単亜語
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単亜語 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 all of its native writing, with some forms being simplified according to the w:Shinjitai/新字体 standards of Japan. The Korean alphabet (w:Hangul is used for foreign sounds. It is not tonal, mostly analytic, SVO, topic-prominent, uses classifiers, is pro-drop, copula-drop, and uses postpositions.
Phonology
単亜語 has 5 vowels and 15 consonants.
| Consonants | ||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Labial | Alveolar | "Post" | Velar | Glottal | ||
| Nasals | ㄇ /m/ | ㄋ /n/ | ㄫ /ŋ~ɴ/ | |||
| Stop | voiced/plain | ㄅ /p~b/ | ㄉ /t~d/ | ㄍ /k~g/ | ||
| asp./glot. | ㄆ /pʰ~pʼ/ | ㄊ /tʰ~tʼ/ | ㄎ /kʰ~kʼ/ | |||
| Affricate | ㄐ /t͡s~t͡ɕ~c/ | |||||
| Fricatives | ㄙ /s ~ z ~ ɕ/ | ㄏ /h ~ ɦ ~ x/ | ||||
| Liquids | ㄌ /l ~ ɾ/ | |||||
| Approximants | ㄨ /w~ɰᵝ/ | ㄩ /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 | ㄧ /i ~ ɪ/ | ㄨ /u ~ ʊ/ | |
| Mid | ㄝ /e ~ ɛ ~ ə/ | ㄛ /o ~ ɔ/ | |
| Low | ㄚ /a ~ ä ~ ɑ/ | ||
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
There are some gaps in the allowed character combinations. Aspirated consonants may not appear as the coda consonant. For CV syllables, wa is the only possible w syllable, while ya, yo, yu, are the only possible y syllalbles. For CgV (consonant-glide-Vowel) syllables, only the following are possible
- dya, bya, mya, nya, sya, and lysa
For CVN, no back vowel combinations exist.