That's a great explanation! It's very interesting how diil and dilon are constructed in reverse than English. Though, any case of -on isn't always this since there are quite a few words that contain -on (particularly colors).

Sos is the stressed syllable in ensosin. It's pronounced enSOSin rather than enSOsin, and in the latter case we could expect s to shift to z. Sizaan is pronounced SIzaan and not SISaan, sos that's why the pronunciation shifts there. The tendency is for unstressed consonants to be voiced and for voiced consonants to follow or precede unvoiced consonants, but that's another pattern to perhaps explore. I'm sure there are exceptions (such as sos and dov).

Here are a few examples. For demonstration all voiced phonemes are in upper case and all unvoiced phonemes are in lower case:

• thU'UM
• sU'UM
• LOk
• BOk
• kOD
• LAAs
• fAAZ
• tIID
• AHkRIN
• MINDOk
• MOtMAhUs
• kINBOk

Hypothetical words such as god, maaz, and ahprin would be better rendered as got, maas and ahbrin.

Possible root KA/KU with a meaning of "good/righteous/strong" that could encompass the words kah "pride," kaal "champion," kaan "Kyne," kul "prince," kul "good," kun "light/king." and dukaan "dishonor."

Another root KII meaning "birth" or "child," encompassing kiin "born," kiir "child," and kiim "wife."

I have been considering that stress patterns might explain the difference ensosin / sizaan. However I do not quite understand your explanation – how would “enSOsin” be pronounced differently than “enSOSin”? How would you spell the two using IPA?

Am I correct in assuming you mean that so is stressed in ensosin, but za is unstressed in sizaan, and therefore the latter has undergone mutation? That seems reasonable enough. It would indeed be interesting to see a closer study of how voicing and stress patterns relate to each other, and also to long versus short syllables (your overview of Pronunciation and Stress certainly is a start – one I almost feel ought to be pinned).

I think I’m going to post my “etymological wordlist” (actually a spreadsheet) as a Google document so you can get a better idea of what roots and derivations I’m imagining. The root KII is in there; KA/KU is certainly a grouping worth considering, too!

In IPA, ensosin would be (É›n 'so:s i:in). The distinction is that the second "s" of sos is at the end of the second syllable, not the beginning of the third, and may possibly even geminate. Whereas in sizaan (si: 'zÉ‘:n), "z" is at the beginning of the second syllable, not the end of the first, and so does not geminate and becomes voiced.

I realize now that the second syllable of sizaan most likely receives the stress since prefixes usually don't receive stress.

But it was never a matter of comparing "z" of sizaan to the second "s" of ensosin, was it? The theory was that since *sin-saan yields sizaan, then *en-sosin ought to yield *ezosin with assimilation of ns to z in both cases.

If sizaan is stressed on the second syllable that's unfortunate - it means the best explanation so far doesn't work. However, there is still the matter of the long syllable in sizaan, which might account for the assimilation if Dovahzul avoids double consonants followed by long vowels after prefixes.

Apologies, I thought we were discussing the second s of ensosin.

I don't think ns yielding to z is the right conclusion, considering the words ensosin and also unslaad. I think it's more likely the prefix is si- and n is a bridge in sindugahvon, turning sidu- into sindu-.

The only instance of id-vowel in the language is midun "loyalty," where mid is a root word. ind-vowel is much more common, as seen in the words mindin, mindok, mindol, mindoraan, pindaar, and sindugahvon. Sidugahvon to sindugahvon seems like a fairly natural shift in this context.

Yes, that makes sense. I agree with your conclusion.

@paarthurnax hey I'm new here sorry to break the thread of conversation (dispite how old it may be in relation to this question) but how would I spell ( heart ) in the dragon language

dantheram

@paarthurnax hey I'm new here sorry to break the thread of conversation (dispite how old it may be in relation to this question) but how would I spell ( heart ) in the dragon language

Hi dantheram, the word for "heart" is HIL, which would be spelled like this:

Note that this word is unofficial.

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