Tanzangi

Tanzangi
Language family	Cangic
Early form(s)	Classical Tanzangi, Proto-Cangic
Era	today
Writing system	Latin
Official status
Spoken in	Tanzang
Regulated by	Government of Tanzang
Speaker
Demonym	Tanti, Tanzangi
Number of speakers	About half
Technical information
Usage	Government language
Language code	TZN

Tanzangi (Tanzangi: tanti /tənti/), the official language of Tanzang, is a language in the Dangic branch of the Cangic language family descended from Classical Tanzangi. It features an inventory of 16 consonants and 9 vowels.

Phonology

Consonants

	Labial	Alveolar	(Alveo-)Palatal	Dorsal
Nasal	m	n	n̠ʲ ⟨ni⟩	ŋ ⟨g⟩
Plosive	p, b	t, d		k ⟨c⟩, g
Fricative	f	s, θ ⟨z⟩		x
Liquid		l		ʀ ⟨r⟩

• The precise articulations of the phonemes /n t d s l/ are [n̠ t̪ d̪ s̠ l̠].
• Phonemes /t d s x n l/ become palatalized [t̠ʲ d̠ʲ ɕ ç n̠ʲ l̠ʲ] before front vowels /i e/. [t̠ʲ d̠ʲ] may also be [tɕ dʑ].
• Fricatives /f θ s x/ and [ɕ ç] become voiced [v ð z ɣ ʑ ʝ] intervocalically, and voiced plosives /b d g/ become [w ɹ j].
• Orthographic ⟨h⟩ indicates vowel hiatus when intervocalic or word-initial, and lengthens the preceding phone in other positions.
• Syllable-final /ʀ/ is realized as a pharyngealized centralizing offglide [ə̯ˤ].

Vowels

	Front	Central	Back
Close	i	ɨ ⟨u⟩	u ⟨ũ⟩
Close-Mid	e	ə ⟨a⟩	o
Open-Mid	ɛ ⟨ẽ⟩		ɔ ⟨õ⟩
Open	a ⟨ã⟩

• /ə/ is deleted in some unstressed syllables, particularly word-finally. In these positions, it is not written. In less formal speech, it is deleted in all unstressed syllables.
  • Due to the deletion of the schwa, stress patterns may sometimes be unpredictable. Historically, Tanzangi featured a strict penultimate stress system. In modern times, this pattern is somewhat irregular. "Irregularly" stressed vowels are marked with an acute accent. Additionally, a grave accent may be used to mark a deleted vowel at the begining of a word, in places where this causes a distinction.
• To resolve vowel hiatus, the more closed vowel in a sequence becomes a glide: front vowels /i e ɛ/ become [j], central /ɨ/ becomes [ɹ], and back rounded /u o ɔ/ become [w]. The vowel /ə/ is deleted if it is the unstressed component, but this happens after /i e ɛ/, /ɨ/, and /u o ɔ/ become glides, resulting in the vowels [i ɹ̩ u] respectively.
  • When two vowels are of similar height, one of two things may happen. The unstressed of the two vowels may become a glide (i.e. /ˈui/ /uˈi/ > [uj] [wi]), or the vowels simply retain hiatus.
• The diacritics ⟨ã ẽ õ ũ⟩ evolved from historic digraphs ⟨aa ea oa uu⟩.

Phonotactics

Proto-Dangic syllable structure was strictly (C)V(C). Modern Tanzangi retains that phonemically, but phonetically, with the deletion of schwa, clusters are much more common and can be more complex. Modern Tanzangi syllable structure is largely undefined, especially due to very free phonotactics in loans. Vowel hiatus is allowed, orthographically separated by ⟨h⟩. Stress patterns may be irregular, marked with an acute accent.

Grammar

Word Order

The standard word order for Tanzangi is SOV. However, Proto-Cangic used different word orders to communicate grammatical moods. For example, VSO word order is used to convey the imperative mood. Less commonly, SVO word order conveys the interrogative mood; however, in modern Tanzangi, this has been replaced by SOV word order, with a question word (xe) following the verb.

Verbs

Verbs in Tanzangi do not conjugate for person, but takes suffixes for past and future tense. There is also an archaic prefix, ron-, which marks the imperfective aspect, although this is archaic and rarely used.

Below is the conjugation for the verb cit, "to be."

Past	Present	Future
citic	cit	cippã

Nouns

tba

Script

tba