A while ago I was playing a nation-building game online and got a bit carried away with the fluff. The result is my most recent and arguably most developed conlang yet. I haven't posted on this board in a while, but I figured that of anybody would give feedback it would be y'all.

Phonemes and how they are written.
á-(æ) k-(k) u- (u)
a-(ɑ) l- (l), (ɬ) v- (v)
b- (b), (β) m-(m), (mʲ) y- (j)
d- (d) n- (n), (ɲ)
e- (ɛ) o- (o)
f- (f), (vʷ) p- (p), (b)
g- (g) r- (r)
h-(h), (hʷ) s- (s)
i- (i) t- (t), (tɕ)
j- (ʒ)

Digraphs

any vowel plus -h velarizes the vowel or changes its height
áh-(æˠ) ah-(a) eh-(e)/(eˠ)/(ɛˠ) ih- (ɨ) oh-(ɔ)/(ɔˠ)/(oˠ) uh-(ʊ)/(ʉ)
There are also many common consonantal digraphs.
gh-(ɣ)/(ʝ) depending on region kh- (x)/(ç) depending on region.
sh-(ɕ)

Next up- sentence structure, fluff and conjugation of basic vowels.

Sentence structure is always OVS, except when asking questions or using certain honorifics, when it switches to OSV or SOV respectively.
Asshukh is a Grand and beautiful city perched on the edge of the Sehyatmajál, the "Sand-Plains" in Asshukhtár, It occupies three hills near U-Namyashil- A large brackish lake that provides plentiful food and fertile soil- and stretches to many sand bars and beaches all along the lake. The Pacifistic, yet incredibly zealous religion observed by the Asshukhites is known as Shol-áaj or the way of Sun. Crowning each of the three hills is a temple. The grand Hashnumakht- or "dawn-temple" faces east towards the rising sun and boasts a massive lens used for the live sacrifice of animals-by burning. The Nokmakht- or "dusk-temple" faces west and holds archives and histories of the City's founding. The Bashnurlámmakht- or "Storm-front-temple" faces south and acts as both a cathedral and palace for the Khmat-or king.

Conjugation of Vowels- rules etc.
Vowels do not technically have an infinitive, and one would not be needed in speech or writing. Instead, vowels have a root of 2 or more consonants and are conjugated by changing the vowels inbetween consonants.

Example- K-m-t the verb to be.

I am- Kemt You are(pl 2nd)-Káml They are- Kámál
You are- Kámt He is - Kámát

F-sh The verb to have

I have- Fesh You all have- Foshl They have- Fáshl
You have- Fosh He/she has- Fásh

I'm trying to make sense of this series of changes and failing. First of all, what sequence of phones do you think a digraph like [æˠ] symbolises? [æɰ̯]? [a]? Because the expected effect of "velarization" on vowels is lowering of the second formant, and this is correlated not with height (which is determined by the first formant) but with frontness. Yet you have vowels being fronted (e.g. [a], [ʉ]) more often than backed ([ɨ]).

Perhaps you're confusing velarisation with pharyngealisation? In particular, some of your changes (e.g. [ɔ]) suggest characteristics of the advanced tongue root feature, which can be described as a partial pharyngealisation.

Velarisation was misused, I guess. I meant to show that the vowel was accompanied by an unvoiced velar consonant. [æˠ] would perhaps be better portrayed as [æx]. In my opinion, it's not that significant of a part of the language to be agonized over. The -h was just meant to change the vowel to another vowel, there wasn't meant to be a particular pattern.

In that case, maybe just say that a following h changes the quality of the vowel without getting into the messy business of trying to specify exactly how.

Moving on to your second post, I'm pretty sure you said "vowels" a number of times when you meant "verbs". I'm also not understanding the alternation Kemt - Káml - Kámál - Kámt - Kámát. What happens to the t in the 2S and 3S? And why is there no 1P form?

This back-story you mention sounds interesting. When will it be ready for us to read?


I'm not sure I fully understand. You seem to have multiple sounds for some letters. Are these supposed to indicate allophones and/or free variation? For example, could p be pronounced as /p/ or /b/ interchangeably? Or would it always be pronounced /p/ in some words, and /b/ in others?