Tinasan, Ineshîmé, and other fantasy-Japonic curiosities

[Rounin Ryuuji]

I have also produced a thing about verbs that goes into more depth. I'm not sure if making PDFs or typing out changes and things more directly is the better approach, however I'm finding things easier to structure in documents like this, however, and the fonts to which I have access can make all those Han characters look nicer.

Also collecting all the more polished documents in the original posting, too, and making many edits all round.

[So Haleza Grise]

I am not sure that link works

[Kuchigakatai]

Fixed link, with immediate download (dl=1):
https://www.dropbox.com/s/2radbc3k9hbkc ... e.pdf?dl=1

[Rounin Ryuuji]

Very good of you to fix it.

[Rounin Ryuuji]

Over the course of the "Ifsumé" period, the language would not, of course, remain static. We start with the following inventory:

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(Note: Some curly brackets used because putting i in square ones seems to be triggering lots of italicisation.)

Nasal: /m n (ɴ)/ "m, n, n"

Notes: [ɴ] appears following nasal vowels and preceding another consonant, sometimes being assimilated to what follows as [m n̪ ɲ ŋ], but it may also be pronounced as a protraction of the nasal vowel; /n/ is dental [n̪] in most cases, but palatal [ɲ] before {i j}/; before {i j}, /m/ is labiopalatalised [mᶣ].

Stop: /p b t d k g/ "p b t d k g"
Notes: /k g/ are [c ɟ] before {i j}; before {i j} /p b/ are labiopalatalised [pᶣ bᶣ]; during the early parts of the period /t d/, being dental [t̪ d̪], resist palatalisation.

Fricative: /ɸ s̪ z̪ s̺ z̺ x/ f s z s z h

Notes: /x/ is [ç] before {i j}; before {i j}, /s̺ z̺/ are palatalised [s̺ z̺]; in the same environments, /ɸ/ is labiopalatal [ɸᶣ] but dental /s̪ z̪/ resist palatalisation.

Liquid: /r l w j/ r l w j

Notes: /r/ is dental /ɾ̪/ initially (where it descends from /n/), but retroflex [ɽ] medially; /l/ is palatal [ʎ] before /a i e/ but velarised [ɫ] elsewhere; /w/ is non-velarised [ʋ] in most varieties, or a non-syllabic, non-moraic /u/).

Vowels: /i e ɘ a o ɤ u/ i e ĕ a o ŏ u

Notes: The rounded vowels have slightly weakened, and compressed and endolabial, rounding, such that /o u/ are generally [oᵝ ʉᵝ]; in certain environments (usually before -w) /ɤ/ has a rounded allophone [ɵᵝ]. The mid vowel /e/ is usually [ɛ].

In labial environments /a i/ are realised as [ɑ ɪ], /i/ is also [ɪ] after [ɽ]. The sequences /wɤ wu/ do not occur, and the sequence /wɘ/ is rare.

In palatal environments /a e/ are usually pronounced [æ~ɛ e], in some varieties, /u/ may be realised under the same circumstances as [yᵝ]. The sequence "ye" has also a tendency to be pronounced [je] increasingly as the period continues.

Following labial consonants /p b ɸ m/, /ɤ/ is increasingly pronounced [ɔᵝ].

Our usual syllable structure will be (C)(y/w)V(N), in which (C) can be any consonant other than /j w/, (y) and (w) represent the two glides (however sequences of glide + /r l/ do not occur, and glide + [s̪ z̪] is rare. (N) is the final [ɴ], indicating that the preceding vowel is nasalised (perhaps protracted) and that an ambiguous nasal consonant may be present in the coda.

Now going from Ancient to Classical Ifsumé, we have —

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Palatal or palatalised [c g s̺ʲ z̺ʲ] become palatal affricates and fricatives [c͡ɕ ɟ͡ʑ ɕ ʑ], absorbing any trace of nonsyllabic {i̯} or [j] which may have been present.

Labiopalatal [pᶣ bᶣ] affricate to [p͡ɸᶣ b͡βᶣ].

The diphthong /uo/ smooths to /wo/, or plain /o/ after a labial.

In some varieties, /ja/ [jæ~jɛ] merge with /je/ [je], but in others, they remain distinct. In such dialects as merge the two /la/ > /le/ generally also occurs.

The postnominal definite article -i is absorbed into the preceding vowel, creating diphthongs ending with [-j]:

/a/ > [æj~ɛj] > [ej]
/e/ > [ej]
/ɘ/ > [ɘj]
/ɤ/ > [ɪj]
/i/ > [ij]
/o/ > [øᵝj]
/u/ > [yᵝj]

The dental stops /t d/ become palatalised [t̪ʲ d̪ʲ] before {i j}.

In the stems and imperatives of verbs, -/ɤ/ is replaced with -/ɘ/, and the imperative is reanalysed to -/(j)erɤ/ in some dialects; it spreading to a prestigious one marks the shift in the formal written language, though at this point a still sizeable portion of everyday speakers continue to use the -/ɤ/ stems; this will later lead to a split in the verbal morphology of daughter languages.

This written variety, which is of course rather artificial, would be what was most widely-attested. Its inventory is not *very* different from the preceding stage, but it might bear remarking:

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Nasal: /m n (ɴ)/ m n n (as before)
Stop: /p b t d k g/ p b t d k g (now with palatalised [t̪ d̪] in certain environments!)
Affricate: /p͡ɸ b͡β cɕ ɟʑ/ pf bv ch j
Fricative: /ɸ s̪ z̪ s̺ z̺ ɕ ʑ x/ f s z s z sh zh h
Liquid: /l r w y/ l r w y
Vowel: /i e ɘ o (ø) ɤ u (y)/ i e ĕ a o (o) ŏ u (u)

What allophony already was that has not resulted in a sound shift continues as before. Realisation of /u/ as [yᵝ] after [j] and palatal consonants spreads, and some varieties begin to realise /o/ in the same circumstances as [øᵝ], but this is not as widespread.

It is at this stage that we begin to get to Late Eastern Ifsumé, the variety which will become the desired daughter language. Its changes are detailed below:

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In addition to the sound changes producing the "Classical" language above, the Eastern varieties also showed what I tentatively call "preemptive lenition": in words that would have both a voiced initial and voiced medial, the voiced initial will lenite further, along the pattern of {b} > [β] (in some dialects instead [ʋ], [d̪] > [ð] > [z̪], and [g] > [ɣ] > [x] (but before {i j}, [g] > [ʝ] > [j]), such that:

髪毛 "bige" ("hair") > "vige" [βi.gɛ]
縄 "dage" ("rope") > "zage" [z̺a.gɛ]
but: 卵 "dangwo" ("egg") > no change (labialisation of second element tends to block the preemptive lenition)
頭 "gabu" ("head") > "habu [xa.bʉ̀ᵝ]
but: 頭氏 "gabúra" (plural of above) > "gavúra, gavóra" (rising pitch following second voiced element triggers the second to lenite instead, creating some irregular plurals and inflected forms)

The palatalised dental stops [t̪ʲ d̪ʲ] affricate to [t̪͡s̪ d̪͡z̪].

The diphthongs /ɘw ɤw/, where remaining, are smoothed to /u o/.

A second palatalisation of /k g/ > [c͡ɕ ɟ͡ʑ] where new occurrences of [e] have been created by definite article fusion; instances of [øᵝ yᵝ] so created triggering the shift are sporadic or dialectal. The definite forms of some nouns consequently begin to show consonant gradiation, cf. 幻 "kaga" [ka.gà] ("illusion"), 幻艿 "kage, kaje" - [ka.ɟ͡ʑe] - ("the illusion").

The beginning of the loss of /w/ following consonants, but which is incomplete by the end of the period, the forms formerly having them appearing with and without them in free variation, with some forms not originally having -w- (the resulting phonemicisation of certain vowels prevents the spread of intrusive-w in most varieties).

A process of devoicing also begins for /i u/ and sometimes also /ɘ ɤ/ following [p͡ɸ ɸ t̪͡s̺ s̪ s̺] terminally, and between voiceless consonants elsewhere, begins, but is not complete by the end of the period. This begins before the smoothing of the diphthong /ɘw/ > /u/, with resulting /u/ being consequently unaffected.

Several reanalyses of the verbal paradigms happen during this period (already touched on elsewhere), which will continue into the next period, affecting some parts of the paradigm dramatically (and others only slightly); other particles are also beginning to coalesce into the nominals preceding them (to be detailed elsewhere), likely leading to the development of fully inflected nouns at a later stage; changes in vocabulary will also necessarily occur, with many of the lemmas in the first document undergoing semantic drift or becoming obsolete.

An innovative definite article -"fa" (枼) or -"ifa/-(y)fa" (葉), akin to Japanese "wa", "iwa", begins to become more prominent during the period, with the first one being now largely absorbed (the same thing is thought to have happened in Japanese, with a following nominaliser -i); the -"fa" form had existed already, but was perceived as very emphatic, and consequently not used nearly as often as -"i".

[Qwynegold]

Oh, okay. So it had mostly to do with semantic drift of that one word. Maybe...

That certainly influenced it, but there are elements of the fiction in play that I don't feel ready to reveal.

Ah, intriguing.

[Rounin Ryuuji]

Oh, okay. So it had mostly to do with semantic drift of that one word. Maybe...

That certainly influenced it, but there are elements of the fiction in play that I don't feel ready to reveal.

Ah, intriguing.

Happy to have intrigued. I'm sure little bits and pieces will slip out as the language grows, though it isn't really meant for a puzzle. For the next wordlist, I'm planning to include more culturally-salient words, as opposed to half the Swadesh list (or 48% of it, two of the first fifty entries were culturally irrelevant enough for the language not to have words for them).

[Zju]

also "arisyan" - "lion" (a Turkic loanword; the -syan even gets abstracted off the word, and attached to other animal names to create something meaning roughly "huge fantastical creature resembling [whatever]" so you end up with "Torasyan" (a given name) and "inusyan" (a kind of large dog-like creature; stone lion, lion-dog, but literally "dogbeast"), &c.).

Have you considered doing a backformation of arisyan and having *ari mean maybe lynx?

[Rounin Ryuuji]

also "arisyan" - "lion" (a Turkic loanword; the -syan even gets abstracted off the word, and attached to other animal names to create something meaning roughly "huge fantastical creature resembling [whatever]" so you end up with "Torasyan" (a given name) and "inusyan" (a kind of large dog-like creature; stone lion, lion-dog, but literally "dogbeast"), &c.).

Have you considered doing a backformation of arisyan and having *ari mean maybe lynx?

I currently had thought of it as another word meaning "lion", for which there are several; the Turkic word actually gets borrowed twice, so there's a more "careful", literary form "arisŏlan" or "arisĕlan" coexisting with "arisyan" (the reflex in the desired daughter language is "arishen"; "Arishen" is also not uncommon as a given name); it meaning something like "lesser lion, lynx" eventually is a definite possibility, however (the idea of having "lion" be reanalysed as "lynxbeast" is increasingly appealing). In a story I'm writing, the main character has a cat named Arislan (the reflex of the more careful word, which is also used as a given name, and not a one-off for the cat) and often calls him Ari (which now can be a retroactive stealth reference to the Chrono Cross character).

[Rounin Ryuuji]

Also, I've produced a table of particle coalescences; the definite nominative, and both the definite and indefinite accusative, show absorption of the final -i and -wo, and sometimes the two together. Monosyllables behave a little differently (this is noted in the table provided), and long vowels begin to appear for the first time through these (you also see some irregular forms beginning to crop up). Sound change can be a wonderful and surprising things.

[Travis B.]

also "arisyan" - "lion" (a Turkic loanword; the -syan even gets abstracted off the word, and attached to other animal names to create something meaning roughly "huge fantastical creature resembling [whatever]" so you end up with "Torasyan" (a given name) and "inusyan" (a kind of large dog-like creature; stone lion, lion-dog, but literally "dogbeast"), &c.).

Have you considered doing a backformation of arisyan and having *ari mean maybe lynx?

I currently had thought of it as another word meaning "lion", for which there are several; the Turkic word actually gets borrowed twice, so there's a more "careful", literary form "arisŏlan" or "arisĕlan" coexisting with "arisyan" (the reflex in the desired daughter language is "arishen"; "Arishen" is also not uncommon as a given name); it meaning something like "lesser lion, lynx" eventually is a definite possibility, however (the idea of having "lion" be reanalysed as "lynxbeast" is increasingly appealing). In a story I'm writing, the main character has a cat named Arislan (the reflex of the more careful word, which is also used as a given name, and not a one-off for the cat) and often calls him Ari (which now can be a retroactive stealth reference to the Chrono Cross character).

A question - why is the more careful reflex of Turkic Arıslan tetrasyllabic?

[Rounin Ryuuji]

Have you considered doing a backformation of arisyan and having *ari mean maybe lynx?

I currently had thought of it as another word meaning "lion", for which there are several; the Turkic word actually gets borrowed twice, so there's a more "careful", literary form "arisŏlan" or "arisĕlan" coexisting with "arisyan" (the reflex in the desired daughter language is "arishen"; "Arishen" is also not uncommon as a given name); it meaning something like "lesser lion, lynx" eventually is a definite possibility, however (the idea of having "lion" be reanalysed as "lynxbeast" is increasingly appealing). In a story I'm writing, the main character has a cat named Arislan (the reflex of the more careful word, which is also used as a given name, and not a one-off for the cat) and often calls him Ari (which now can be a retroactive stealth reference to the Chrono Cross character).

A question - why is the more careful reflex of Turkic Arıslan tetrasyllabic?

Epenthesis; the -sl- cluster is phonologially invalid (as is coda anything that isn't /N j w/, so frequently, it becomes /sj/, but a more "careful" pronunciation instead inserts a vowel, usually /ɤ/ (Romanised ŏ), but sometimes /ɘ/ (Romanised ĕ) — the second one tends to show up more as the epenthetic vowel to break up clusters if there are more high vowels in the word; ĕ also later replaces ŏ in a later verbal morphological realignment; verbal nouns frequently ending in -ĕ, -ŏ at the end of anything that looks like a verbal noun also tends to get analogically replaced (hence the variability, "arisŏ-" looks a lot like it could be a verb, even though it isn't, and "arisĕ" would be its nominal form; I could see a verb being formed from this element meaning "to roar, to boast, to act like a lion, to be overbearing").

[Travis B.]

Epenthesis; the -sl- cluster is phonologially invalid (as is coda anything that isn't /N j w/, so frequently, it becomes /sj/, but a more "careful" pronunciation instead inserts a vowel, usually /ɤ/ (Romanised ŏ), but sometimes /ɘ/ (Romanised ĕ) — the second one tends to show up more as the epenthetic vowel to break up clusters if there are more high vowels in the word; ĕ also later replaces ŏ in a later verbal morphological realignment; verbal nouns frequently ending in -ĕ, -ŏ at the end of anything that looks like a verbal noun also tends to get analogically replaced (hence the variability, "arisŏ-" looks a lot like it could be a verb, even though it isn't, and "arisĕ" would be its nominal form; I could see a verb being formed from this element meaning "to roar, to boast, to act like a lion, to be overbearing").

I was just wondering because the name Ifsumé seems to include a coda fricative.

[Rounin Ryuuji]

Epenthesis; the -sl- cluster is phonologially invalid (as is coda anything that isn't /N j w/, so frequently, it becomes /sj/, but a more "careful" pronunciation instead inserts a vowel, usually /ɤ/ (Romanised ŏ), but sometimes /ɘ/ (Romanised ĕ) — the second one tends to show up more as the epenthetic vowel to break up clusters if there are more high vowels in the word; ĕ also later replaces ŏ in a later verbal morphological realignment; verbal nouns frequently ending in -ĕ, -ŏ at the end of anything that looks like a verbal noun also tends to get analogically replaced (hence the variability, "arisŏ-" looks a lot like it could be a verb, even though it isn't, and "arisĕ" would be its nominal form; I could see a verb being formed from this element meaning "to roar, to boast, to act like a lion, to be overbearing").

I was just wondering because the name Ifsumé seems to include a coda fricative.

Ah, that's the name used in one of the daughter languages, and in English; the language doesn't have an internal name for most of this stage, though the word Ifsumé descends from what was Ipisunme during this period.

Edit: Should probably add that the daughter language name is internally actually 陽之葵 (Ifsúme, which can be variously pronounced as it looks [iɸ.s̪ʉ́ᵝ.mè̞], but more usually, the, -f- is actually syllabic, and somewhat protracted, sounding a bit more like [i.ɸ͜ɸ̀.s̪ʉ́ᵝ.mè̞], or has a very short, reduced, and devoiced vowel allophonically attached [[i.ɸ͜ə̥̀.s̪ʉ́ᵝ.mè̞]), the same is true of modern "Arislan" (獅蘭 [ɐ̞.ɾ̪ʲís̪.l̪ɐ̞́ɴ]~[ɐ̞.ɾ̪ʲís̪͜s̪̀.l̪ɐ̞́ɴ]~[ɐ̞.ɾ̪ʲís̪͜ə̥̀.l̪ɐ̞́ɴ]). I did not put a vowel there because it can be pronounced as a coda fricative, and elsewhere, a somewhat more audible weak vowel [ɘ̥~ɛ̥~ɪ̥], as in "Ineshîmé" (the name of this daughter language — internally 咲的芲 Inĕshîmé, [i.n̪ɘ̥.ɕí͜ì.mé̞] — usually written in English texts without the breve on the ĕ so it does not look too confusing or uninviting to an average reader).

[Rounin Ryuuji]

Having spent some time trying to create texts in Ancient Ifsumé, and not having as much fun with it as I might like (it isn't very interestingly different from Old Japanese), so perhaps I might do better to move on to the descendant language at which I wanted to arrive. As I've already mentioned, I wanted something aesthetically similar to Japanese, but distinct enough that at least anybody familiar with Japanese would find it immediately different after a small measure of exposure. Other desired traits included voiced initial consonants, a phoneme /l/, &c. &c.; of course, there are more inspirations for it that merely early modern and modern Japanese, among them (in order of least to most influence):

Warning: Long ramble about what inspired me to make the language, in fantasy, and in real languages both Japonic and non-Japonic (I do take quite a number of cues from Indo-European in some areas, perhaps because it has a strong influence on how I conceive of language working (most languages in which I have any competence are in the family, with Japanese, my weakest, being the only exception). This may bore you, so if you find the language and adjacent things themselves the good part, you may wish to skip this section and return to it later (or else see if you can puzzle out some of the inspirations and come back to check your work, if the mood strikes you.

And yes, I am a total dork, and very much enjoy wallowing in it.

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English, unescapably, as I think in it. There is a rather large vocabulary, with a somewhat substantive (though not to the same degree as English's) number of foreign borrowings, some of them fairly recent judging from their morphological shape, and most of them relating to food. Also, some varieties distinguish /eː ɛː/ as separate phonemes (however not /oː ɔː/).

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Danish, Swedish, and Norwegian — most nominals inflect for definiteness; the language itself is also a part of a dialect group that are still, in some cases, of about the same degree of mutual intelligibility (but it's often asymmetric), though with distance, one does, of course, tend to find greater degrees of divergence. The degree of written intelligibility between this language and its near relations is very, very high. This is at least in part owing to a situation similar to that which created Norwegian Bokmal — the language in question enjoys very widespread use in literature and other culturally significant productions, and a great deal of scientific literature in-setting is written in it. Most speakers of regional "dialects" have greater understanding of the "standard" than the other way round.

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Several other Indo-European languages, including Proto-Indo-European (I'm fond of paradigms that are not wholly neat and regular), Classical Latin, Ancient Greek, French, and Spanish; I'm fond of how morphologically complex they all are — and have ended up developing some rather complicated nominal declensions (three numbers — singular, collective, and plural; each in both the definite and indefinite, with some forms being contracted and consequently rather irregular-looking). Front rounded vowels also occur at times (but only allophonically), and a distinct /l/ phoneme has been attained.

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Various not-developed (or not well developed) languages appearing (or implied to exist) in fantasy worlds I've enjoyed.

(1) From George MacDonald (a perennial favourite with me), we have snatches with names such as Anodos, Lona, Odu. While none presently exists, all three are phonologically valid, as are Photogen (though not Watho or Nycteris), .

(2a) Japanese ideas of what a fantasy language would sound like, taken from some rather obscure sources: background music appearing in a few video games, notably Tales of Legendia (a bit of a messy title, but the overall aesthetic of the game has been massively influential on my worldbuilding), which are difficult to make out, but sound like Mel fa riaridak raera/Kidakufa erearae/Rashite ara (ite ara) ite noste ara, ni ihara na wa amen des ba shi ite emara, Mei ha inochi ba idore na ito e sereba, bei fa inochi no ha re/Menina daski ibana nyal vina idagida — fairly close to Japanese, but with some aberrations, like final -s, -l, ambiguously a /v/ phoneme. Similar to this, a line of distorted chanting appearing in Xenogears sounds awfully like tudolsensepuerolkaskan.

(2b) Tales of the Abyss also contributes the line tue re ze croa ryou tue ze, &c., which does point to the very limited consonant clustering (usually only voiceless stop + /l r j/) that appears in a few cases, mostly longer compounds and proper names.

(2c) The vaguely Europea sounding names Ginevia and Ahanas appearing in the Windaria film. From Studio Ghibli, the also vaguely European Pazu, Sheeta, Dola, Muska appearing in Castle in the Sky, and somewhat Finnish-sounding, Osono, Tonbo (yes, this is just the Japanese word for "dragonfly", I know), Kopoli/Kopori (the word kopori actually means "glass" or "vitrification" in the language, too; cognate to Japanese 氷 "kōri" - "ice"), and the name of the city, Coriko, Koriko or however one wishes to spell it.

(3) I listened to Enya a great deal growing up, so there's likely some subconscious thoughts of Irish in there somewhere. Not quite a fantasy language, but it sounded like one to me at about age ten or so.

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And, of course, Japanese, but more specifically its former literary register Bungo; the verbal system has many structural parallels, the orthography is quite similar (I remain torn on which, if any, Kana ought to be directly borrowed from Japanese, but I do think such a system would emerge; the stages I've shown thus far all use a Man'yōgana like system, but characters do remark that old texts are rather difficult to read (one also describes Ancient Ifsumé as sounding as if it were all chopped apart; because of both changes in sounds and morphology, he is only able to understand those words that have undergone relatively little change.

Adjectives are also quite verbal in how the function, having a wider range of conjugations than the ones in Japanese currently do. They can, and frequently do, predicate sentences. The classical copula あり ("ari") also influenced the development not only of the copula in this language, but an entire class of similar -ri verbs, which tend to mean "become something" or "make something like or into something else". The principal parts of the six-stem verbs remain fairly similar in usage (though there is a much greater emphasis on tense, with a conjugated quasi-future), monosyllabic verbs are not at all rare, and the equivalent to the Kana orthography has not been much adjusted to match historical sound changes since it was introduced.

There are, of course, the noteworthy departures I've mentioned desiring: native words are used far more often than borrowed ones, even for technical and scientific vocabulary (though a number of words for items of foreign cuisine and nativised plants have been imported, as have those for certain objects associated with ways of doing things for which there were no very good native equivalents). Most of these come from what is called the Kokori language, one that plays an important role in some stories I've written, but which is now nobody's mother tongue, having been rediscovered after a long period of disuse (its decypherment leading to quite the internal revolution in gastronomy). From the forms of the words borrowed, it would appear to be some form of Langue d'Oĩl.

Also, of some note, the culture was initially wheat-growing, with wet rice agriculture being a later introduction; consequently, while some parts of society have a more collectivist mindset, others tend to be more independent. The speakers are also in a place more geologically stable than Japan. The result is a culture quite markedly different — there aren't any honorifics, and equivalents to keigo are also virtually non-existent, though there are plenty of ways to apologies, express thanks, &c., as in most languages — and I often find myself amused by such differences (of course, creating the language is meant to be fun, so it has achieved at least one goal.

So, where does all this leave us? Let's begin with what this desired language sounds like:

Inventory & Romanisation

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Nasal: /m n/ m n
Stop: /p b t d k g/ p b t d k g
Affricate: /(t͡s d͡z) c͡ɕ ɟ͡ʑ/ (ts dz) ch j
Fricative: /ɸ (β) s z ɕ ʑ h/ f v s z sh zh/j h
Liquid: /r l w j/ r l w y
Vowel: /i e (ɛ ɘ) a o u/ i/y e (a ĕ) a o u

The stops /p b t d k g/, voiceless affricate /c͡ɕ/, and voiceless sibilant fricatives /s ɕ/, may all be doubled. For /pp bb tt dd kk gg c͡ɕ/, the first element closes the preceding syllable, and is unreleased. A syllable-final fricative is, in many dialects, a mora (especially in shorter words), and may sometimes bear the weight of a change in pitch. All phonemic vowels may be either monomoraic or bimoraic, in which they are generally held twice as long (though transcribed as [e̞͜e̞], &c. for ease of noting where the accent falls), and almost never as two identical sounds in hiaitus, unless one is sounding out all syllables (or morae) in a row.

Allophony

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• /p b ɸ (β) m/ are all labiopalatalised [pᶣ bᶣ ɸᶣ (βᶣ) mᶣ] before [i]; the sequence /ɸi/ is extremely rare.
• /t d s z/ are dental [t̪ d̪ s̪ z̪].
• /(t͡s d͡z)/ are are likewise dental, and also lightly palatalised [t̪͡s̪ʲ d̪͡z̪ʲ], but are possibly not phonemic; they only occur before [yᵝ], in which case they tend to pattern as allophones of /s z/.
• /n/ is usually dental [n̪], but is uvular [ɴ] in coda position (in which case it frequently becomes moraic, being quite protracted in pronunciation, especially word-finally in monosyllables). It has much less tendency to assimilate to the following consonant, or to be produced as a nasal vowel, than does moraic N in Japanese.
• /l r/ are usually dental [l̪ ɾ̪], however /l/ is usually realised as [ʎ] before [i yᵝ]
• /k g/ are [c ɟ] before [i e̞ e].
• /ɟ͡ʑ/ merges with /ʑ/ in non-initial position; /c͡ɕ/ merges with /ɕ/ in final, but not medial, position.
• /c͡ɕ ɟ͡ʑ ɕ ʑ/ are realised as [tʃ dʒ ʃ ʒ] when not preceding [i yᵝ]
• /w/ is usually non-velarised [ʋ], or else a non-syllabic non-moraic [ʉ̯ᵝ]; initial /j/ is fairly consonantal when standalone, but tends to sound more vocalic, closer to [i̯] when the first element of a postconsonantal rising diphthong.)

• /i/ is usually [i], but in a third mora or after, when not rising in pitch, it is instead realised as [ɪ], but a little to the front and right of where it is generally pictured on the chart; in this context, and When [j~i̯], it is most usually transcribed "y" rather than "i"
• /e/ is usually [e̞] except when specifically preceding or following [ɛ] in a double vowel, in which it raises slightly to [e]; long /eː/ is usually likewise [e̞͜e̞], but in dialects having phonemicised /ɛː/, it is raised to [e͜e].
• /ɘ/ is not actually a schwa, but rather either unpronounced, a repetition of the consonant that precedes it, or a very short, rather ambiguous vowel that tends to be one of [ɘ ɛ ɪ], after voiceless consonants generally devoiced [ɘ̥ ɛ̥ ɪ̥] after voiceless fricatives; the voiceless fricatives and /l/ are most likely to trigger the deletion of /ɘ/ entirely, though disappearance following terminal /ʑ/ and medial /r/ are also very common. It is usually still slightly pronounced where a hiaitus between a voiceless palatal fricative and a voiced resonant would be produced (cf. 華的元 Isâshemóto, [i.s̪ɐ̞͜ɐ̞.ɕɪ̥.mó̞ᵝ.t̪òᵝ], a clan name); the exact realisation of the vowel is often conditioned by the surrounding sounds, with palatals attached and nearby [i] likely to produce [ɪ~ɪ̥], frequent /e a o/ elsewhere in the word likely to produce [ɛ~ɛ̥], and [ɘ] most common after /l r/.
• As demonstrated above, schwa-deletion and schwa deletion and devoicing, unless two consonants are permitted to meet directly, frequently lengthens the vowel of the preceding mora, triggering a rise in pitch if medial, and a fall on the second mora of the lengthened vowel; a rise frequently (but not always predictably) will usually follow a deleted or devoiced schwa.
• /a/ is usually very central [ɐ̞], and often veers slightly closer to [ä] than on the IPA chart; however the bimoraic clustering /ai/ is usually realised as [ɛ͜i], in some dialects smoothing to [ɛː]; the vowel cluster /ae/ is usually realised as [ɐ̞͜e̞] or [æ͜e̞] — the two are in free variation in most varieties — however [ɛ͜e] and transposed [e͜ɛ] are now increasingly common and in competition with them.
• /o u/ have compressed, somewhat weak, and endolabial rounding, and /u/ is rather more front than is cardinal, the two being most usually realised as [o̞ᵝ ʉᵝ]; after /(ts) (dz) c͡ɕ ɟ͡ʑ ɕ ʑ l j/, /u/ is always realised as front rounded [yᵝ].

Phonotactics

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The only requirement of a syllable is the nucleus, beyond this...
[*]The onset may be any one consonant, however the sequences /ji/ and /wu/ do not occur, and the sequences /c͡ɕe ɟ͡ʑe ɕe ʑe je ja la lo/ are very rare initially, with /je ja/ usually only occurring medially in the sequences /ija/ /ije/ created by the deletion of the medial fricative in historical sequences /ihe/, /ife/, /iha/, /ifa/.
[*]The sequences /mj nj tj dj kj gj h rj/, with the glide frequently becoming nearly fully vocalised, but still nonsyllabic and nonmoraic, are very common as initials, /sj zj/ occur in only a handful of words in very rapid speech, and /pj bj t͡sj d͡zj c͡ɕj ɟ͡ʑj ɕj ʑj wj lj ɸj (βj)/ do not occur.
[*]The clusters /kl kr/ occur at the beginning of a very few words, but are extremely uncommon.
[*]By far the most frequent coda is /n/, usually realised as /ɴ/, though /ɸ/, /s/ and /ɕ/ are all also common as a result of voiceless vowel deletion (most common in affixed particles and words of three morae or longer), but will eject a weak vowel before a nasal or /l r/; coda /r/ medially in words of usually four morae or longer, as a result of schwa deletion, and is extremely rare terminally outside a few borrowed words; coda /l/ will delete a schwa in many trimoraic words, and can occur finally, though it is rather rare outside of the imperative of some verbs.
[*]Coda [ʑ] may also be created by terminal vowel deletion in a trimoraic or tetramoraic word, but this is more sporadic, and mostly encountered in rapid speech, or after a long vowel.
[*]In medial syllables, any of /p t k c͡ɕ s ɕ/ may be doubled, filling a moraic copy of whichever consonant into the coda of the preceding syllable.
[*]Usually, the nucleus of a syllable will be a voiced vowel, but it may be a devoiced one (or one assimilated to a voiceless consonant) in non-initial syllables, usually terminal or medial ones where vowel deletion has occurred.

A Few Items of Vocabulary, to Serve as Examples

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• 生 îs [i͜ìs̪], (def. 生𛁍 itsu - [i.t̪͡s̪ʲỳᵝ]~[i.s̪ỳᵝ] — "life, life-force; (in texts set in-world) îs, itsu (a kind-of life force similar to the ki/qi appearing in many East Asian cultures)
• 陽 îf [i͜ìɸ], (def. 陽𛁍 ifu - [i.ɸʉᵝ]) — "(usually in definite) Sun, the Sun"; (indefinite) "sun, solar disk, the sun in the sky, bright daylight; sun, primary star, star about which something orbits"; (by extension) "focal point, epicentre, nexus, thing about which others revolve"
• 陽𛁏葵 ifsúme [iɸ.s̪ʉ́ᵝ.mè̞] (def. 陽𛁏葵𛁾"ifsúmya" [iɸ.s̪ʉ́ᵝ.mᶣi̯ɐ̞̀]) — (archaic, literary) "sunflower"; as a proper name, Ifsúme "the Ifsúme region, comprising the Shin'e and surrounding landmass"; "the political entity there centered"; "the older civilisation this continues, or a person of this civilisation"
• 陽す葵語 Ifsúme-if [iɸ.s̪ʉ́ᵝ.mè̞ íɸ] (def.陽す葵語い Ifsúme-iyu [iɸ.s̪ʉ́ᵝ.mè̞ í.jỳᵝ]) — "the Ifsumé language"
• 咲葩 Inĕshîmé [i.n̪ɛ̯.ɕí͜ì.mé̞] (咲葩ぱ "inĕshîmyà [i.n̪ɛ̯.ɕí͜i.mᶣi̯ɐ̞̀]) — "the Ineshîmé Great Island, a large aerial landmass"; "the civilisation there based"; "a person from that civilisation
• 咲葩語 Inĕshîmé-if [i.ɕí͜ì.mé̞ ìɸ] (def. 咲葩語い Inĕshîmé-iyu [i.ɕí͜ì.mé̞ ì.jyᵝ]) — the name of this language
• 花 saki [s̪ɐ̪.ci], (def. 花ぱsakya [s̪ɐ̪.ci̯ɐ̞̀]) — "flower"
• 雪 luki [ʎyᵝ.ci], (def. 雪ぱ lukíya [ʎyᵝ.cí.jɐ̞̀]) — "snow"
• 龍 izure [i.z̪ʉ́ᵝ.ɾ̪è̞] (def. 龍ぱ izuréya [i.z̪ʉᵝ.ɾ̪é̞.jɐ̞̀] — "dragon"
• 秏車 kanbósha [kɐ̞ɴ.bóᵝ.ʃɐ̞̀] (def. 秏車い kanbóshe [kɐ̞ɴ.bóᵝ.ʃè̞]) — "pumpkin"
• 鼠 kanpóra [kɐ̞ɴ.póᵝ.ɾ̪ɐ̞̀] (def. 鼠い kanpóre [kɐ̞ɴ.póᵝ.ɾ̪è̞]) — "mouse"
• 貓 temi [t̪e̞.mᶣi] (def. 貓ぱ temíya [t̪e̞.mᶣí.jɐ̞̀] — "cat"
• 貎 ari [a.ɾ̪ʲi] (def. 貎ぱ ariya [ɐ̞.ɾ̪ʲi.jɐ̞̀]) — "lynx, bobcat, mountain lion, catamount; (archaic) lion"
• 貎狛 arishen [ɐ̞.ɾ̪ʲi.ɕè̞ɴ] (def. 貎狛い arishéni [a.ɾ̪ʲi.ɕé̞.n̪ʲì]) — "lion"
• 蓊 saidóri [s̪ɛ͜i.d̪óᵝ.ɾ̪ʲɪ̀] (def.蓊ぱ saidórya [s̪ɛ͜i.d̪óᵝ.ɾ̪ʲɪ̯ɐ̞̀]) — cyclamen; (proper name) "Saidori, a city"
• 鏌 (archaic: 去季) sarêsh [s̪ɐ̞.ɾ̪é̞͜e̞.ɕɕ̀] (def. 鏌い, archaic: 去季い, saréchi [s̪ɐ̞.ɾ̪é̞.c͡ɕì]) — "sarêsh, a kind of greatsword with a slight curve in the blade, similar to a Chinese dao, but quite a great deal larger, a weapon used frequently in Ineshîmé martial arts"
• 鋭 eri [e̞.ɾ̪ʲi] (def. 鋭ぱ eriya [e̞.ɾ̪ʲi.jɐ̞̀]) — "weapon, armament"
• 生法 istóri [is̪.s̪t̪ó̞ᵝ.ɾ̪ʲɪ̀] (def. 生法ぱ istórya [is̪.s̪t̪ó̞ᵝ.ɾ̪ʲɪ̯ɐ̞̀]) — "istori, a technique for channelling îs used for various daily, martial, and personal purposes (in which is comprised much of the fantasy of the setting)"
• 生呪 isĕnóri [i.s̪ɘ̥̀.n̪óᵝ.ɾ̪ʲɪ̀] (def. 生呪ぱ isĕnórya [i.s̪ɘ̥̀.n̪óᵝ.ɾ̪ʲɪ̯ɐ̞̀]) — "spell, charm, enchantment"; "magic" (practice); "vital sorcery" (literal)
• 詛 inóri [i.nóᵝ.ɾ̪ʲɪ̀] (def. 詛ぱ inórya [i.nóᵝ.ɾ̪ʲɪ̯ɐ̞̀]) — "spell, charm, enchantment" (a contraction of the above, unrelated to Japanese 祈り "inori", coincidentally meaning "prayer")

I'm enjoying the phonoaesthetic result so far. This may give away a little about the fiction for which I'm creating this, but I suppose that's all right. I'm not entirely sold on importing Hiragana for this, though I imagine a similar system would've developed, and they're good enough as a stand-in; I thought of using Hentaigana, but I suppose I must make do with what I have encoded, and those tend not to display very well. The definite forms tend to feel very Japanese, I think, while the Indefinite forms seem a bit more... Persian...? French? some sort of oddly soft Germanic? Many of the changes on that front were inspired by the odd consonantalisation of certain vowels in Miyako. I expect this is going to need quite a lot more work, but I have write-ups on the declension paradigms (there is some very extensive nominal morphology that's developed from particle absorption) and conjugation tables (adjectives are still verb-like, and they seem to quite enjoy cheating off the verbs for new inflections, ehehehehe).

[Vardelm]

I'm enjoying the phonoaesthetic result so far.

The definite forms tend to feel very Japanese, I think, while the Indefinite forms seem a bit more... Persian...? French? some sort of oddly soft Germanic?

I agree. It's Japanese-ish, but especially with the indefinites it's subtly different. To me it feels like a variation on Japanese made for a fantasy/medieval anime world. Not sure why, but that's my impression. I like it & look forward to the declension & conjugation info.

[Rounin Ryuuji]

I'm enjoying the phonoaesthetic result so far.

The definite forms tend to feel very Japanese, I think, while the Indefinite forms seem a bit more... Persian...? French? some sort of oddly soft Germanic?

I agree. It's Japanese-ish, but especially with the indefinites it's subtly different. To me it feels like a variation on Japanese made for a fantasy/medieval anime world. Not sure why, but that's my impression. I like it & look forward to the declension & conjugation info.

That's a good deal of what it's for, though Mediaeval would probably not accurately describe the world, which doesn't slot in nicely at all with any one period of our own: smaller towns might look vaguely similar to something from Georgian England, but with more odd intrusions of crystal, generally magical-looking things; the material culture is heavily influenced not only by the fantasies I've mentioned already, but by Anglo-Japanese art (albeit perhaps with the elements reversed, as if a culture that might at one point have looked more Japanese took in things from Europe centuries earlier and nativised them rather than trying to Westernise all at once), a sort of inversion of the idea of Japonisme. Cooking seems to be as mismashed as anything you might find in a developed country today (characters mention eating quiches, stir-fries, "stacktoast" — had to invent a new word for "sandwich on toast", "potatoes Kokori" ("French fries"), and some sort of tomato-based sauce all in the same region as if none of these things were particularly remarkable; rice is, however, not as common as would be expected, but it certainly is eaten with some frequency). This is at least partly because I like cooking...

[Vardelm]

Cool!

[Rounin Ryuuji]

Cool!

Thank you.

Anyway, I've had some technical difficulties today, but I think my word processor is finally sorted out enough to give some basic nominal morphology tables; they don't list every possible declensional pattern and irregularity (which will take some time to produce), but I think it gives a good enough overview.

Also, while the individual "Kanji" (I don't have an internal name for them yet) characters will always have fairly predictable readings, any good Japonic language must have an orthography which is in some way at least a little bit of an absolute clusterfuck; it is mentioned in the document on inflections, but the retrofitted Kana spellings are... some of them not very intuitive if you speak Japanese, being based on the ancestor of the current language as it was spoken several generations before the narrative present, the Ineshîmé themselves not being greatly fond of orthographical reforms when everything is already written like this anyway. There are, fortunately, not analogues on'yomi and kun'yomi to make it too frustrating to bear.

[Ketsuban]

Oh god, that etymological spelling. It's hideous. I love it.