Phonology

The Wetejo language is designed to have a phonology somewhat similar to the Polynesian languages of reality; it has the five vowels common to languages like Spanish and a very limited consonant inventory (only 10). I chose this because I want it to be (relatively) easy for English speakers to learn while still feeling very different from the languages they're used to. As for vowels, I decided to just use the common five vowel system.

Stress defaults to the penultimate syllable, not counting inflectional suffixes. If there is at least one derivational suffix, then stress moves to the final syllable of the root word but can never fall outside the root. Vowels on unstressed syllables do not become lax as in English. /f/, /s/, and /k/ become voiced [v], [z], and [g] when immediately between two vowels, and unrounded vowels are rounded when immediately after /w/. /n/ assimilates to the consonant directly after it, if any. I chose a (C)V(n) structure for my language. /ji/ and /ij/ are banned, bringing the allowable total of syllables to 108.