Sasmin:Sounds
The city for conlangs
[edit] Sounds and Alphabet
The Sasmin language has 32 symbols in its alphabet. Some symbols are a combination of 2 roman letters, but in Sasmin these combinations are seen as individual symbols in the alphabet. All symbols represent different sounds. There are eight different vowel sounds and 24 different consonantal sounds. Table 1 shows the sounds (in the International Phonetic Alphabet) and their corresponding symbols in the Sasmin alphabet.
IPA symbol IPA symbol a a ŋ nh b b ɤ o χ c o ó d d ø ö ð dh p p ɛ e r r e é s s ɡ g ʃ sh h h t t i i θ th j j u u k k ʋ w l l ɸ wh m m y y n n z z ɲ ñ ʒ zh
Also the schwa and the glottal stop are used, these do not have their own symbols representing them. The ‘e’ will sometimes be pronounced like a schwa and the glottal stop will appear between stems of words and their case, often depicted with an apostrophe – the apostrophe however doesn’t have to mean there is a glottal stop.
bésh’ic hikosh’oj /beʃʔiχ hikɤʃɤj/ our books hishi’c whipet’oj /hiʃiχ ɸipɛtɤj/ their horses
This table shows two examples. In the first sentence you see that a glottal stop occurs before the /i/ , but not before the /ɤ/ . The second sentence shows again that no glottal stop occurs before the /ɤ/. This is precisely what happens in Sasmin; a glottal stop occurs at an apostrophe before the /i/.
Abét eshem. /abet ɛʃəm/ We (females) are. Bé wet joltiry. /be ʋɛt jɤltiry/ They will eat.
The Sasmin language is easy to read; all the symbols correspond to their IPA-counterparts, except for the ‘e’ in some occasions. In the table above you can see that the schwa occurs in the last syllable only, and only when preceded by another syllable and followed by a consonant or nothing at all.
