Debazi

Debazi
Language family	Leyen-Mangellian
Early form(s)	Classical Munkai, Deraban
Writing system	Debazi script Latin script
Official status
Spoken in	Rauratoshan
Speaker
Demonym	Debazasri
Technical information
Language code	DBZ

Debazi ([ˈdeˈbad͡zi]) is a Leyen-Mangellian language. It is a minority language in Rauratoshan.

Phonology

Consonants and vowels in Debazi are broken up into three classes: plain, light, and dark. Generally speaking, light consonants are palatalized while dark consonants are velarized, and light vowels are raised and/or fronted while dark vowels are lowered and/or backed.

A light consonant causes the next vowel to become light. A dark consonant causes the next vowel to become dark. Nasals and the trill /r/ are always considered plain. Approximants are considered light if they are labial or alveolar, and dark if they are velar or guttural; these also mutate the vowel preceding them, but only if that vowel is plain.

The phonemicity of the sounds of Debazi is under debate. Generally, light vowels can only follow light consonants and dark vowels can only follow dark consonants, but Debazi has recently lost some of the contexts which caused light and dark vowels. In some sense, all listed vowels in the below table are phonemic. However, as they can still be analyzed as sequences of /jV/ and /wV/, Debazi is usually considered to only either have all consonants in the table or all vowels in the table, not both.

Consonants

Consonant phonemes

			Labial	Alveolar	Velar	Guttural
Nasal		short	m	n	ŋ
		long	mː	nː	ŋː
Stop						plain		unvoiced	p	t	k	(q)
voiced	b	d	g
light		unvoiced	pʲ~pɥ̊~ps	ts	cç
voiced	bʲ~bɥ~bz	dz	ɟʝ
dark		unvoiced	pʼ	tʼ	kʼ	(ʔ)
voiced	ɓ	ɗ
Fricative			plain	f	s	x
light	fʲ~ɥ̊	sʲ~ɕ		xʲ~ç
	dark	fʷ~ʍ	sʷ		xʷ~ɸ~ʍ	χ
Approximant		plain	ɥ	j	w	(ʕ)
lateral			l	ʟ
	Trill		r

Vowels

Vowel phonemes

	Front			Central			Back
	light	plain	dark	light	plain	dark	light	plain	dark
Close	iː	i	ɨ				y	u	uː
Close-mid	iɪ	e	ʌ				ø	o	uʊ
Open-mid	eɛ	ɛ	ɜ	ɘ	ɜ	ɵ	ɜ	ɔ	oɔ
Open				æ	a	ɒ

Notes

• Light front vowels and dark back vowels are only raised if they were the result of /j/ or /w/ respectively. They do not lengthen in this position.