Zqescfr

Zqescfr (/ǀʡ͜ħø̤sʃɸʁ̤/) is the most common language of the Hksri. It exemplifies the tendencies of Hksri languages towards heavy consonant clustering.

Phonology

Consonants

	Bilabial	Dental	Alveolar	Postalveolar	Uvular	Pharyngeal
Stop	p /p/		t /t/		k /q/
Fricative	f /ɸ/	d /θ/	s /s/	c /ʃ/	r /ʁ̤/	h /ħ/
Affricate						q /ʡ͜ħ/
Click		z /ǀ/		x /ǃ/

Vowels

Vowels in Zqescfr are generally spoken in a whispered voice, notated here using the IPA breathy voiced diacritic.

	Front	Back
Close	i /y̤/ ï /y̰/
Mid	e /ø̤/	o /ɔ̤/
Open	a /ɶ̤/

Phonotactics

Zqescfr allows all fricatives to serve as syllable nuclei in addition to allowing large consonant clusters. The following rules are generally observed:

• q can only stand before vowels or r
• Clicks cannot be adjacent to any of t, d, s, or c

Syllabic consonants are sometimes marked, which is represented with a preceding ' in the transliteration, but this is not consistent.