Nantai: Difference between revisions

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Nasalised vowels are still considered vowels, so the VCV rule still applies, e.g. /ṼtṼ/ would still become /ṼdṼ/, with /Ṽ/ representing any nasalised vowel.
Nasalised vowels are still considered vowels, so the VCV rule still applies, e.g. /ṼtṼ/ would still become /ṼdṼ/, with /Ṽ/ representing any nasalised vowel.
===Prosody===
===Prosody===
====Stress====
====Pitch-accent====
====Intonation====
===Phonotactics===
===Phonotactics===
===Morphophonology===
===Morphophonology===

Revision as of 10:05, 27 March 2024

Nantai
男体語
nàn-tái-gò
Pronunciation[ˈnã̞.dáiˌgo̞]
Created byJukethatbox
Date2024
SettingAlt-history Earth
Native toTochigi Prefecture, Japan
Native speakers~566 (2023)
Japonic
  • Nantai
Early form
Standard form
Standard Nantai
Dialects
  • Western Tochigi
    • Nikkō-Nantai
    • Shirane-Nantai
  • Eastern Tochigi(†)
Official status
Recognised minority
language in
Japan
Regulated byNantai Association
This article contains IPA phonetic symbols. Without proper rendering support, you may see question marks, boxes, or other symbols instead of Unicode characters. For an introductory guide on IPA symbols, see Help:IPA.

Nantai(男体語; Nantai: [ˈnã̞.dáiˌgo̞]) is a Japonic language spoken natively in what is now the Tochigi Prefecture in Japan. It is a critically endangered language, with only 566 remaining native speakers.

Due to its phonetic similarity to Japanese, the language was officially considered a dialect of Japanese and was suppressed as "improper speech" until 1988, though linguists had been considering Nantai a separate language from as early as 1901 due to a lack of mutual intelligibility with Japanese.

Nantai has also influenced the Tochigi dialect of Japanese, mainly through the lack of distinction between /i/ and /e/ sounds, which is the defining feature of Tochigi-ben, as well as the voicing of consonants between two vowels.

Phonology

Orthography

Nantai uses the three writing systems of Japanese: Kanji, Katakana and Hiragana. All three scripts have the same purpose as in Japanese, with Hiragana for grammar, Kanji for vocabulary and Katakana for foreign loanwords.

Consonants

Bilabial Labiodental Alveolar Alveolo-
palatal
Velar Palatal Glottal
Plosive p b t d k g ʔ
Fricative f s z ɕ ʑ h
Nasal m n (ŋ) (ɲ)
Approximant w
Lateral l

/ɲ/ and /ŋ/ are allophones of /n/, for before /e/ or /i/ and before /k/ or /g/ respectively.

Vowels

Front Central Back
Close/close-mid i~e ɯ
Close-mid/Open-mid o~ɔ
Open a

Nasalisation

When an alveolar nasal consonant(/n/) is after a vowel, the vowel is nasalised and the consonant is no longer pronounced, e.g. /a/ + /n/ → /an/ → /ã/.

Nasalised vowels are still considered vowels, so the VCV rule still applies, e.g. /ṼtṼ/ would still become /ṼdṼ/, with /Ṽ/ representing any nasalised vowel.

Prosody

Pitch-accent

Phonotactics

Morphophonology

Morphology

Syntax

Constituent order

Noun phrase

Verb phrase

Sentence phrase

Dependent clauses

Example texts

Other resources