User:Aquatiki/MSEAL

M.S.E.A.L.
ဧသဃ
Writing	w:Burmese alphabet
Region:	w:Mainland Southeast Asia
Genders:	0
Cases:	0
Alignment	Nominative-Accusative
Typology:	Isolating
Word-Order	SVO
Languages:	w:Burmese, w:Mon language, w:Khmer language w:Vietnamese language w:Lao language w:Thai language w:Hmu language
Population:	233 million
Africa: SEDES • Middle Semitic • Kintu • Guosa Central Asia: Jalpi • Caucas • Zens • Dravindian • Neo-Sanskrit Europe: Intralingua • Folksprak • Interslavic • Balkan • Samboka Far East: Dan'a'yo • IM • MSEAL

MSEAL has

• Sesquisyllabicity - a "minor syllable" before a stressed main syllable.
• Four tones
• CV, CVC - no clusters
• Isolating/Analytic Morphology: Almost no inflection or derivational morphology, with meaning expressed via word order, particles, and compounding.
• Classifiers: Required when counting nouns. Many languages distinguish human, animal, object, and abstract classifiers.
• Serial Verb Constructions (SVCs): Verbs often appear in chains without overt conjunctions (e.g., “go buy eat” instead of “go to buy and eat”).
• Post-Verbal Aspectual Markers: Instead of tense, aspect is often marked via sentence-final particles or auxiliary verbs.
• Pronoun Systems with Honorifics: Complex pronoun systems based on politeness and familiarity.
• Topic-Comment Structure: Information flow prioritizes topics over strict subject-predicate structures.

VO Order with Heavy Postmodification: Most MSEA languages use SVO word order, but with frequent postnominal relative clauses.

• Sentence-Final Particles: Used for modality, politeness, evidentiality, and discourse functions (e.g., Mandarin 吗 “ma” for questions, Thai นะ “ná” for softening).
• Negation with Dedicated Particles: pre-verbal (e.g., Mandarin 不 “bù,” Vietnamese không)
• Reduplication: Used for pluralization, intensity, or aspectual modification (e.g., Thai ดีๆ "di di" = "very good").
• Directional Verbs: Motion verbs often specify direction explicitly (“go up,” “go down,” “come in”).
• Many sino-buddhist loan words

Isolating, mostly mono-morphemic words, no inflection and little affixation. Nouns are derived by compounding. Grammatical relations are typically signaled by word order, particles and coverbs or prepositions. Modality is expressed using sentence-final particles.

Anthropology

• Indo-Arayan
  • Bengali
• Austro-Asiatic
  • Khmer
  • Vietnamese
• Sino-Tibetan
  • Chinese
    • Hokkien, Hakka, Cantonese, Southwestern Mandarin
  • Bermese
• Kra-dai
  • Tai, Lao, Shan, Kam
• w:Austronesian languages
  • w:Chamic
• Hmong-Mien
  • Hmong
  • Mien

Phonology and Orthography

MSEAL should have monosyllabic morphemes, lexical tone, a fairly large inventory of consonants, including phonemic aspiration, limited clusters at the beginning of a syllable, and plentiful vowel contrasts. Consider sesquisyllables. Isolating, mostly mono-morphemic words, no inflection and little affixation.

MSEAL uses the w:New Tai Lue alphabet for its writing system, using it as a true alphabet, not an abugida. This is a novel way to use an existing alphabet, but it is more familiar to the neighbor who use the latin script, and are accustomed to writing everything down.

Consonants

MSEAL Initial Consonants

	Labial	Alveolar	Palatal	Velar	Glottal
Nasals	/m/ ᦙ	/n/ ᦓ		/ŋ/ ᦇ
Unaspirated	/p/ ᦔ	/t/ ᦑ	/tɕ~c/ ᦈ	/k/ ᦂ	/ʔ/ ᦀ
Aspirated	/pʰ/ ᦘ	/tʰ/ ᦒ	/tɕʰ~cʰ/ ᦋ	/kʰ/ ᦅ
"Voiced"	/b~ɓ/ ᦢ	/d~ɗ/ ᦡ
Fricative	/f/ ᦝ	/s~ɕ/ ᦉ			/h/ ᦣ
Approx.	/v~w~ʋ/ ᦞ	/l/ ᦟ	/j/ ᦊ

Finals and Tone

Coda Sounds

p	t	k	m	n	ŋ	ʔ
ᧇ	ᧆ	ᧅ	ᧄ	ᧃ	ᧂ	ᧁ

level	rising	departing	checked
-	ᧈ	ᧉ	coda

The presence of a coda letter marks the checked tone.

Vowels

Vowels and Diphthongs

	Front	Middle	Back
High	/i/ ᦲ	/ǝ/ ᦹ	/u/ ᦴ
Middle	/e/ ᦵ		/o/ ᦷ
Low	/a/ ᦱ

ai = ᦺ; au=ᦸ, ei=ᦾ; ou = ᦳ