Hraayan

Hraayan
Ngan Hraay
Pronunciation	[ŋan ˈɾ̥a.aj]
Created by	Fyorr
Date	2024
Setting	Earth; AltHist, Maritime SE Asia
Native to	Hraaya
Native speakers	~63.3 million (2025)
Language family	Sino-Tibetan Sinitic Hraayan
Early forms	Proto-Sino-Tibetan Proto-Sinitic Old Chinese Old Hraayan
Dialects	Songulutian Teyonic Gutohan
Official status
Official language in	Hraaya

Hraayan is a language spoken by approximately 63 million people in the Republic of Hraaya in Southeast Asia. Although the origins of the language are still a topic of debate within the linguistic community, most scholars agree that Hraayan is Sinitic in origin with heavy Austronesian influence, with minorities believing the language is a distinct branch in the Trans-Himalayan language family. Broad consensus is that Hraayan diverged from Old Chinese some time in the mid-1st millennium BCE, its speakers migrating southward, whereafter they first settled near the Mekong Delta and later in their present location. It serves as the native language of the Hraay ethnic group and is spoken natively by the majority of Hraaya.

This page is written as though it were diegetic, so any information unbeknownst to in-world linguists, or any context which would help in the understanding of this timeline, is placed in a box, like this. Hraayan is indeed a Sinitic language, having begun to diverge after citizens of the Cai State fled an ongoing war with the Chu Kingdom the Cai State was subsequently made to relocate.

Etymology

The etymology of the ethnonym Hraay, and thus of the name ngan Hraay, is unknown (although ngan is derived from Old Chinese 言 *ŋan "speech"). A formerly common theory is that it is related to the word Hraang "oriole" (from Old Chinese 鶬 *[s.r̥]ˤaŋ), though modern consensus is that the oriole as a national symbol is a later conflation due to phonological similarity with the word Hraay rather than a direct etymological link.

Hraay is descended from Old Chinese 蔡 *s.r̥ˤat-s, from the name of the Cai state.

Orthography

Hraayan is today written using a reduced from of the Latin alphabet, consisting of 22 letters. It makes no use of diacritics and borrowed words are always adapted to the native alphabet in official contexts, though in colloquial contexts spelling alterations are not made, and the Hraayan keyboard layout is broadly identical to the English one.

Hraayan Alphabet
Aa	Bb	Dd	Ee	Ff	Gg	Hh	Ii	Kk	Ll	Mm
Nn	Oo	Pp	Rr	Ss	Tt	Uu	Vv	Ww	Yy	Zz

Through frequent reforms by the Hraayan Language Association (Wu Ning yi Ngan Hraay, commonly abbreviated as WNNH), Hraayan spelling is broadly up-to-date with its pronunciation, although some digraphs are used.

Phonology

Consonants

Hraayan's consonant inventory consists of 22 phonemes.

	Labial	Alveolar	Dorsal/Glottal
Nasal	m	n	ŋ
Plosive	p b	t d	k kʷ ɡ ɡʷ
Fricative	f v	s z	h
Approximant	ʍ w	ɾ̥ ɾ l	j

[ɥ] exists as an allophone of /w/ in coda position after /i/.

All letters for Hraayan consonants correspond to their IPA equivalents, except for the following:

• /ɾ/ and /j/ are written with r and y respectively.
• The phonemes /ŋ/, /kʷ/, /ɡʷ/, /ʍ/, /ɾ̥/ and /ɾ/ are written with the digraphs ng, kw, gw, hw and hr respectively.

Vowels

Hraayan's consonant inventory consists of 5 phonemes.

	Front	Back
Close	i	u
Mid	e	o
Open	a

[ɪ] and [ʊ] exist as an allophones of /i/ and /u/ after /j/ and /w ʍ/. [ɛ] and [ɔ] exist as an allophones of /e/ and /o/ in the final syllables of polysyllabic words, though this is only typical of the Songulute dialect.

All letters for Hraayan vowels correspond to their IPA equivalents.

Stress

Stress in Hraayan is always word-initial. Classifiers are always unstressed.

Phonotactics

The maximum licit syllable structure in Hraayan is CVN/Ct; a word-final coda may consist of any of /n ŋ t s w j r nt wt jt/. Compounds which would violate these phonotactics instead simplify (e.g ihanot 'dream' + kuwut 'bad' > ihanokuwut 'nightmare').

Grammar

Morphology

Much like its presumed closest relatives in China, Hraayan has a strongly isolating grammar. Only one sublexical morpheme is used productively: the affix -yu, which marks pluractionality of the subject. It is placed on the verb, as a suffix by default, but if the verb root ends in a consonant, the affix is instead infixed, preceding this final consonant. This affix precedes the classifier and is the only morpheme to split a stem from its classifier in such a way.

Verb	Pluractional	Definition
du	duyu	to throw
yidis	yidiyus	to see
dot ro	doyut ro	to roast

WIP