canish

Canish

Notes on a canine language.

Phonology

The canine muzzle informs quite a bit about the sounds involved in the language. For instance, due to a lack of fine motor control over the tongue-tip, dental, alveolar, and postalveolar consonants are impossible (or, at least, very difficult). Approximate values are provided in IPA where possible, as precise characters do not exist for such a muzzle.

Consonants

	Bilabial	Labiodental	Dental / Alveolar / Postalveolar	Retroflex	Palatal	Velar	Uvular	Pharyngial	Glottal	Epiglotal
Plosive	p b	- -	- -	- -	c ɟ	- -	q ɢ	- -	ʔ -	ʡ -
Nasal	- m	- -	- -	- -	- ɲ	- -	- ɴ	- -	- -	- -
Trill	- -	- -	- -	- -	- -	- -	- -	- -	- -	- -
Tap/flap	- -	- -	- -	- -	- -	- -	- -	- -	- -	- -
Fricative	ɸ β	- -	- -	- -	ç ʝ	- -	χ ʁ	- -	- -	ʜ ʢ
Lateral fricative	- βˡ	- -	- -	- -	- -	- -	- -	- -	- -	- -
Approximate	- -	- -	- ɹ	- -	- -	ʍ w	- -	- -	- -	- -
Lateral approximate	- -	- -	- -	- -	- ʎ	- -	- -	- -	- -	- -

Other non-vowel sounds

Palato-alveolar click (“clop”): ǂ

Vowels

Only central and back vowels are possible, as without the prominent arch in the palate, front vowels risk becoming palatal fricatives. Rounding is also very difficult except on the closed-back vowel, leading to [u] being the only rounded vowel (though it often shows up in diphthongs)

	Front	Central	Back
Close		ɨ	ɯ u
Close-mid			ɤ
Mid		ə
Open-mid			ʌ
Open			ɑ

Tones

Canish is a heavily tonal language. Much of the nuance for the otherwise limited emotional vocabulary lies in the tones.

• High
• Low
• High rising
• Low rising to mid
• Low rising to high
• High falling to mid
• High falling to low
• High-low-high
• High-low-high/mid-low
• Low-high-low

Thus:

• i aghi m` - [ɨ ‘ɑʁɨ m] (where the [m] has “high falling to mid”, which I can’t figure out how to IPA) is “I walk (maybe)”
• i aghi m\/ - [ɨ ‘ɑʁɨ m] (where the [m] has “high-low-high”) is “I walk (excited)”
• I aghi m\/\ - [ɨ ‘ɑʁɨ m] (where the [m] has “high-low-high-low”) is “I walk (nervous)”