This page includes details about the phonetic inventory (sounds used in the language) of Sheřařma.
italics indicates an approximation of a sound
i ➝ beat
e ➝ play
a ➝ car
ё ➝ taken*
u ➝ boot
ö ➝ caught
o ➝ go
*= unstressed vowels in English
Diphthongs, or "gliding vowels" are combinations of two vowel sounds on the same syllable. The following diphthongs are found in Sheřařma:
m ➝ math
f ➝ faith
w ➝ war *
th ➝ thin
z ➝ that
s ➝ send
ř ➝ pero (Spanish "but")
n ➝ neck
sh ➝ rickshaw **
r ➝ aren't ***
l ➝ a lot ****
y ➝ million
k ➝ cat
ng ➝ sing
' ➝ uh-oh
h ➝ heart
t ➝ mint
d ➝ dine
*= like a combo of a "w" and a "v"
**= like the "sh" sound, but your tongue is farther back in your mouth
***= like "r" but your tongue is farther back
****= like "l" but your tongue touches the roof of your mouth instead of your teeth
Here's a chart of the distribution of all the sounds used in Sheřařma. This chart is on a page of the Lexicon google sheet, and tracks how many times each unique letter combination is used .
It's not completely accurate since certain things (like verb conjugation endings) aren't included in the lexicon while other things are (like noun case suffixes), but it is potentially interesting and shows general sound-use trends.
The sonority scale is especially important in the construction of syllables; the more sonorous a sound is, the closer to the nucleus (the vowel sound, or 'center' of a syllable) it will be (and vice versa for less sonorous sounds). Basically, if it's less sonorous, then it will be closer to the ends of a syllable.
The sonority scale for all sounds in all human languages follows a general pattern (most sonorous to least sonorous):
vowels
approximants
nasals
fricatives
affricates
stops
All languages have a set of rules about which sounds can happen where in words and syllables (ex: the sound "ng" cannot happen at the beginning of a word in English). Here are some for Sheřařma:
Stops (/t/ [t], /d/ [d], /k/ [k]) never precede /θ/ [th] or /ð/ [z]
No more than two consonants comprise the onset, nor the coda
the onset is the collection of consonant sounds at the beginning of a syllable, and the coda is the consonant sounds at the end of a syllable
If there are two consonants in an onset, the second must be an approximant
/ɻ/ [r] becomes /ɾ/ [ř] when occurring after a vowel. This includes when at the beginning of a syllable following one with no coda.
/ʔ/ ['] can only be an onset, and when it occurs, it is the only onset consonant
Syllables starting with /ʔ/ ['] only occur after syllables with no coda
Next suggested page: Nouns
Header is Woodlands by Jonas De Ro