Tonuao
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Tonuao is a zonal auxlang[1] intended to be quickly learnable, readily comprehensible, and mutually communicative between persons of the w:East Asian cultural sphere. It uses Chinese characters for most of its writing, with some forms being simplified according to the w:Shinjitai/新字体 standards of Japan. It is non-tonal, nearly analytic, SVO, topic-prominent, uses classifiers, is pro-drop, copula-drop, and uses postpositions.
Phonology
Tonuao has 5 vowels and 10 consonants.
| Consonants | |||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Labial | Dental | Alveolar | Palatal | Velar | Glottal | ||
| Nasals | m /m/ | n /n/ | |||||
| Plosives | p /p ~ b ~pʰ/ | t /t ~ d ~ tʰ/ | k /k ~ g ~ kʰ/ | ||||
| Fricatives | s /s ~ ɕ/ | h /h ~ ɦ ~ x/ | |||||
| Liquids | l /l ~ ɾ/ | ||||||
| Approximants | w /w/ | y /j/ | |||||
While there is a great deal of consonantal allophony (see below), every language speaker will experience some sounds as difficult, especially in achieving consistency.
| Vowels | |||
|---|---|---|---|
| Front | Central | Back | |
| High | i /i ~ ɪ/ | u /u ~ ɯ/ | |
| Mid | e /e ~ ɛ ~ ə/ | o /o ~ ɤ/ | |
| Low | a /a ~ ä/ | ||
Again, a great deal of tolerance is required when listening to others. Non-Mandarin speakers will have the hardest time being patient with Chinese vowels, but accents are part of being international!
Phonotactics
The three allowable syllable structures are V, CV, Cya, and CVn. There are gaps in all these series, and allophony.
| Simple Syllables | |||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| ø | a (as in 啊) |
e /e ~ je ~ ə/ |
i /i ~ ji/ |
o /o ~ wo/ |
u /u ~ wu/ |
| P | pa | pe | pi | po | pu |
| T | ta | te | ti /ti ~ t͡ɕi/ |
to | tu /tu ~ tsu/ |
| K | ka | ke | ki | ko | ku |
| M | ma | me | mi | mo | mu |
| N | na | ne | ni | no | nu |
| S | sa | se | si /si ~ ɕi/ |
so | su |
| H | ha | he | hi | ho | hu |
| L | la | le | li | lo | lu |
| W | wa | ||||
| Y | ya | yo /jo ~ joʊ̯/ |
yu | ||
This grid forms the 五十音 of Japanese.
| Complex Syllables | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| ya | an | en | in | |
| P | pya | pan | pen | pin |
| T | tya | tan | ten | tin |
| K | kan | ken | ||
| M | mya | man | men | min |
| N | nya | nan | nen | nin |
| S | sya | san | sen | sin |
| H | han' | hen | ||
The complex syllables of Tonuao are clearly much more limited.