Tonuao

Tonuao is a zonal auxlang intended to be quickly learnable, readily comprehensible, and mutually communicative between persons of the w:East Asian cultural sphere. It uses Chinese characters for much of its writing, with some forms being simplified according to the w:Shinjitai/新字体 standards of Japan. The Japanese syllabary w:Katakana is used for all other sounds. 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.

Tonuao 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.

Tonuao Vowels

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

Katakana
ø	ア	エ	イ	オ	ウ
P	パ	ペ	ピ	ポ	プ
T	タ	テ	チ	ト	ツ
K	カ	ケ	キ	コ	ク
M	マ	メ	ミ	モ	ム
N	ナ	ネ	ニ	ノ	ヌ
S	サ	セ	シ	ソ	ス
H	ハ	ヘ	ヒ	ホ	フ
L	ラ	レ	リ	ロ	ル
W	ワ
Y	ヤ			ヨ	ユ

Complex Syllables
	ya	an	en	in
P	pya	pan	pen	pin
T	tya /tja ~ t͡ɕa/	tan	ten	tin
K		kan	ken
M	mya	man	men	min
N	nya	nan	nen	nin
S	sya /sja ~ ɕa/	san	sen	sin
H		han	hen

Katakana
	ya	an	en	in
P	ピャ	パン	ペン	ピン
T	チャ	タン	テン	チン
K		カン	ケン
M	ミャ	マン	メン	ミン
N	ニャ	ナン	ネン	ニン
S	シャ	サン	セン	シン
H		ハン	ヘン

The complex syllables of Tonuao are clearly much more limited.