Nymeran

Nymeran (or Tlíl Nime) is the language spoken in the land of Nym, the backdrop of Mythopoeia Mythopoeia’s comic Glow. The language and alphabet were created in 2015 by linguist Niamh Doyle. In 2021, gearing up for the fourth issue of Glow, Mythopoeia hired Jamin Johnson to take over the “care and feeding” and further development of Nymeran.

Nymeran is an a priori, fusional, ergative-absolutive language written with an abjad (with mandatory vowel marking) called (Sífantma Nime).

Phonology

Vowels

	Front	Back
High	í · [i · ]	· u [ · u]
Mid-High	i · [ɪ · ]
Mid	é · [e · ]	· o [ · o]
Mid-Low	e · [ɛ · ]
Low	a · [æ~a · ]	· á [ɑ ~ ɒ]

Nymeran does not distinguish vowel length. There is one diphthong, ⟨ai⟩ [aɪ̯].

Consonants

(Pardon the compactified consonant table. I know it doesn't quite all line up “properly,” but it does make more sense in how these consonants pattern in the Nymeran language. I had all I could do not to call ⟨r⟩ a labial approximant! If in doubt, rely on the transcription and not the row or column.)

	Labial	Coronal	Palatal	Dorsal
Plosive	p · b [p · b]	t · [t]	ch · [ʧ]	k · g [k · ɡ]
Fricative	f · [f · v]	s · z [s · z]	sh · zh [ʃ · ʒ]	kh · [x]
Nasal	· m [m]	· n [n]
Approximant		· l [l]	· j [j]	· h [h]
Rhotic		· r [ɾ~r]

Clusters

While a number of consonant clusters are found word-internally, there are four clusters which may be found in initial position, and which, in fact, have their own unique characters in the Nymeran Alphabet to represent them:

	+l	+r
m+	ml [ml]	mr [mɾ]
t+	tl [tl̥]
h+	hl [hl̥~l̥]