Samyr language

Samyr
Самӗрҫӗ, Самӗр тӗл
Pronunciation	[ˈsamɪ̈ɾɕɘ]
Native to	Qazhshava
Region	Southern Thuadia
Ethnicity	Samyr
Native speakers	56,047,000 (2010)
Language family	Samyr
Writing system	Cyrillic, Latin
Official status
Official language in	Qazhshava
Recognised minority language in	Riamo City of Nashe
Language codes
ISO 639-1	sm
ISO 639-2	smr
ISO 639-3	smr

Samyr ([ˈsɑːmɪəɹ, -ˈsæ], Samyr: Самӗрҫӗ Samĕrśĕ [ˈsamɪ̈ɾɕ̬ɘ], Самӗр тӗл Samĕr tĕl [ˈsamɘɾ ˈt̬ɪ̈l]) is a language spoken in southern Thuadia. It is the official language in Qazhshava, and one of the official languages in the Sekidean Union. It is spoken by approximately 56 million native speakers in Qazhshava, as well as in Kentalis, Krenya, Zhousheng and Riamo (in the Nashe region) and among the Samyr diaspora. It has four dialects groups: Northern, Central, Eastern and Western.

Classification

Samyr belongs to an isolate language family, which remains unclassified among others besides being part of the areal Paleo-Qazhshavan languages.

Orthography

Samyr is written mainly in the Cyrillic script, and in Latin among diaspora and Samyrs in other countries. The Samyr alphabet was based upon the varying cyrillic alphabets used by the slavic people of Qazhshava, the modern version of it was created in 1961 by Tamir Tyulov, a Qazhshavan linguist, and adopdet a year later in 1962.

А а	Ӑ ӑ	Б б	В в	Г г	Д д	Е е	Ӗ ӗ
Ж ж	З з	И и	Й й	К к	Л л	М м	Н н
О о	П п	Р р	С с	Ҫ ҫ	Т т	У у	Ў ў
Ф ф	Х х	Ц ц	Ч ч	Ш ш	Ь ь	Ю ю	Я я

The modern romanization of the Samyr alphabet was created in the 1970's and adopted in areas like Kankadia, Krenya, and by the Tghoks in Zhousheng.

А а	Ă ă	B b	C c	Ć ć	D d	E e	Ĕ ĕ
F f	G g	H h	I i	J j	K k	L l	M m
N n	O o	P p	Q q	R r	S s	Ś ś	T t
U u	Ŭ ŭ	V v	W w	X x	Y y	Z z

Detailed table of the Samyr alphabet with each letter's phoneme:

Order	1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8	9	10	11	12	13	14	15	16	17	18	19	20	21	22	23	24	25	26	27	28	29	30	31	32
Cyrillic upper case	А	Ӑ	Б	В	Г	Д	Е	Ӗ	Ж	З	И	Й	К	Л	М	Н	О	П	Р	С	Ҫ	Т	У	Ў	Ф	Х	Ц	Ч	Ш	Ь	Ю	Я
Cyrillic lower case	а	ӑ	б	в	г	д	е	ӗ	ж	з	и	й	к	л	м	н	о	п	р	с	ҫ	т	у	ў	ф	х	ц	ч	ш	ь	ю	я
Latin upper case	A	Ă	B	V	G	D	E	Ĕ	Ž	Z	I	Y	K	L	M	N	O	P	R	S	Ś	T	U	Ŭ, W	F	H	C	Ć	Š	Y	Yu	Ya
Latin lower case	a	ă	b	v	g	d	e	ĕ	ž	z	i	y	k	l	m	n	o	p	r	s	ś	t	u	ŭ, w	f	h	c	ć	š	y	yu	ya
IPA sound	a	ɤ̈	b	ʋ	ɡ	d	ʲe	ɪ̈	ʑ	z	i	j	k	l	m	n	o	p	ɾ	s	ɕ	t	u	ʊ	ʋ̥	x	ts	t͡ɕ	ɕ	◌ʲ	ju	ja

Phonology

Vowels

Samyr has eight vowels.

According to Λubomєr Џretyȝa, a Bogmian linguist, the Samyr vowel system includes five normal vowels and 4 short counterparts to them, except /i/. And according to the Qazhshavan linguist Tamir Tyulov, it instead has three centralized vowels, which in some dialects get merged, modern linguists agree with Tylov's system when speaking about the langauge broadly, due to the varying quality of the vowels in the diferent dialects.

Λubomєr Џretyȝa
(1947)

	Front	back
Close	i	u, ŭ
Mid	ʲɛ, ĕ	ɔ
Open	a, ă

Tamir Tyulov
(1961)

	Front	Central	back
Close	i	ɪ̈, ʊ	u
Mid	ʲe	ɤ̈	o
Open		a

^1 palatalized when it's the first sound of a word, or it comes after a vowel or consonants with palatal equivalents.

In modern Samyr there are two types of vowel harmony, following if the previous vowel of the word is a front, back or round vowel.

	Vowels	Harmony
		type 1	type 2
Front	i, ʲe, ɪ̈	ɪ̈	i
Back	a, ɤ̈,	ɤ̈	a
Round	o, u, ʊ	ʊ	u

A - denotes type1 vowel harmony
А² - denotes type 2 vowel harmony, which is used in some affixes like the clitic genitive pronouns (possessives) and others.

Consonants

Samyr dosen't distinguish between voice in consonants, where voiced appear allophonically. The plosives, affricates and fricatives are voiceless and fortis but become lenis (sounding similar to voiced) in intervocalic position and after approximants, rhotics and semi-vowels, however, palatal (geminite) consonants do not undergo this lenition. Furthermore, the voiced consonants occurring in foreign loanwords stay lenis.

		Labial	Alveolar	Palatal		Velar
Plosive/ Affricate	plain	p	t	t͡ɕ		k
	palatal	pʲ	tʲ			kʲ
Fricative			s	ɕ		x
Nasal		m	n	nʲ
Approximant		ʋ	l	lʲ	j
Rhotic			ɾ