Chiyãhra Mhãnghã

Chiyãhra Mhãnghã (aka "the Spoken Page" or "Book Speak") is the native language of many of the [WIP name] people, the primary national language of [WIP country name], and the literary language of a number of other Uranian countries.

Notes

Originally nicknamed "the nasal lang," then given the name chiyãhra [t͡ʃɪ.'ʎãh.ɹa] "page" as a placeholder because I liked the sound of the word, this language did not get the name chiyãhra mhãnghã [t͡ʃɪ.'ʎãh.ɹa m̃ã.ŋ̃ã] "the spoken page" until Aug 2024 (aka the day leading up to me deciding to write up this webpage).

I drafted this one up in late 2019 and only started touching it again now, early Aug 2024.

I found the concept of a language that nasalized consonants and vowels an entertaining one. Somewhere in that sliver of an idea came the idea of it having that nasalization distinction be the biggest phonemic thing about the language (and thus having nothing like voiced/unvoiced, non-ejective/ejective, unaspirated/aspirated, etc etc distinctions to take away from that). I picture these nasalized consonants being similar in practice to nasalized vowels. Just say them as normal, but also simultaneously more through your nose, like you're trying to speak cutesy or something! You should feel a decent amount of air flowing through your nose when you say them.

Work that still needs to be done:

• Evolution from parent to daughter language,
• Deciding on more grammatical things,
• And building up the lexicon.

Last updated 8/9/2024. (Typo corrected 8/16/2024.)

History

TBA.

Phonology

Chiyãhra Mhãnghã has non-nasal and nasal distinctions (or nasal and heavy-nasal distinctions for already nasal consonants) on all consonants and vowels save for the consonants [s] and [q]. There are no voiced/unvoiced distinctions, and no voiced consonant allophones of voiceless sounds.

		bilabial	labio-dental	alveolar	post-alveolar	velar	glottal
nasals	non-nasal	m [m]		n [n]		ng [ŋ]
	nasal	mh [m̃]		nh [ñ]		ngh [ŋ̃]
plosives	non-nasal	p [p]		t [t]		k [k]	q [q]
	nasal	ph [p̃]		th [t̃]		kh [k̃]
affricates	non-nasal				ch [t͡ʃ]
	nasal				chh [t̃ʃ̃]
fricatives	non-nasal		f [f]	s [s]			h [h]
	nasal		f [f̃]				hh [h̃]
approximants	non-nasal			r [ɹ]	y [ʎ]
	nasal			rh [ɹ̃]	yh [ʎ̃]

		front	central	back
close	non-nasal	i [ɪ]		o [o]
	nasal	ĩ [ɪ̃]		õ [õ]
open	non-nasal	e [ɛ]	a [ɐ]
	nasal	ẽ [ɛ̃]	ã [ɐ̃]

Given that m [m], n [n], and ng [ŋ] are already nasal consonants, what does the nasal diacritic mean for them? The consonants mh [m̃], nh [ñ], and ngh [ŋ̃] pattern along with the other nasalized consonants (ph [p̃], th [t̃], kh [k̃], etc...), but in actually are merely nasal consonants with heavy nasal emphasis. Speak as solely through your nose as you can on them, and you'll get them pretty much right.

They pair minimally with words such as kroskangh [kros.kɐŋ̃] "disgusting, detestable, gross, intolerable" and kroskang [kros.kɐŋ] "natural light" holding distinct meanings from each other.

The following diphthongs exist in the language: ey [ɛʎ], ẽyh [ẽʎ̃], ay [ɐʎ], ãyh [ãʎ̃], oy [oʎ], and õyh [õʎ̃].

Phonotactics

Syllables follow a (C)(R)V(N, h, s) structure, in which C is any non-rhotic consonant, R is any rhotic, V is any vowel or diphthong, and N is any nasal from the following list: mh, m, nh, n, ngh, ng. The consonsants /h/ and /s/ may also serve as coda.

Loanwords

Speakers of Chiyãhra Mhãnghã tend to calque words instead of borrowing them directly, though some terms, such as [WIP term] "woman", are harder to translate and get taken into Chiyãhra Mhãnghã in modified forms. Voiced consonants are subsituted with their closest unvoiced counterpart. Any [i] vowels are substituted with the diphthong [ɛʎ].

The word video game for example, then, might be borrowed as fiteyo keym [fɪ.tɛʎ.o kɛʎm] or fiteyyo keym [fɪ.tɛʎ.ʎo kɛʎm].

Sound Changes

TBA.

Grammar

Nouns

TBA.

Verbs

TBA.

Syntax

TBA.

Translation Gallery

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Lexicon

MASSIVE WIP.