Chiifə /ˈʈʰiː.fə̤/ 
is a conlang that I made in an hour in 2017 for The Great CBB Speedlanging Weekend VI Thread (my post here)
Chiifə /ˈʈʰiː.fə̤/ is a conlang that I made in an hour in 2017 for The Great CBB Speedlanging Weekend VI Thread (my post here)
The constraints given in the thread were:
- Greater than 17 phonemes
- Not Past-Present-Future 3 tense system
- More than 1 voicing distinction
- No postvelar consonants (Previously: No gutturals (excepting velars))
- Nonconcatenative morphology suggested for at least one form
- Grammatical gender of some sort
- Palatization and Labialization as allophonemic processes/grammatical elements is disallowed
- A posteriori languages developed as diachronic practice are allowed as long as the previous is followed
The theme of the challenge is... "Cloud"
Consonants:
| Labial | Dental | Retroflex | Velar | |||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Heavy | Voiced stops | /b/ ⟨b⟩ | /d̪/ ⟨d⟩ | /ɖ~ɖʐ/ ⟨j⟩ | /ɡ/ ⟨g⟩ |
|
| Plain stops | /p/ ⟨p⟩ | /t̪/ ⟨t⟩ | /ʈ~ʈʂ/ ⟨c⟩ | /k/ ⟨k⟩ |
| |
| Light | Aspirated stops | /pʰ/ ⟨ph⟩ | /t̪ʰ/ ⟨th⟩ | /ʈʰ~ʈʂʰ/ ⟨ch⟩ | /kʰ/ ⟨kh⟩ |
|
| Fricatives | /f/ ⟨f⟩ | /s̪/ ⟨s⟩ | /ʂ/ ⟨sh⟩ | /x/ ⟨h⟩ |
| |
Vowels:
| Front | Back | ||
|---|---|---|---|
| High | /i/ ⟨i⟩, /iː/ ⟨ii⟩ | /u/ ⟨u⟩, /uː/ ⟨uu⟩ |
|
| Mid | /e/ ⟨e⟩, /eː/ ⟨ee⟩ | /o/ ⟨o⟩, /oː/ ⟨oo⟩ | |
| Low | /a/ ⟨a⟩, /aː/ ⟨aa⟩ | ||
Syllable structure is CV (the consonant is not optional)
Stress is on the penultimate syllable
Unstressed syllables have only /a i u/ as short vowels (distinction between i-e and u-o is neutralized). In unstressed syllables starting with an aspirated consonant or fricative, all short vowels are neutralized to /ə̤~ə̥/ ⟨ə⟩ (breathy voice or voiceless). Long vowels remain unneutralized.
Native non-compound words have the constaint that they only have either voiced and plain stops ("heavy" consonants), or only aspirated stops and fricatives ("light" consonants), with the exception that words with heavy consonants can include s.
Two genders: masculine and feminine. For humans, this corresponds to their gender (male/man/boy or female/woman/girl), with masculine used for mixed groups of people or unknown people. For inanimate objects, feminine is used for anything that typically flies, swim, or floats, including clouds, rain, birds, flying bugs, and fish, and also for abstract concepts; masculine is used for things that tend to stay on the ground.
Feminine nouns use light consonants, and masculine nouns use heavy consonants. Adjectives change their consonants to agree with nouns, with voiced stops changing to aspirated and plain stops changing to fricatives.
Nouns mark plurality by reduplicating the first syllable, with vowels changing to account for stress. Noun phrases are head-initial (noun adj prep-phrase). Genitives are marked with the preposition sə.
Pronouns are:
| Singular | Plural | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Masculine | Feminine | Masculine | Feminine | ||
| First person | Exclusive | ko
| ho
| kogu
| hokhə
|
| Inclusive | N/A | kopa
| hofə
| ||
| Second person | pa
| fa
| paba
| faphə
| |
| Third person | Animate | ke
| su
| bosə
| phosə
|
| Inanimate | gu
| khu
| |||
Verbs mark, as suffixes, in this order:
| Intransitive | Feminine object | Masculine object | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Feminine subject | su
| su
| see
|
| Masculine subject | ke
| kuu
| ke
|
: non-past
I sort of intended the use of voiceless consonants to sound cloud-like, and one of the genders is used (aside from humans) mainly for things in the sky, like clouds.
Spent ~1 hour, and probably less than an hour before that thinking.