Phonology
Sound inventory
Danetian has 22 consonant phonemes, shown below.
| Labial | Dental | Palatal | Velar | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Plosive | p, b | t, d | k, g | |
| Affricate | ts | tʃ, dʒ | ||
| Fricative | f, v | s, z | ʃ, ʒ | x |
| Nasal | m | n | ||
| Trill | r | |||
| Approximant | w | l | j |
Moreover, there are 6 vowels, shown below.
| Front | Central | Back | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Close | i | ɨ | u |
| Mid | e | o | |
| Open | a |
Syllable structure
The maximal syllable structure in Danetian is (s)(C)(C)V(C)(C)(C). The fricative /s/ may occur at the beginning before another syllable, as in stistami “I stand”. Actual syllables are frequently simpler than the maximal template.
Stress
Danetian has a stress-accent system. Every word carries stress on exactly one syllable. The location of the stress may seem unpredictable at first, but there are general rules that it tends to follow. For example, in one class of words, stress shifts between the stem and the ending in different case forms.
Letter-to-sound correspondence
Danetian is written using the standard 26 letters of the standard Latin alphabet. The table below summarizes the sound-to-spelling correspondence.
| Letter | Condition | Sound |
|---|---|---|
| a | /a/ | |
| b | /b/ | |
| c | before e, i, y | /ts/ |
| c | otherwise | /k/ |
| ch | /x/ | |
| cj | /tʃ/ | |
| d | /d/ | |
| dj | /dʒ/ | |
| e | /e/ | |
| f | /f/ | |
| g | /g/ | |
| h | /x/ | |
| i | /i/ | |
| j | /j/ | |
| k | /k/ | |
| l | /l/ | |
| m | /m/ | |
| n | /n/ | |
| o | /o/ | |
| p | /p/ | |
| ph | /f/ | |
| q | in qu | /kw/ |
| r | /r/ | |
| rh | /r/ | |
| s | /s/ | |
| sj | /ʃ/ | |
| t | /t/ | |
| th | /t/ | |
| tz | /ts/ | |
| u | /u/ | |
| v | /v/ | |
| w | /w/ | |
| x | /ks/ | |
| y | /ɨ/ | |
| z | /z/ | |
| zj | /ʒ/ |
Non-letter symbols
The apostrophe (‘) is used to prevent the formation of a digraph in some compound words, as in ud’jenti “they arise”.
Danetian also uses the standard symbols in European orthographies, such as the period (.), the comma (,), the colon (:), the semicolon (;), etc.