Myacha language

Myacha
Tuocha
Myâcâ, Tùocâ
Pronunciation	[mja˥˦˩.t͡s̠a˥˦˩], [tʊo̯˨˩.t͡s̠a˥˦˩]
Native to	Hondonia
Region	Southern Thuadia
Ethnicity	Myacha
Native speakers	~ (2010)
Language family	Proto-Hamaric (?) Honoic Eastern Myacha
Writing system	Latin
Official status
Official language in	Hondonia File:SekideanUnionNoStarsFlag.png Sekidean Union
Language codes
ISO 639-1	tc
ISO 639-2	tuc
ISO 639-3	tuc

Myacha (/ˈmjat͡ʃə/), or Standard Northern Myacha (Myâcâ [mja˥˦˩.t͡s̠a˥˦˩] - "mountain language"; Tùocâ [tʊo̯˨˩.t͡s̠a˥˦˩] - "thunder dragon language"), is a Honoic langauge spoken in the mountains of southern Thuadia, mainly in the nation of Hondonia, where it's one of the 3 official languages, it is also official in the Sekidean Union. The language is the most spoken out of the Honoic family and serves as a lingua franca in the mountains of Hondonia from the times of the Tùocóng empire.

The standard form of the language is based on the northern dialect, known natively as Tùocâ which translates to "Thunder Dragon language". Myacha is a tonal and analytical language, majority of it's core vocabulary is monoyllabic, meaning it is comprised of one syllable, dysillabic words exist but are very rare. The language is written in a modyfied latin alphabet, it also has its own native script which is getting revived among the common population, as during the Moldanian expansion of the collony of Noua Românie expanded indo the Tùocóng empire and the Moldanians conquered it, the script was able to stick arround only in the isolate and hard to reach monesteries and temples in the mountains.

Phonology

The following summarizes the sound system of the northern dialect of Myacha, the most influential variety of the spoken language, of which the standard language is based on.

Consonants

The consonants are the following: The languauge dosent have phonemic voicing in the plossives, affricates and fricatives, they could appear as voiced allophonically in intervocallic possitions.

	Labial	Coronal	Palatal	Velar
Nasal	m	n		ŋ
Plosive	p	t		k
Affricate		t͡s̠
Fricative		s̠		x
Approximant	ʋ	ɺ	j

• The sound /ʋ/ can be realized as voiceless [ʋ̥~f] depending on the speaker.
• The sounds /t/ and /n/ are most commonly pronounced as dentalized [t̪] and [n̪].
• Depending on the speaker, the sounds /s̠/ and /t͡s̠/ can be realized as dentalized [s̪] and [t͡s̪] or as postalveolar [ʃ] and [t͡ʃ] depending on the dialects.

Vowels

Ioan Dimintrescu describe five vowels in the standard language:

	Front	Central	Back
Close	i (ɪ)		u (ʊ)
Mid	e	(ə)	o
Open		a

The vowels in brackets are common allophones for the other sounds: /i~ɪ/, /u~ʊ/ and /a~ə/.

Allophonically nasalized vowels exict as some speakers, especially younger ones, don't fully pronounce nasals when they are in the coda position of a syllable, for example in these scenarios words like cám (two) and màn (horse) would be pronounced as /t͡s̠ãɰ̃˦˥/ and /mãɰ̃˨˩/ instead of as /t͡s̠am˦˥/ and /man˨˩/.

Dimintrescu also describes eighteen (modern linguist concider there to be only fourteen) phonemic diphthongs in the standard language:

	-i	-e	-a	-u	-o
j-	ji		ja	ju	jo
ʋ-	ʋi		ʋa	ʋu	ʋo
e-	eɪ̯
a-	aɪ̯			aʊ̯	ao
u-	uɪ̯		uɐ̯		uo̯
o-	oɪ̯		oɐ̯	oʊ̯

• /ʋ/ arose from the old myacha /w/ sound, which still appears in some dialects of the language.
• Some speakers may pronounce the /aɪ̯/ diphthong as /ɛɪ̯/.

Tones

Myacha is a tonal language, which means phonemic contrasts can be made on the basis of the tone of a vowel.

In the standard language there are four proper tones as well as a 'neutral tone', in the table below the tones are shown in minimal pairs:

Tone	Word	IPA	Meaning
High	má	[ma˦˥]	Mother
Low	mà	[ma˨˩]	I
Rising	mǎ	[ma˩˨˥]	Eight
Falling	mâ	[ma˥˦˩]	Water
Neutral	ma	[ma˨]*	Question particle

• The neutral tone has no specific contour, it appears on weak syllables on particle words; its pitch depends chiefly on the tone of the preceding syllable, if there is no preceding syllable, it is realized as a low tone.