Zivnician language

Zivnician is a constructed language made by Sapphoenix for the Zivnicians.

## Phonology

#### Consonants

Zivnician is notorious for having lots of very similar consonants, especially sibilants. It also has a large vowel inventory comparable in size to English's. It also has, uniquely, the heterorganic affricates /k͡s/ and /p͡s/.

#### Vowels

Zivnician has a large vowel inventory of 14 plain vowels and 3 nasal vowels, for a grand total of 17 vowel phonemes.

Vowels
 Near-close
 Mid
 Open-mid
 Open

Multiphthongs: ja, je, jo, ju, jɜ̃, jɛ̃, jɔ̃, jɜ̃j̃, jɛ̃j̃, jɔ̃j̃, jɜ̃w̃, jɛ̃w̃, jɔ̃w̃, ɪ̯e, ʊ̯o

## Orthography

#### Latin alphabet

Zivnician can be written in a Latin alphabet as shown below:

#### Unnamed alphabet

Zivnician can also be written in its native alphabet, as shown below:

***WIP***

All digraphs are considered separate letters of the alphabet and are placed after them (eg. ...C **Ch** D **Dh** E...), except for the digraphs ***jg kh jk jl jn jr***. These digraphs follow their parent letters (A Ä Ã...G Gj **Jg** H **Kh** I...J K **Jk** L **Jl** M N **Jn** O Ô...Q R **Jr** S Sc Sh...X Y Z Zj) instead of J or K.

The letters W and Y can either represent lax high vowels /ʊ/ and /ɪ/ or the semivowels /w/ and /j/. When unclear if a W or Y is meant to be a vowel or consonant, for example in compound words, a diaeresis is placed on the letter to indicate the vowel pronunciation. Hence, ⟨ka**y**mõlë⟩ is /ka**j**.mɔ̃w̃.lə/ but ⟨ka**ÿ**mõlë⟩ is /ka.**ɪ**.mɔ̃w̃.lə/.

The three letters ⟨ë w y⟩ are lax vowels and have these rules governing them:

* A word-final (terminal) lax vowel is always ⟨ë⟩.
* Counting backwards from the final ⟨ë⟩, the lax vowels alternate between merged ⟨ë⟩ and unmerged ⟨w y⟩.
* If any other vowel is reached, the pattern restarts - the following lax vowel must be an ⟨ë⟩.
* Not all ⟨ë⟩ will follow the rule; ⟨ë⟩ that results from the merger of ⟨ë⟩ and ⟨â⟩ is exempt from this rule.

The three nasal vowels ⟨ã ẽ õ⟩ are often in diphthongs - with a nasal /w̃/ before a non-iotated consonant; ⟨ãk ẽk õk⟩ /ɜ̃w̃k ɛ̃w̃k ɔ̃w̃k/, and with a nasal /j̃/ before an iotated or palatal consonant; ⟨ãq ẽq õq⟩ /ɜ̃j̃t͡ɕ ɛ̃j̃t͡ɕ ɔ̃j̃t͡ɕ/. Word-finally or before approximants, they are plain nasal vowels; ⟨kã kẽ kõ⟩ /kɜ̃ kɛ̃ kɔ̃/. Unlike in Polish and like in Portuguese, the glides are never pronounced as full nasal consonants - ⟨kãpan⟩ is pronounced /kɜ̃w̃pan/, not /kɜ̃mpan/. Word-final diphthongs with them are written with digraphs in W and Y.

Zivnician has a pitch-accent system.

* A falling tone generally occurs in monosyllabic words or the first syllable of a word. The only exception to this rule are the interjections.
* A rising tone generally occurs in any syllable of a word except the ultimate and never in monosyllabic words.
* There are also unaccented vowels.

Every word will have only one stressed vowel, with the exception of compound words.

Pitch-accent is often left unmarked. However, when marked, the rising tone is marked with an acute accent and the falling tone is marked with a grave accent. Unaccented vowels are left unmarked.

When written with accents, the nasal vowels are often written with ogoneks (ą́ ę́ ǫ́ ą̀ ę̀ ǫ̀) instead of tildes (ã́ ẽ́ ṍ ã̀ ẽ̀ õ̀), to make text look neater. However, this is not mandatory and many, out of laziness or personal preference, will just write the acute or grave accent over the tilde.