Yakish

Yakish is Isolate language, with its earliest forms spoken by the inhabitants of medieval Yakland. It is named after the Yaks. Speakers of Yakish are called Yaklphones. The Yakish language is a highly inflected language, with a system of noun declensions. Yakish has a strong tradition of oral storytelling, with many tales passed down from generation to generation.

Classification
Yakish is an Isolate language.

Phonology
Main article: Yakish phonology

The phonetics and phonology of the Yakish language differ from one dialect to another, usually without interfering with mutual communication. Phonological variation affects the inventory of phonemes (i.e. speech sounds that distinguish meaning), and phonetic variation consists in differences in pronunciation of the phonemes. This overview mainly describes the standard pronunciations of Yakland

The phonetic symbols used below are from the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA).

Consonants
Most Yakish dialects share the same 18 consonant phonemes. The consonant inventory shown below is valid for Yakland Yakish.

Vowels
The pronunciation of vowels varies a great deal between dialects and is one of the most detectable aspects of a speaker's accent. The table below lists the vowel phonemes in Yakland Yakish, with examples of words in which they occur from lexical sets compiled by linguists. The vowels are represented with symbols from the International Phonetic Alphabet.