Faiten

Faiten
Fae Tan Fah or 飛談話
Pronunciation	[fᴀi̯ tᴀn fᴀ]
Created by	Nathan Xu
Date	2009
Native to	Faitonia
Language family	Sino-Tibetan Sinitic Faiten
Official status
Official language in	Faitonia
Regulated by	共產媈唐人民共和國政府 or Kaung Shan Fai Tang Hnin Bin Gong Var Quoc Jieng Fu

Introduction

Faiten Language (also known as Tan Language) is a constructed language with its roots in the Sino-Tibetan language family. It is primarily spoken in the region of Faitonia and holds a community of 4 million speakers (4.5 million including in Faitonian diaspora). While Faiten initially gained popularity as a tool to circumvent government censorship on the internet, it has also evolved into a fully-fledged spoken language. Faiten's linguistic structure draws influences from mainly Chinese and in some cases Vietnamese.

Phonology

Vowel inventory

	Front		Back
Close	i	y	ɨ	u
Middle	e	ø	ə	o
Open	ɛ	œ	ᴀ	ɔ

Diphthongs

Palatal		Labial
i̯a	ai̯	u̯a	au̯
i̯e	ei̯	u̯e	eu̯
ɨ̯ə	əi̯	u̯ə
i̯o		u̯o	ou̯
y̯ø	øy̯
i̯u

Consonant inventory

		Labial	Dental	Velar	Alveolar	Retroflex	Palatal
Stop	Aspirated	pʰ	tʰ	kʰ	t͡sʰ	ʈ͡ʂʰ	t͡ɕʰ
	Tenuis	p	t	k	t͡s	ʈ͡ʂ	t͡ɕ
	Voiced	b	d	g
Fricative	Tenuis	f		h	s	ʂ	ɕ
	Voiced	v			z	ʐ	ʑ
Resonant	Nasal	m	n	ŋ
	Liquid	w	l				j

Correspondences From Middle Chinese

• 

  Faiten Initials

• 

  Faiten Open Rimes

• 

  Faiten Nasal Rimes

Notes:

• Labialisation of initials 幫 滂 並 明 only occur in independent rimes 嚴 元 殷 庚 凡 文 廢 微 幽 as well as Chongniu-B rimes 祭 支 脂 宵 鹽 侵 仙 真 清 as well as Closed mouth III rimes 戈 陽 蒸.
• Rimes 魚 虞 are realized as back vowels /u o/ in initials 知 徹 澄 娘 莊 初 崇 生 俟, and front /y ø/ for the initials 章 昌 禪 書 船, and /i̯o i̯u/ for the rest.
• Before initials 知 徹 澄 娘 莊 初 崇 生 俟 the mixed III finals lose their palatal glide as they merge with division II.
• The initials 曉 匣 are both realized as /h/. But in closed mouth syllables they labiodentalise into /f v/ which lose their -u̯- glide.
• Before initials 端 透 定 泥 精 清 從 心 邪 they lose their palatal glide while retaining their vowels.
• In initials 知 徹 澄 娘 莊 初 崇 生 俟 the vowels /e i/ become /ə ɨ/.
• In initials 見 溪 羣 疑, Chongniu-B rimes loses it’s palatal glide while Chongniu-A rimes retains the -i- glide.

Orthography

Faiten utilises two scripts in it's literature: Latin and Hanzi. Occasionally, these two scripts intertwine, although primarily in informal or conversational contexts. However, the Latin script used in Tan lacks a rigid standard set of letters to render certain phonemes and tends to exhibit inconsistency in orthography. In Faiten a grapheme becomes a vessel for multiple phonemes, and conversely, multiple phonemes find expression within a single grapheme.

Initials

Initials		Labial	Dental	Alveolar	Palatal	Retroflex	Velar
Stop	Aspirated	pʰ p, hp, ph	tʰ t, ht, th	t͡sʰ tz, ch	t͡ɕʰ q	ʈ͡ʂʰ kr, gr	kʰ k, hk, kh
	Tenuis	p p, b	t t, d	t͡s ts	t͡ɕ j	ʈ͡ʂ tr, dr	k k, c, g
	Voiced	b b, bh	d d, dh				g g, gh
Fricative	Tenuis	f f		s s	ɕ x	ʂ sh	h h
	Voiced	v v		z z	ʑ r	ʐ zh
Resonant	Nasal	m m, hm	n n, hn				ŋ ng, gn
	Liquid		l l, lh, hl
	Glide				j i, y		w u, w

Finals

Plain Rime	Front		Back
	Flat	Round	Flat	Round
Close	i i, ee	y u, uu, ue	ɨ z, ze, y	u u, oo, ou
Middle	e e, ay, ai, eh, er	ø eu, eo, oe, oeu	ə e, o, a	o o, aw, au, oh, or
Open	ɛ e, ay, ai, eh, er	œ eu, eo, oe, oeu	a a, aa, ah, ar	ɔ o, aw, au, oh, or

As noticeable in this table, the vowels [e ɛ] [ø œ] [o ɔ] are merged in orthography and share the same graphemes, however in spoken Faiten these sounds are distinguished with context disambiguating the graphemes semantic value. For instance <ke> is either pronounced [ke] "fake", [kʰe] (classifier), [kɛ] "family", or [kʰɛ] "cash".

Palatal		Labial
i̯a ia, ya, iar, iah, yar, yah	ai̯ ae, ay	u̯a oi, oa, war, waa, wah	au̯ ao, aw, aou
i̯e ie, ye, iae, yae	ei̯ ey, ei, ay, ai	u̯e we, way, wai, oue, oui	eu̯ ew, aeo, eow, aio, iew
ɨ̯ə eau, uea, ea	əi̯ aoe, aei, oie, eur, eor, uer	u̯ə our, ua, wa
i̯o iau, io, iao, yau, yao, yo		u̯o uo, wo, wau	ou̯ ow, ou, aw, au
y̯ø ieu, iue, ieo, yeu, yue, yeo	øy̯ eui, eoi, ui, uei, uy, oei
i̯u iou, iu, you, yoo, yu, ioo

Table 2.4: Codas
m m, me, mp, mme, lm, chm, gm, mn, mh	p̚ p, pe, mp, lp, b, mpe, f, ph, pt, ft, bp
n n, ne, nt, l, lt, hn, nne, ll, le,	t̚ t, te, nt, lt, d, tt, th, nte, st, tch, dt
ŋ ng, nn, gne, gn, nh, nc, ngh, nd, hgn	k̚ k, ke, que, c, ch, g, nk, lk, ct, ck, gk

Grammar

Faiten Language is an analytic nominative-accusative language with free word order and a head-initial structure. This means that the language relies on word order and context to convey meaning, rather than inflectional endings on words. In Faiten, the subject of a sentence is marked in the nominative case, while the object is marked in the accusative case. The language also has a head-initial structure, which means that the head of a phrase (such as a noun or verb) comes before any modifiers. This allows for flexibility in word order, as modifiers can be placed before or after the head without changing the meaning of the sentence.

Personal Pronouns

Table 3.1	Singular	Plural
1st Person	吾, 我, 余, 俺, 台, 朕, 阮, 咱, 剌, 僕, 婢, 偶, 厓, 祽, 𠋺	Singular Pronoun + 等 [toŋ]
2nd Person	汝, 爾, 尓, 迺, 叒, 君, 卿, 儂, 恁, 儕, 子, 乃, 郎, 英, 眉
3rd Person	伊, 人, 佢, 諾, 佗, 亓, 厥, 渠, 夫, 㞢, 伢, 夷, 它, 亳, 黂

Demonstrative Pronouns

Table 3.2	Proximal	Distal
Singular	這, 此, 箇, 葛, 益, 遮, 是, 斯, 茲, 茊, 者, 只, 拓, 邇, 即, 呢	那, 彼, 其, 兀, 個, 許, 介, 乢, 艾, 埃, 改, 該, 嚀, 遐, 兜, 箕
Plural	Singular Proximal/Distal + 等 [toŋ]