Chwakesha

[Znex]

So I've been rather obsessed (what else is new?) with a conlang a few years back called Chavakani, which as its base is a blend of Japanese, Niger-Congo, and Austronesian aesthetic. I really like the idea, but as far as I know, the project has been dead for six or so years, so I thought I might make my own take on the idea.

Some key differences:

• A more synthetic grammar taking inspiration from Swahili and the wider Sabaki family, and from Japonic
• More Japonic/EAsn influence in general (little to no grammatical number, classifiers, tonal accent, etc.)

Phonology
This is particularly taking influence from Old/Middle Japanese, Fijian, and Malagasy, as well as some African langs such as Swahili, Wolof, and Dinka.

Consonants:
/m n ɲ ŋ/ <m n ny ng>
/p t ts tɕ~c k/ <p t ts ch k>
/(ᵐ)b ⁿd ⁿz ⁿdʑ~ᶮɟ ᵑg/ <b d dz j g>
/f s ɕ x~h/ <f s sh h>
/β z ɣ~ɦ/ <v z x>
/r l j w/ <r l y w>

Most pre-nasalised consonants cannot occur initially, excepting /ᵐb/ which occurs not infrequently (but often unnasalised). Also /r l/ occur rarely initially. These restrictions don't apply to clitics however.

Common phonetic changes:

• /n ts ⁿz/ before a yod merge with /ɲ tɕ ⁿdʑ/: Tsy → C
• Intervocalic unvoiced fricatives may merge with their voiced c/parts (however /s/ is often resistant): VŦV → VĐV

Vowels:
/i ɨ u/ <i y u>
/(j)e (w)o/ <e o>
/a/ <a>

yod-glide:
/ja jo ju/ <ya yo yu>

waw-glide:
/wa we wi/ <wa we wi>

Yod/waw pre-glides cannot occur after palatal and labial onsets, respectively. Phonetically, plain vowels after these onsets are treated as their compound glide-vowel equivalents. (eg. chyo → cho, fwe → fe)

Syllable structure:
Chwakesha syllables consist only of three types:

• V
• CV
• CRV ; where R = /jwrl

Typically consonant-glide clusters occur when the first consonant is an obstruent (ie. of the class /p t ts tɕ k ᵐb ⁿd ⁿz ⁿdʑ ᵑg f s ɕ x β z ɣ/), however intervocalic clusters where the first consonant is a liquid /r l/ do occur. Consonant-liquid clusters however occur only rarely, where the first consonant is a plosive.

All vowels can occur initially. For morfofo purposes, /e i/ and /o u ɨ/ are often treated as if they have a yod or waw pre-glide, respectively (/e o/ also often appear phonetically with a pre-glide, especially initially). If /a/ appears in hiatus, it either is given an off-glide from the previous vowel as according to just mentioned, or an epenthetic gutteral is inserted (often harmonious with the surrounding consonants: /ŋ/ or /ɣ~ɦ/); although it is also not rare that the vowel sequence will remain unmodified.

Prosody:
Chwakesha words occur with or without a high tonal accent, which occurs in one of the first two syllables. In monosyllables, a tonal accent is treated phonetically as a falling tone.

eg. /tɕwá/ → [tɕwáà] {people}

A word in isolation without a tonal accent receives a level tone throughout the word.

eg. /twa/ → [twāː] {egg}

But more commonly atonal words will receive a tone depending on the previous word. When there are two atonal words (especially with a proclitic classifier), the first will receive a high tone and the second a low.

eg. /pi twa/ → [pítwàː] {egg}

When the first word is tonal however, the atonal word often receives a rising tone, especially if the tonal accent occurs just before the atonal word.

eg. /zɨ́=uɕa/ → [zɨ̂ːwùɕá] {crabapple}

[VaptuantaDoi]

Nice phonology. I especially like the tone system, it's simple but interesting.

Most pre-nasalised consonants cannot occur initially, excepting /ᵐb/ which occurs not infrequently (but often unnasalised)

Was there a natlang inspiration for this specific feature? Not that I don't think it's realistic, I'd just be interested to see it in a natlang.

[Znex]

Most pre-nasalised consonants cannot occur initially, excepting /ᵐb/ which occurs not infrequently (but often unnasalised)

Was there a natlang inspiration for this specific feature? Not that I don't think it's realistic, I'd just be interested to see it in a natlang.

Ancient Egyptian also had a /b/ that behaved differently to its other "voiced" plosives, but tbh I just like having a quirky phoneme in one series or another.

Also in a lot of languages that have implosives, /ɓ ɗ/ are often the only ones occurring. Could something have happened in the prehistory of Chwakesha?