Sesje
| Sesje | |
|---|---|
| Language family | Isolate |
| Writing system | Sesje Script |
| Official status | |
| Spoken in | Amuj |
| Regulated by | Casual Mitosis Collective |
| Speaker | |
| Number of speakers | 1 |
| Technical information | |
| Usage | Recordkeeping and signage |
| Language code | SJE |
Sesje (natively: Esesje Ocŵgjîd [ˈɛ.sɛ.ˌʃɛ ˈɔ.ʤʊ.ˌʤɪd]) is a language isolate spoken on the northeastern coast of the Sea of Fortune and is the official language of the city state of Amuj.
Phonology
Consonants
Sesje has 14 base consonants and 23 allophonic consonants, for a total of 37 consonants.
| Labial | Dental | Alveolar | Postalveolar | Palatal | Velar | Glottal | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Nasal | [m̥] m ⟨hm m⟩ | [n̥] n ⟨hn n⟩ | [ɲ̥ ɲ] ⟨nhj nj⟩ | [ŋ̊ ŋ] ⟨nk ng⟩ | ||||
| Plosive | p b | t d [ʦ ʣ] ⟨t d ts dz⟩ | ʧ ʤ ⟨ç/tj/kj/tsj c/dj/gj/dzj⟩ | [ʨ ʥ] ⟨çj/tçjh/tsçj cj/dcjh/dzcj⟩ | k ɡ | |||
| Fricative | [ɸ β] ⟨ph bh⟩ | [θ ð] ⟨th/phj dh/bhj⟩ | s z | [ʃ ʒ] ⟨sj/çh/sç/stj/skj/stsj zj/ch/zc/zdj/zgj/zdzj | [ɕ ʑ ç ʝ] ⟨çjh/sçj cjh/zcj hj/khj ghj⟩ | [x ɣ] ⟨kh gh⟩ | h [ɦ] ⟨h h⟩ | |
| Liquid | w | j | [w] | |||||
Consonant clusters are only allowed at the end of a word if the constituent consonants used to surround an elided [ə], and even then, the consonants may swap to make either an allophone or a more easily pronounced consonant cluster.
The consonants [m̥ n̥ ɲ̥ ɲ ŋ̊ ŋ ʦ ʣ ʨ ʥ ɸ β θ ð ʃ ʒ ɕ ʑ ç ʝ x ɣ ɦ] can only appear cross-syllabically, meaning across syllables, or at the end of a word that used to have an elided final vowel [ə].
Between two vowels or between a vowel and the start of a word, ⟨w⟩ is pronounced as [w], not [u].
Vowels
Sesje has 7 base vowels, 18 allophonic vowels, and 1 up-for-debate vowel, for a total of 25 or 26 total vowels.
| Front | Central | Back | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| High | i [y] ⟨i iw⟩ | ɨ [ʉ] ⟨u/ui uw⟩ | [ɯ] u ⟨wi w⟩ | |
| Near-High | [ɪ ʏ] ⟨î îw/iŵ⟩ | [ᵻ ᵿ] ⟨û/ûi/uî ûw/uŵ⟩ | [ɯ̽ ʊ] ⟨ŵi/wî ŵ⟩ | |
| Mid | [ə] ⟨ŷ⟩ | |||
| Low-Mid | ɛ [œ] ⟨e ew/io⟩ | ɜ [ɞ] ⟨y/ue uo⟩ | [ʌ] ɔ ⟨we/oi o⟩ | |
| Near-Low | [æ ɶ̝] ⟨ê êw/eŵ/îo/iô⟩ | [ɐ] ⟨ua⟩ | ||
| Low | [a] | ɑ [ɒ] ⟨a/ŵe/wê/ôi/oî ô/â⟩ | ||
Unstressed [ə] is elided in polysyllabic words.
Vowels with circumflexes, i.e. [ɪ ᵻ ʊ ə æ ɒ], are allophones of [i ɨ u ɜ ɛ ɑ ɔ] when unstressed.
[ɑ] may be realised as [a] by younger speakers.