Nantai

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Nantai
男体語
nàn-tái-gò
Pronunciation[ˈnã̞.dáiˌgo̞]
Created byJukethatbox
Date2024
SettingAlt-history Earth
Native toTochigi Prefecture, Japan
Native speakers~566 (2023)
Japonic
  • Nantai
Early form
Standard form
Standard Nantai
Dialects
  • Western Tochigi
    • Nikkō-Nantai
    • Shirane-Nantai
  • Eastern Tochigi(†)
Official status
Recognised minority
language in
Japan
Regulated byNantai Association
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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.

Morphophonology

Morphology

Pronouns

Personal pronouns

Singular Plural
First person
hà-táhi
私達
Second person náta
なた
náta-táhi
なた達
Third person Masculine kárè*
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.

Syntax

Constituent order

Noun phrase

Verb phrase

Sentence phrase

Dependent clauses

Example texts

Other resources