02-Phonology
02 - Phonology
Sound Inventory — 17 Sounds Total
Vowels (5)
| Letter | Sound | Like |
|---|---|---|
| a | ah | Spanish casa |
| e | eh | Spanish peso |
| i | ee | Italian vino |
| o | oh | Italian solo |
| u | oo | Spanish luna |
Vowels are fixed and pure — no diphthongs, no glides. Each vowel sounds the same in every word.
Consonants (11)
p, t, k, m, n, s, l, r, h, y, v
Pronounced as in Spanish/Italian. The r is a soft tap, not a roll. The h is a soft breath, not silent.
Special (1)
* — a vocalized click/tsk sound. Written as asterisk in everyday Latin LEKA. Marked with a spiral glyph in the ceremonial script.
The Click — Semantics
The click marks weight, presence, or sacredness.
It says: this is the thing itself, not just a passing reference to it.
The click is LEKA's most expressive sound. It is rare on purpose — if everything gets a click, nothing does. The click is earned.
The Four Tiers of Click Usage
1. Lexical — in specific words
Some words carry the click in their name and are inherently weighted. Currently only *ira (the click's own letter name).
2. Emphatic — anywhere in speech
Speakers can insert a click to add weight. Me *ama tu = "I TRULY love you." Like spoken italics.
3. Grammatical — Collective Possession
The click as infix between root and -mu shifts possession from intimate-we to whole-community-we:
- kasa-mu (our house, our few) → kasa*mu (THE community house)
- tem-mu (our community, intimate) → tem*mu (the whole community as one)
See 04-Grammar for the full pronoun and possession system.
4. Sacred Address (Vocative) — as a prefix
- *mata — "Mother" as invocation
- *kami — addressing the spirits
Pronunciation
The click is a brief, deliberate tsk — voiced just enough to be heard. In speech, it interrupts the flow for a fraction of a second, then resumes. That tiny pause IS the weight.
The Apostrophe ( ' ) — Breath Mark
The apostrophe is not silent. It marks a deliberate breath between two consonants that would otherwise blur into a foreign sound (like English /sh/, which LEKA does not have).
In particular:
- s'h → pronounced "suh-h" with a brief breath between the two consonants
- s'hanti → "suh-HAN-ti" (three syllables)
- tiras'hi → "ti-ra-SUH-hi"
In the ceremonial script, the breath gets its own glyph: the Crescent Breath — a small upward curve sitting between the two consonants. Literally the shape of an exhale.
Future use cases: if any other consonant pair risks fusing (rare in LEKA, but possible in community coinages), the apostrophe intervenes. The mark always means breathe here.
Stress Rule
Stress falls on the second-to-last syllable (penultimate). Always. No exceptions for word type or meaning.
| Word | Stress |
|---|---|
| temra | TEM-ra |
| nari | NA-ri |
| tiran | TI-ran |
| s'hanti | s'HAN-ti |
Single-syllable words carry their own natural stress.
Particles (ta, su, no, ke) flow naturally with whatever they attach to — no fixed rule.
Compound Stress
For hyphenated compounds, each component keeps its own penultimate stress. The suffix attaches and flows naturally.
| Compound | Stress |
|---|---|
| temra-mu | TEM-ra-mu |
| tira-pata | TI-ra-PA-ta |
| akua-i | a-KU-a-i |
| kana-ki | KA-na-ki |
Two-part compounds have two stress peaks. The word still sounds like itself when a suffix is added.
What's Not in LEKA
These sounds are intentionally absent:
- b, d, f, g — too close to other consonants; LEKA prefers softer voiceless versions
- w — replaced by v in v0.4 for warmth and Romance/Sanskrit roots
- z, j, x (as ks) — never used
- sh, ch, th — no digraphs that fuse two consonants into a foreign sound. When s and h appear adjacent (as in s'hanti), the apostrophe forces them apart.
Status: #finalized
Last updated: v0.8