Chian

Chian
Poluotši
Pronunciation	[po.luo.t͡ʃi]
Created by	thetacola
Native to	Tsuotši
Language family	Mablani Zofzafian Lyamtizian Chian
Official status
Official language in	Tsuotši
Recognised minority language in	Soisasäï (Saubalzlą̆) Juttafu (Tusauzlun)

Chian /t͡ʃi.ɛn/ (Chian: /po.luo.t͡ʃi/) is a Lyamtizian language spoken primarily in and around the country of Tsuotši. Along being the official language of Tsuotši, it has regional status in some neighboring countries, such as in the province of Saubalzlą̆ in Soisasäï, and in the province of Tusauzlun in Juttafu.

Phonology

Consonants

Like other Lyamtizian languages, Chian distinguishes via palatalization for certain consonants, those being /m/, /n/, /f/, /v/, /s/, /ʒ/, /l/, and /w/.

	Bilabial		Labiodental		Alveolar		Postalveolar		Alveolopalatal		Palatal		Labiovelar		Velar		Pharyngeal		Glottal
Plosive	p	b			t	d									k				ʔ
Nasal		m mʲ				n nʲ						ɲ				ŋ
Affricate			p̪͡f	b̪͡v	t͡s	d͡z	t͡ʃ	d͡ʒ	t͡ɕ	d͡ʑ
Fricative			f fʲ	v vʲ	s sʲ	z	ʃ	ʒ ʒʲ	ɕ	ʑ					x		ħ		h
Trill						r
Tap						ɾ
Approximant												j		w wʲ
Lateral approximant						l lʲ

Vowels

Chian has a much higher amount of vowels than average, however has noticeably fewer vowels than the average Lyamtizian language. /a/ is also the only vowel to be distinguished by length, as many vowels that were once long have since been split into diphthongs.

	Front		Central		Back
Close	i		ɨ	ʉ		u
Close-mid	e					o
Open-mid					ʌ
Open	a a:

Orthography

Chian is typically written in the Tajadajlic script, however also has a standard romanization. The Tajadajlic script is a abugida with a default vowel of /a/. Vowels are written above the preceding consonant.

Tajadajlic

Consonants

Consonants with no diacritic are implied to be representing the vowel /a/ afterwards. As such, each consonant in this table has a diacritic to remove the vowel from the consonant. Palatalized consonants are marked with a diacritic underneath the consonant called a bāḥā.

Vowels

Vowels are written via diacritics. A lack of diacritic is used to mark /a/. Not shown in this table is the diacritic to remove a vowel from a character, that diacritic is shown in the consonant table instead. The vowel character, shown here for all vowels displayed, is only used when a syllable has no onset consonants.

Romanization

The romanization is not necessarily one-to-one with Tajadajlic. Palatalization is marked with ⟨y⟩ in the romanization despite it being marked with a bāḥā in Tajadajlic, /ɲ/ is marked ⟨ñ⟩ in the romanization despite it being marked with the equivalent of ⟨nj⟩ in Tajadajlic, and so on. This romanization is made to be one-to-one with pronunciation regardless of how it is marked in Tajadajlic.

Consonants

	Bilabial		Labiodental		Alveolar		Postalveolar		Alveolopalatal		Palatal		Labiovelar		Velar		Pharyngeal		Glottal
Plosive	p	b			t	d									k				'
Nasal		m my				n ny						ñ				ŋ
Affricate			pf	bv	ts	dz	tš	dž	tç	dź
Fricative			f fy	v vy	s sy	z	š	ž žy	ç	ź					x		ḥ		h
Trill						rr
Tap						r
Approximant												j		w wʲ
Lateral approximant						l ly

Vowels

	Front		Central		Back
Close	i		ï	ü		u
Close-mid	e					o
Open-mid					ö
Open	a ā

Grammar

Chian is a agglutinative language with fusional characteristics. Chian follows a free word order, however typically defaults to OVS word order unless some other part of the sentence is being emphasized. Chian is also a head-final language.

Nouns

Chian marks nouns for five cases, number, and definiteness. Case can be nominative, accusative, dative, locative, and illative; number can be either singular, paucal, or plural; and definiteness is only marked if a noun is definite. Definiteness is not marked for plural dative nouns and paucal illative nouns, and must be inferred via context. Most are marked via suffixes, except for dative nouns, singular definite nouns, and paucal definite nouns, which can be marked with prefixes or circumfixes. Younger speakers have increasingly used the locative case as a genitive case as well.

	SG	SG.DEF	PAU	PAU.DEF	PL	PL.DEF
NOM		ḥ-	-b	-v	-'a	-o
ACC	-z	ḥ-z	-zb	-zv	-iz	-izts
DAT	i-	ḥi-	i-b	i-v	i-'i
LOC	-n	ḥ-n	-nb	-nv	-'an	-on
ILL	-p	ḥ-p	-vp		-'ap	-op

Note that older speakers may pronounce an initial ḥ on paucal definite nouns.