Kundarayo

Introduction

Kundarayo (Natively: 쿤다라요 [kʰundarajo]) is a Japonic language spoken around the Northers parts of Korea and China. Since time inmemorial, it has been assimilated into first the Goguryeo Kingdom, then the Korean Choseon Country, and the following occupation of Japan and "Liberation" of Korea thereafter.

Phonology

Consonants

	Labial	Alveolar	Dorsal
Plosive	ph	th	kh
	p	t	k
Fricative		s	h
Nasal	m	n	ŋ
Approximant	w	ɾ	j

• When intervocalicly, /p t k/ become [b d g]
• When at the end of a syllable, /p t s k ɾ/ become [p̚ t̚ t̚ k̚ l]
• The phonemes /t^h t s n h/ display palatalization, becoming [tɕ^h tɕ~ʥ ɕ ɲ ç]
• ŋ* and h* only occur in Chinese loans in Standard Kundara
• ŋ* only occurs in the coda and h* only on the onset
• The cluster /hw/ is normally said as [ɸ]

Monophthongs

	Front	Central	Back
High	i	ɨ	u
Mid	e	ʌ	o
Low		a

• Clusters in the form /CjV/ and /CwV/ only occur in Chinese loans, and in those, /j/wʌ/ and /j/wɨ/ don't occur.
• Since /ɨ/ and /i/ are in complementary distribution, some (Russian) linguists claim that they are the same phoneme, with /"jɨ"/ and /"wɨ"/ being [i] and [wi], however they come from different phonemes, and though /i/ is the only monophthong which palatalizes consonants, it also appears in native vocabulary, making it more of an monophthong. In this page we will consider /ɨ/ and /i/ separate phonemes

Diphthongs

	a	o	u	i	e
j-	ja	jo	ju	(i)	je
w-	wa	wo	(u)	wi	we

Orthography

Although Kundara has had various orthographies, the most commonly in use today is Hangeul:

ph	th	kh	p	t	k	s	h	m	n	ŋ	ɾ
ᄑ	ᄐ*	ᄏ	ᄇ	ᄃ*	ᄀ	ᄉ	ᄒ	ᄆ	ᄂ	ᄋ*	ᄅ

• The letters ᄎ and ᄌ are used instead of ᄐ and ᄃ when palatalized
• ᄋ is used as a placeholder in onset position

	a	ʌ	ɨ	o	u	i	e*
-	아	어	으	오	우	이	애	에
j-	야			요	유		얘	예
w-	와			워		위	왜	웨

• Similar to Korean, the old diphthongs *ai and *ei both are now pronounced [e], however 애 (*ai) is more common, and its the one used for modern loans.