Right now, I've got a system that draws inspiration from Czech, Sami, and (for the vowels) Vietnamese with some slight reassignments. In what's supposed to be the alphabetical order for this language:
<a è e ö i j ü ơ ư y ò o u w p f b v m t ŧ ť d đ ď s š z ž n k g h ǥ ŋ l r>
/a ɛ e ø i j y ɤ ɯ ɰ ɔ o u w p f b v m t θ t͡ʃ d ð d͡ʒ s ʃ z ʒ n k ɡ x ɣ ŋ l r/
(If you're wondering where /ɥ/ is, it's actually [ɥ], an allophone of /j/ before rounded vowels. )
I've got a (C)(j/ɰ/w/l/r)V(C) syllable structure with a few phonological restrictions:
- The first C can't be an approximant or liquid. Syllables can start with a liquid, but not an approximant; /j ɰ w/ have become /ʒ ɣ v/ everywhere except after a syllable-initial consonant.
- There's no /tj dj sj zj/, they've become /t͡ʃ d͡ʒ ʃ ʒ/. Likewise, /ti di si zi/ is nearly always /t͡ʃi d͡ʒi ʃi ʒi/; though the former can occur in foreign words, they're usually pronounced as the latter.
- This language is supposed to come from an earlier one where coda consonants couldn't occur after long vowels or diphthongs. Since /ɛ ø y ɔ/ are monophthongizations of /aj oj uj aw/, they're not followed by coda consonants in the native language, though there's usually no trouble with pronouncing coda consonants after /ɛ ø y ɔ/ in foreign words.
- Palatalization is recessive only in the native language, thus /t͡ʃ d͡ʒ ʃ/ don't occur syllable-finally in native words in the standard language (though in some dialects, /t d s z/
/t͡ʃ d͡ʒ ʃ ʒ/ | i_$), and in uneducated speech they often have an /i/ inserted after them when they occur in foreign words (so <öť>, the word I currently have for copper, would be pronounced [ˈø.t͡ʃi] instead of /øt͡ʃ/ in these dialects).
Here are the alternatives I've considered:
- /t͡ʃ d͡ʒ j/ are represented as <ť ď j>: the current system, which is consistent and justified, but the first two of which might end up mispronounced by people familiar with Czech.
- /t͡ʃ d͡ʒ j/ are represented as <č dž j>: more closely follows Czech, but I'd like to have /d.ʒ/ and would need to resolve conflicts with it. That would most likely become <d·ž> in this system.
- /t͡ʃ d͡ʒ j/ are represented as <č ǰ j>: the alternative I find the most attractive, but I would have to resort to combining diacritics to write <J̌>, so it might cause display issues.
- /t͡ʃ d͡ʒ j/ are represented as <č j y>: I think the influence here is obvious, but I would need to come up with another letter for /ɰ/. I had <ğ> in earlier versions when there was a more straightforward Turkish influence in my system, but it looks weird to me in the contexts I foresee it occurring despite it making sense to me that it'd be a similar letter to the one for /ɣ/.