Phonology

Consonants

In terms of phonemes, Adorish only had 18 consonants, which is a modest amount of consonants. However, this does not factor in allophones:

-          /g/ after a word-initial /a/ becomes [ŋ]

-          Affricates and fricatives are voiced when not at the beginning or end of a word.

-          In all dialects, the rhotic is pronounced as an approximant. Unlike Earth, alveolar trills are extremely rare in languages as less people on Tsaváran cannot pronounce them.

-          /ʃ/ is often pronounced [tʃ] in word-initial positions and [ʒ] in clusters with sonoramts.

Vowels

There are 12 phonemic vowels in Adorish (6 short and long vowels):

Generally there is less allophony in the vowels compared to consonants:

-          Both short and long /e/ and /o/ are lowered to open-mid position when in non-final position.

-          Long /aː/ is always pronounced at the back of the mouth.

-          Both short and long /y/ are lowered to schwa before sonorants. Note also that /y/ is pronounced in near-open position, not in full open.

Diphthongs

Vowels are allowed to be next to each other, either in the same syllable, or across two syllables. There can be no tripthongs in Adorish.

Adorish only permits the one-syllable diphthongs /ae/ and /ao/. For polysylabic diphthongs, there is /eo/, /ea/, /iu/, /io/, /ia/ and many others.

Phonotactics

-          The maximum syllable shape is (C)V(C)(C) or (C)(C)V(C).

-          No syllables can have two consonant clusters.

-          No consonant clusters can consist of two stops.

-          Clusters with two obstruents are rare and often seperated between syllables.

-          An initial consonant cluster cannot consist of two sonorant or a stop followed by a nasal or /l/.

-          Illegal consonant clusters are separated by /y/.

-          [m] can only occur word-initially or in consonant clusters.

-          Diphthongs with a long vowel or a stressed second vowel are pronounced as different syllables.

-          Any consonants are allowed word-finally except [f] which becomes [s] if it appears in that position. ˈ

Stress Accent

Stress is not fixed in Adorish. There are two modes of stress accents employed by speakers:

-          Mora-stress: The largest syllable receives strength. If there are two syllables with the highest length in the word, the earlier syllable in the word receives stress. Each short vowel and consonant receive 1 mora, whereas long vowels, diphthongs, and clusters receive 2 mora. This is the most common amongst dialectal forms.

-          Lexical-stress: Adorish stems tend to have a accented vowel. The syllable with that vowel is the one that takes stress. This stressed vowel gets overrided by prefixes and suffixes. This is the system used in orthography and the Central Dialect.

A syllable with the vowel /u/ in the nucleus cannot take stress. This is because stressed /u/ in Proto-Xynoric lowered to /o/

Dialects

Central Dialect (Enzyadór):

-          Standard Adorish roughly follows the conventions of the Central Dialect.

-          [au], [εu], and [iu], although common in the region around Telcon, are rarely used outside the central dialect.

-          <ch> is always pronounced [ʃ].

-          Telcon has /ae/ turn into [æ] after the vowel /i/, which in turn becomes the approximant [j].

Western Dialect (Rastanâdor):

-          Fricatives are voiced between vowels in this dialect.

-          Word final [o] is often shortened to [ə]

-          [y] at the beginning of words is pronounced [ɪ]

-          <ch> is pronounced [tʃ] word initially and [ʒ] in consonant clusters.

Eastern Dialect (Nistanâdor and Northern Inviram):

-          The standard values of <e> and <o> is [e] and [o]

-          <e> and <o> are lowered to standard [ε] and [ɔ] when unstressed (A feature from other Acorian languages).

-          [v] is pronounced [w] before front and mid vowels

-          [y] is merged with [i] regardless of length.

-          [θ] is pronounced [z] in the southern areas.

Halburo Dialect:

-          [x] softened to [h] in this dialect

-          [i] in word-final syllables lowers to [ɪ].

-          [y] is always pronounced [ɪ] regardless of length.

-          Word final [o] is lost.