Kenku [KENK]
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Typology
Progressing
197 words
Kenku
Kenku [keŋk]*
KenkuKenku [keŋk]*
Registered by
[Deactivated User] on 30 July 2020
Language type
A priori
Place & SpeakersKenku is spoken by a population of around 5,000 .
Species
Human/humanoid
About Kenku
A lang I'm making on behalf of the DM for the Kenku in his game. I'm playing a Kenku Wizard and he wants a conlang for the Kenku for their writings so he asked me to make it. If you're wondering about /p/ and /b/ despite beaks not being able to produce it, it's a limitation of the words and names he already gave me so I decided that they are produced in the the throat somewhere rather than being labial since the Kenku obviously can't produce labials of any kind.
Sample of KenkuCan't find any yet.
Phonology
| Consonants | Bilabial | Alveolar | Post- Alveolar | Retroflex | Palatal | Velar | Uvular | Glottal | ||||||||
| Nasal | m | n | ɳ | ŋ1 | ||||||||||||
| Plosive | [p]2 | [b]3 | t | d | k kʲ | g gʲ | ʔ4 | |||||||||
| Fricative | s | z | ʃ | ʒ | [ç]5 | [ʝ]6 | [x]7 | [ɣ]8 | χ | [ʁ]9 | [h]10 | |||||
| Affricate | t͡s | [d͡z]11 | [t͡ʃ]12 | [d͡ʒ]13 | ||||||||||||
| Lateral approximant | l | |||||||||||||||
| Lateral fricative | [ɬ]14 | [ɮ]15 | ||||||||||||||
| Approximant | [j]16 | |||||||||||||||
| Trill | r | |||||||||||||||
| Flap | ɾ | |||||||||||||||
| Blends | ŋk | ŋg |
- /n/ before /k/ /g/
- Produced natively in the throat, allophone of /m/
- Produced natively in the throat, allophone of /m/
- Intervocalic /t/ but not /d/
- allophone of /χ/
- allophone of /χ/
- allophone of /χ/
- allophone of /χ/
- allophone of /χ/
- allophone of /χ/
- allophone of /t͡s/
- allophone of /ʃ/
- allophone of /ʒ/
- allophone of /l/
- allophone of /l/
- allophone of /i/
| Vowels | Front | Near- front | Central | |||
| Close | i i: | |||||
| Near-close | [ɪ]1 | |||||
| Close-mid | e e: | |||||
| Mid | ə2 | |||||
| Open-mid | [ɛ]3 | |||||
| Near-open | æ | |||||
| Open | a a: | |||||
| Polyphthongs | aʔi | aʔɛ | ɛʔa | iʔɛ | ɛʔi | iʔa |
- allophone of /i/
- Unstressed vowels
- allophone of /e/
Orthography
Below is the orthography for Kenku. This includes all graphemes as defined in the language's phonology settings - excluding the non-distinct graphemes/polygraphs.
 KenkuOrthography | ||||||||
| Aa/a/ | Áá/a:/ | Bb[b]1 | Dd/d/ | Éé/e:/ | Ee/e/ | Gg/g/ | GJ gj/gʲ/ | Íí/i:/ |
| Ii/i/ | Jj[j] | Kk/k/ | KH kh/χ/ | KJ kj/kʲ/ | Ll/l/ | Mm/m/ | Nn/n/ | NJ nj/ɳ/ |
| Pp[p]2 | Rr/ɾ/ | RR rr/r/ | Ss/s/ | SH sh/ʃ/ | Tt/t/ | TS ts/t͡s/ | Zz/z/ | ZH zh/ʒ/ |
| ✖ Unknown alphabetical order | ||||||||
- Produced natively in the throat
- Produced natively in the throat
