Tzapalian

Tzapalian (IPA: /ˈtsapali/) also known as Tzapali, forms the Tzapalic branch of the Uto-Aztecan language family, spoken in Tzapalia, a conminimunicipality in León, Mexico by about 261,700 people, with 144,000 2L speakers worldwide. Tzapalian has its own language family and is not related to other languages.

Over the years, it has been considered a language isolate, though current consensus and research now confirms that it has been related to Nahuatl.

History
Speakers used to live in Oklahoma, North America, but when the Mexicans had invaded the Apache, most of them moved to Mexico instead.

Official status
Tzapalian is one of the de facto languages of Mexico, along with Spanish and other indigenous languages. Some speakers still live in Oklahoma today.

Dialects
Tzapalian is classified into 2 dialects:
 * northern; which is the most spoken by about 172,700 people
 * southern; which is spoken by 89,000 people.

Creole
Spanish-Algonquian Tzapalian Pidgin, also known as Pichingw or SATP, is a pidgin spoken by the Spanish Tzapalians of Spain. The Spanish Tzapalians were founded when the Tzapalians invaded Spain, making the use of the creole.

Phonotactics
The default syllable structure is simple; it is (C)V(V)(C), where C stands for a consonant and V stands for a vowel.

Stress pattern
Stress is usually drops from the first to the third syllables. Recent loanwords often retain their original stress.

Grammar
The words of Tzapalian can be divided into three basic functional cases: verbs, nouns and particles. Adjectives exist, but they generally behave like nouns and there are very few adjectives that are not derived from either verbal or nominal roots. The very few adverbs that can be said to exist fall into the class of particles.

Plurals
Tzapalian has a complex singular / dual / paucal / plural number system (as in Fijian). A paucal number of things is a very small amount of them (e.g. a few nuts, fruit, e.g.) while the dual number is two things of them (e.g. two birds, cats, e.g.). This table below shows the number types of the noun metziu 'cat'.

Possessedness
Tzapalian's possessedness can be formed with suffixes. This table below shows how affixes affect the possessedness of the noun metziu 'cat'.

Tenses
Tzapalian has 9 tenses, far more in any Uto-Aztecan language. It features 3 basic tenses (present, past, future), and their progressive and conditional forms. This table below shows the verb conjugation of the phrasal verb niquō 'I eat'.

Word order
As Tzapalian is highly fusional, word order is completely free. To say 'The dog catches the cat' in Tzapalian, one speaker may use any of the following orders, with slight pragmatic differences: But the most common and default word order is SOV.
 * SOV: Chechu metziu challe.
 * SVO: Chechu challe metziu.
 * VSO: Challe chechu metziu.
 * VOS: Challe metziu chechu.
 * OVS: Metziu challe chechu.
 * OSV: Metziu chechu challe.

Adjective and preposition position
In Tzapalian, the adjective can either go before or after the noun. To say 'the big cat' in Tzapalian, one speaker may use any of the following phrases: However, the adjective mostly comes before the noun.
 * AN: huai metziu
 * NA: metziu huai

Preposition order is also free too:
 * prepositions: pikē apūchēti
 * postpositions: apūchēti pikē

Possession order
The phrase 'Benny's coat' can be translated into Tzapalian into 2 different ways:
 * Possessor-possessee: Beni capaōtl
 * Possessee-possessor: Capaōtl Beni

Phonology
Unlike Modern Tzapalian, Old Tzapalian did not contain the palatalized stop [tʲ]. Also, Old Tzapalian had a series of ejective consonants /pʼ tʼ kʼ, tsʼ/, orthographically ph, th, c·h and tzh respectively that only appeared at the end of syllables before the latter had been merged into separate phonemes /p.ʔ, t.ʔ, k.ʔ, ts.ʔ/. Thus, cutōc·hayec 'woods' /ˈkʊtoːkʼɐjɛk/ became /ˈkʊtoːk.ʔɐjɛk/.