Nantai

Nantai
男体語 nàn-tái-gò
Pronunciation	[ˈnã̞.dáiˌgo̞]
Created by	Jukethatbox
Date	2024
Setting	Alt-history Earth
Native to	Tochigi Prefecture, Japan
Native speakers	~566 (2023)
Language family	Japonic Nantai
Early form	Proto-Japonic
Standard form	Standard Nantai
Dialects	Western Tochigi Nikkō-Nantai Shirane-Nantai Eastern Tochigi(†)
Writing systems	Japanese Latin
Official status
Recognised minority language in	Japan
Regulated by	Nantai Association

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.

Comparison with Tochigi-ben

Nantai has heavily influenced the defining features of the Tochigi dialect of Japanese, alternatively called Tochigi-ben. Some features of Tochigi-ben borrowed from Nantai include:

• Lack of distinction between [e] and [i]
• Voicing of consonants between two vowels
• Lack of contracted syllables such as [gʲu]
• Lack of morphological polite register.

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.

Romanisation

Main article: Ōsugi-Min system.
Nantai has a very different romanisation system than Hepburn, the romanisation system used in Japanese. The main romanisation system used in Nantai is called the Ōsugi-Min system, and looks much more like Hanyu Pinyin than Hepburn, mainly because diacritics are used to show high and low tones.

Consonants

	Bilabial	Labiodental	Alveolar	Alveolo- palatal	Velar	Palatal	Glottal
Plosive	p b		t d		k g		ʔ
Fricative		f	s z	ɕ ʑ			h
Affricate				t͡ɕ d͡ʑ
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

Nantai uses a similar pitch-accent system as Japanese.

Phonotactics

Nantai has a similar phonotactic system as Japanese, which mostly fits the (C)V(V) pattern.

Morphology

Pronouns

Personal pronouns

		Singular	Plural
First person		hà 私	hà-táhi 私達
Second person		náta なた	náta-táhi なた達
Third person	Masculine	kárè* 彼	kárèra 彼ら
	Feminine	káno-sò* 彼女	káno-sò-táhi 彼女達

* Kárè(彼) and káno-sò(彼女) are loanwords from Japanese. Historically, Classical Nantai had no gendered third person pronouns.