Middle Chinese (Tang Dynasty, Chang'an dialect)

Middle Chinese (Mid-Tang Dynasty, Chang'an Dialect) 中古漢語（盛中唐長安方言）
Language family	Sino-Tibetan Sinitic
Era	~720 to 780 CE
Writing system	Chinese
Official status
Spoken in	Islands of Ximh Gwynh
Regulated by	Government of Islands of Ximh Gwynh
Speaker
Number of speakers	1
Technical information
Usage	Official language for communication and documentation

The Mid-Tang Chang'an dialect of Middle Chinese is a reconstructed Middle Chinese dialect spoken in Chang'an during the Mid-Tang dynasty.
As the native dialect to the capital of the Tang dynasty, the Chang'an dialect was the most influential dialect at the time, with a lot of its innovations spreading to other northern varieties of Middle Chinese as Chang'an was the economic and political centre of the dynasty. Its influence was not restricted to Sinitic internally, with tons of external Sino-Xenic pronunciations documenting its phonology: Japanese Kan-on, Sino-Korean, Tibetan transcriptions, etc.

Phonology

Initials

		Bilabial	Labiodental	Alveolar	Retroflex	Palatal	Velar	Glottal
Prenasalised		ᵐb	ᶬʋ	ⁿd	ᶯɖ	ᶮʑ	ᵑɡ
Plosive	Tenuis	p		t	ʈ		k	ʔ
	Aspirated	pʰ		tʰ	ʈʰ		kʰ
	Voiced	b		d	ɖ		ɡ
Affricate	Tenuis		p͡f	t͡s	ʈ͡ʂ	t͡ɕ
	Aspirated		p͡fʰ	t͡sʰ	ʈ͡ʂʰ	t͡ɕʰ
	Voiced		b͡v	d͡z	ɖ͡ʐ	(d͡ʑ)
Fricative	Voiceless			s	ʂ	ɕ	x
	Voiced			z		ʑ	ɣ
Approximant				l		j	ɰ~∅

-/ʑ/ is allophonically [d͡ʑ] under low falling tone condition.
-/ɰ/ is [w] or [ɥ̈] under most conditions, there are a few instances of it being unrounded but they are very rare occurrences. Thus, it is acceptable to analyse /ɰ/ as a null onset /∅/ instead since [w] can analysed as /∅w/ and [ɥ̈] as /∅j̈w/.

Glides

	Null	Front	Central	Back
Unrounded		j	j̈	ʕ
Rounded	w	jw [ɥ]	j̈w [ɥ̈]	ʕw

-Unlike most other languages that have /ʕ/, this /ʕ/ is not a pure pharyngeal consonant, but it is instead pharyngealisation accompanied by the raising of the tongue to somewhere in between the hard and soft palate, creating retroflex resonance and making its actual quality closer to American English Bunched r.

Vowels

	Front	Central	Back
Close	i	(ɨ ʉ)	o > u
Mid	(ɛ)	ǝ
Open	a	ɜ	ɑ (ɒ)
Syallbic		(ɹ̩ ɻ̍)

-[ɨ] and [ʉ] occur as allophones of /ǝ/ when proceeding /j̈(w)/ in close syllables (in which in closed syllables they can be realised as [j̈ǝ] and [ɥ̈ǝ]); in open syllables, they are analysed as allophones of /i/ when proceeding /j̈(w)/.
-[ɹ̩] and [ɻ̍] occur as allophones of /i/ after alveolar and retroflex sibilants and affricates in open syllables and are always inherently accompanied by /ʕ/.
-[ɛ] is an allophone of /ɜ/ when proceeding /j(w)/ or /j̈(w)/.
-[ɒ] is an allophone of /ɑ/ under /wɑT/ condition, where /T/ is an acute consonant.