Thalskhon

Thalskhon, colloquially called Jiral, is the preeminent language spoken by the Jiralhanae Hrutol skein. After the Jiralhanae's rapid accession to the Covenant, Tartarus and his allies used Thalskhon as a lingua franca among the Jiralhanae, pushing against the Covenant's attempts to encourage them to adopt Qerenoka. Thalskhon is consequently spoken widely by many Jiralhanae within the Covenant, though most of those raised outside the cultural sphere of Hrutol learn it only as a second language.

Phonology
The phonemes are approximations or best guesses by the Office of Naval Intelligence to create a standard phonology for Thalskhon. In practice, the actual spoken language is highly varied due to the high number of dialects and non-native speakers, as well as the short time it has enjoyed its hegemonic status among the Jiralhanae.

Phonemes / Romanization


 * Brackets denote allophones.
 * /p/ occurs in several dialects as part of a free variation continuum with /b/, but it is not distinguished from /b/ in "standard" Thalskhon.
 * Note that "th" in standard romanization is not the English th, as in the, but rather an aspirated consonant.
 * Note that "x" does not represent "ks" but a sound more akin to "kh".
 * Likewise, "c" represents an exotic approximation of the voiceless epiglottal affricate, which could alternatively be transcribed as "kkh" or "qkh".
 * Most common English forms of Jiralhanae given names (e.g. Tartarus, Atriox) do not follow this romanization scheme as they are Latinized to a fanciful degree. However, place names like Oth Sonin, Doisac, Warial and Teash are transcribed reasonably accurately.

There is no semantic distinction between short and long vowels (though both occur phonetically).

Phonotactics
The standard syllable structure is CVC.


 * Any consonant may act as a syllable onset or be in the word-initial position.
 * The following consonants may act as codas: c, k, g, t,
 * The following consonants occur word-finally:

Unlike in Qerenoka, consonants (such as c, s, l, or x) are very common in syllable codas as well as word-finally.