Proto-Ileuran Phonology

Consonants

(Standard IPA, except that I use ś for a dental /s/)

Vowels

Allophones

Vowels in stressed syllables are long if followed by a single consonant, short if followed by a geminate or cluster. The vowel of the last syllable is always short.

/o/ becomes [u] next to a velar (including labiovelar) or uvular consonant.

Both /h/ and /ʁ/ become [ɦ] when intervocalic (between two vowels).

The clusters /tl/ and /dl/ are realised as lateral affricates [tɬ] and [dɮ].

Phonotactics

Syllables are C(r,l,ʁ)V(C). Aspirated consonants, /ʔ/ and labiovelars can only occur in the syllable onset and cannot be followed by another consonant. Nasals, approximants and /h/ also cannot be the first consonant of a syllable-initial cluster.

Grammatical function-words can begin with a vowel, but when this happens, [ʔ] is inserted before the vowel if it begins the utterance or comes after a word ending in a vowel.

Two different plosives cannot come together. When this would happen, the second assimilates to the first, forming a geminate. Only /ʔ/ cannot be geminated; plosive + /ʔ/ clusters are simplified by deletion of the /ʔ/.

Plosive + nasal clusters undergo metathesis to nasal + plosive and assimilate to the same point of articulation.

/s/ and /ś/ are not distinguished in medial clusters.

Orthography

The orthography is the same as the IPA, except that /ʁ/ is represented as <ř>. Full-sized <h> and <w> are acceptable as substitutes for the superscript letters, and <?> may be substituted for <ʔ>.