Despotanmagi phonology

Being a dead language, the phonology of the Despotanmagi language has a phonology that varied a lot throughout the ages.

Phonotactics
While the language had an inventory of vowels and consonants that could be certainly considered exotic by many, it actually had several constraints that drastically limited the number of valid syllables:
 * In, the language's allowed syllable format was where P stands for plosive, F stands for fricative, A stands for approximant, V stands for vowel, N stands for nasal. Diphthongs counted as single vowels. Voiced stops were only allowed syllable-initially. Syllable-final nasal+plosive clusters had to be homoorganic.
 * In all forms of Despotanmagi, the consonant cluster was forbidden, and  caused any following - or preceding (if non-prevocalic) -  to open to  respectively.
 * In, the consonant clusters , , , , , , , , and  were forbidden - even in loanwords and compound words, they were replaced by , , , , , , , ,  and  respectively.
 * When a syllable ended with a plosive and the following syllable began with a vowel or an approximant,  became voiced  in Proto-Despotanmagi,  in Classical Despotanmagi. An exception to this rule was the uvular stop, which was consistently pronounced as a voiceless stop , though some linguists suggest that it was spirantized to  when not followed by a vowel.
 * Diphthongs were treated like single vowels. Vowel clusters were otherwise not tolerated, and thus had to be either replaced by diphthongs, or by putting a prosthetic consonant to separate the vowels - usually.

Classical Despotanmagi
The consonant inventory of Classical Despotanmagi was almost identical to that of Proto-Despotanmagi with some key differences:
 * The lateral obstruents have become regular sibilants.
 * The palatal consonants have phonemicized.
 * and have merged as a new phoneme, realized as an approximant  after other consonants, as a fricative  otherwise.
 * softened into a fricative.
 * may or may not have had allophonic spirantization to when not followed by a vowel.

Late Despotanmagi
The consonant inventory of mainstream Late Despotanmagi was basically identical to that of Classical Despotanmagi, with only a three changes occurring globally: during the last few centuries before the language's extinction, there was an ongoing process of vocalizing into a semivowel ; the simultaneously shifting the bilabial   to a labiodental ; and the process of losing the uvular stop, with some dialects debuccalizing it to , some spirantizing it to , others simply merging it with.

As a written standard has long been established, the sound shifts within the increasingly divergent dialects largely went unrecorded, except only in a few passing references about some dialects replacing coda nasals with vowel nasalization, aspiration of voiceless stops, conflation of the rhotic series with the palatal series, etc.

Vowels
The Massenpreost Despotanfras language was simplistic in its lack of vowel length distinction and intolerance for vowel clusters. All diphthongs consist of vowels of the same height.

After the uvular stop - as well as before any non-prevocalic  - the vowels  to open to  respectively.

Post-extinction reinterpretations
The Despotanmagi language eventually went extinct, but it remained in use as a dead language for religious reasons and magic. However, with no native speakers left, this left the language's pronounciation at the mercy of non-native speakers and their creative reinterpretations. With the exception of Neo-Despotanmagi, pretty much all reinterpretations merged with.

Lizardman
Despite the fact that the Lizardman languages have a far more restrictive phonotactical system than the Despotanmagi language, literati managed to preserve the original pronunciation to a good degree - at least early on. A fairly common mistake was the conflation of the Despotanmagi consonants with the Archaic Lizardman consonants, however, out of these,  ended up shifting to  in Classical Lizardman anyhow.

While expert literati had no problems with the vowels, many mispronounced the vowels as, only pronounced  as intended - as. Later on, it wasn't uncommon to have pronounced as.

By the time the Continental Lizardman Empire was drawing its last breath, the most common mistake was conflating voiced and voiceless stops as voiceless unaspirated - to which the reactionary response was hypercorrection and the pronunciation of as aspirated. As the Continental Lizardman languages came to prefer open syllables, the addition of prosthetic vowels also became a common mistake.

Classical and Post-Classical High Elven
The Classical High Elven reinterpretation of the Despotanmagi vowels was  - which later became. For consonants, it was the mapping of all the Despotanmagi consonants to their High Elven equivalents, with having to be introduced as new consonants. were interpreted as regular consonant clusters, came to be pronounced as a trilled,  was hardened into a stop ,  became a glottal ,  became a labiodental ,  became a labiovelar  and later labiodental. Under the influence of Post-Classical High Elven, came to be pronounced as  before front vowels.

For just about every other Elven language - save for Neressan - this Froturnish pronunciation served as the gold standard, even though knowledge about the actual authentic pronunciation was readily available, and even taught at some places. Only after the proliferation of the Mages Guild did a far more authentic variation gain traction, but still coloured by the native languages of its speakers. Nevertheless, this Classical High Elven-influenced mispronounciation still persists and coexists with the more authentic Neo-Despotanmagi - for example, a Mage would use Neo-Despotanmagi when casting spells, but use High Elven pronounciation when just casually using Despotanmagi loanwords in Etrandish or High Elven.

Neressan
Neressans discovered and deciphered Lizardman texts without Froturnish aid - making an exception to their otherwise xenophobic attitudes, they employed the aid of a Lizardman scholar - one of the last of his kind - to teach Neressan scholars the Despotanmagi language, as well as how to decipher the cuneiforms. This led to the Neressans developing their own system of pronounciation, which was to pronounce the vowels as  under the influence of Middle Neressan, which later evolved into  under the influence of Contemporary Neressan. Out of the consonants, are were pronounced as  under the influence of Middle Neressan,  today.

Neo-Despotanmagi
The Mages Guild made its mission to find and preserve ancient Despotanmagi texts, and they also set out to reconstruct the original pronunciation to their best ability: the end result was something of a compromise between the various later reinterpretations, mostly made by making a comparative analysis. They also looked into all the texts that described pronunciation.

The end result was a system, where the consonants are pronounced in a way almost identical the original, with the only deviations being the pronunciation of as labiodental, and  being allowed to be pronounced however the speaker prefers in their own native tongue  - as a result of this,  also vary in pronunciation, being , , , , , , etc. Despite the toleration of the various ways of pronouncing , the recommended pronunciation is a post-alveolar approximant.

In this reinterpretation of Despotanmagi pronunciation, the vowels are pronounced as, which is pretty close to the original. This system did not completely replace the old classical (mis)pronounciation, and the two coexist, albeit the latter is no longer used for pronouncing full texts written in the Despotanmagi language - for that, Neo-Despotanmagi has taken its place.

In Neressa, this system never gained traction, as neither did the Mages Guild.