Pfoš

The Pfoš language was used mainly by poets and lyricists.

Some older manuscripts are written in the classical Qoš orthography, which was slightly weird.

The letter <x> was used for the africate [kḫ], and even more weirdly, the letter <q> was used for the africate [pf].

<gu ku nu> is pronounced [bu pu mu], <gô kô nô> is pronounced [bo po mo].

<ü> is pronounced like <u>, but it does not labialize the preceding velar.

Also the length was marked with acute instead of macron, the voiceless velar fricative [ḫ] was written with digraph <ch>, and the voiceled velar fricative [ğ] was written <h>. To the classical <ť ď> correspond modern <ć ǵ>.

Bothflench folk songs

measuring marches

Esoteric explanation

A "rephon" is a rephonemized language. (This term was coined by analogically with "relex = relexed language".) The reason for using such trivial conlangs is to be able easily translate rhymed texts into a language which is at first glance uncomprehensible to the reader.

Pfosh is designed for translating from Czech. The decoding is equal to coding (like at ROT13, albam or atbash). The eight places of articulations are simplified to four series:

bilabials and labiodentals
dentals and alveolars
postalveolars and palatals
velars and glottals

The translation is then done by swapping phonemes of the serie I with corresponding phonemes of serie III, and II with IV.

   I | II | III | IV
 p    t        ť  k
(q)     c  č     (x) 
    f   s  š      ch
 b    d        ď  g
    v   z  ž         h
 m    n        ň (ŋ)
(ł)   l    ř      r
(w)            j
 ú        (ű)  í  ý
 u        (ü)  i  y
 ů            (ï)  
(ô)            ě   
 o        (ö)  e  
 ó        (ő)  é 
                  a
                  á

It is better to leave /n/ and /a/ unchanged, because to change them to /ŋ/ and /ö/ would give an unnatural result.

Above mentioned "classical Qoš" was used for direct translation from written Czech. Qoš pronunciation of written velars before <u> as labials is the result of Czech palatalization of dentals before <i>.

Translating into so called "modern Kfoš orthography", the written Czech is first translated into more phonemic form:
ch h → ḫ ğ
di ti ni dě tě ně→ ďi ťi ňi ďe ťe ňe
y → i
ou → ow

Czech palatal plosives Ť Ď are written with a caron, but because the small letters t d have ascenders, the composed glyphs ť ď have marks shaped like an apostrophe. To avoid this, Kfoš replaces them with africtes ć ǵ.