over the thought process I had back then. Overall I wanted to make large phoneme inventories, as Old Ataman's one is rather small. So for the first one, I wanted to implement some click consonants. Maaanny clicks and few actual pulmonic consonants. I made a austronesian pulmonic peripheral inventory, and then added 20 phonemic clicks.

Labial Velar
Plosives p~ʔ k
Nasals m ŋ
Labial Dental Palatal Lateral
plain ʘ ǀ ǂ ǁ
prenasalized ᵑʘ ᵑǀ ᵑǂ ᵑǁ
breathy ʘʱ ǀʱ ǂʱ ǁʱ
prenas. breathy ᵑʘʱ ᵑǀʱ ᵑǂʱ ᵑǁʱ
preglottalized ˀʘ ˀǀ ˀǂ ˀǁ

Yum! I can't pronounce half of them clicks but anyways they're cool! Now onto the vowels: again, I wanted something different than say a simple three- or four-vowel system. So I went with tense-lax vowel harmony and three vowels:

Tense Lax
Front i ɪ
Center ɑ ɐ
Back u ʊ

I could've stopped at this point, but I felt like doing some more phonotactics and allophony would help me to get a feeling for this aesthetic. I defined the syllable structure as {X/C}V(C), where X is a click and made the following rules.

  1. A click assimilates in PoA with an adjacent consonant
  2. A click is preglottalized after a nasal

I furthermore declared that there won't be stress and tried to create a fitting romanization. This is what I came up with:

Labial Velar
Plosives p k
Nasals m g
Labial Dental Palatal Lateral
plain x t c l
prenasalized nx nt nc nl
breathy xh th ch lh
prenas. breathy nxh nth nch nlh
preglottalized qx qt qc ql
Tense Lax
Front i
Center a ä
Back u ü

So here we go... apad #1 - Done! Chignta!