Teiwo

horse nomads

tentatively the phonology looks as follows

the abrupt release clicks are ǂ series before front vowels and ǃ series before back/central vowels. the ǁ clicks do not appear before front vowels

the prenasalization on the clicks is not really audible word-initially, also the nasal aspirated clicks are voiceless all the way through (i.e. [ᵑ̊ǀʰ] etc)

the tenuis plosive series is actually somewhat aspirated, and the difference between that and the aspirated series is a matter of degree as well as the fact that the ‘aspiration’ on the aspirated series is closer to an [x] or [χ] before /a o/. they do not contrast before high vowels.

/d/ is offset a bit from /t/, being more alveolar while /t/ is basically dental or dental-alveolar

/w l ɣ/ are /m n ŋ/ following nasal vowels. /l/ is also [n] word-initially (/w/ is not [m]).

/ɣ/ is written 〈g〉, the ""aspirated"" series is written with h 〈ie ph th čh kh〉 (not sure im a fan) (maybe 〈px tx čx kx〉 looks cooler)

/i u/ are kinda [ɪ ʊ]

diphthongs /ai au ąį ąų/

/eː ə ə̨/ are written as 〈ei e ę〉, otherwise long vowels are doubled except /oː/ which is just written 〈o〉

in theory theres some historical justification for the distribution of vowel length among the mid vowels, which is left as an exercise for the reader

orthography for ə ə̨ is also left as an exercise for the reader im kinda iffy on this ei e ę thing. for that matter writing /oː/ as single 〈o〉 is kinda weird but i feel like 〈oo〉 just looks bad most of the time

as hinted above theres some nasal harmony involving the nasal vowels, /w~m l~n ɣ~ŋ/, and the clicks, essentially like so:

the nasal vowels are marked for nasalization (the clicks are not). nasalization spreads rightwards through vowels and nasophilic consonants (/w l ɣ h/ + the clicks) and is blocked by nasophobic consonants (everything else). /eː oː/ are never found right of a nasal vowel without an intervening nasophobic consonant to protect them.

the clicks have a bit of an unusual distribution wrt nasality: they are allowed morpheme-initially and do not trigger nasalization on the following vowel, but otherwise they are only found following a nasal vowel. morphological processes can result in a click following a non-nasal vowel and they don't trigger nasalization of it (however they maintain their own prenasalization).

syllable structure is CV(C) with a rather restricted coda: /š x h p t~k 7 l/. /t/ and /k/ are in a complementary distribution in coda position, with /t/ after /i e/ and /k/ after everything else. /x/ can be a bit of an [χ] in the coda. /l/ is found only word-finally and behaves somewhat similarly to t~k when following a nasal vowel, ie it is [n] after /į ə̨/ and [ŋ] after /ų ą/ (note this is the opposite of t~k wrt ə).

single-syllable words are necessarily bimoraic ie. their nucleus is either a long vowel or a diphthong.

there is probably something going in involving stress but this is kind of uncharted territory for me

example words (these have no meaning as of yet)

nąįžą hąųmį wisʼąį xʼoga šeihai

Noun classes

 * Ⅰ adult male humans, ghosts, lightning, certain types of mythological spirits. plurals in this class are usually suppletive.
 * Ⅱ adult female humans, juvenile humans, humans unmarked for gender, groups of humans, other types of mythological spirits. these often end in -l.
 * Ⅲ adult horses (⪆3 years of age)
 * Ⅳ juvenile horses, dogs, eagles, deer and other animals that are hunted for food, meat food
 * Ⅴ wood, trees, some plants that are not trees, potash, soap, fruits from trees, nuts
 * Ⅵ words that end in -i (including -ai, not including -į or -įį) (this includes a lot of abstract nouns)
 * Ⅶ bones, ice, minerals, rocks, salt
 * Ⅷ insects, bats
 * Ⅸ words with mostly nasal vowels (either significant nasal spreading or at least the stressed syllable is nasal)
 * Ⅹ words ending in a vowel other than -i or in -l and not part of Ⅱ
 * Ⅺ bodies of water (not water itself)
 * Ⅻ most plants that are not trees, dyes, tattoos, vegetable food

additionally a few nouns have their own nonce noun classes:


 * fire
 * tobacco
 * gourd
 * water (potable)
 * settlement
 * the word naiwa meaning ‘language, speech, words, etc’