Míkhan

A post-apocalyptic descendant of Mexican Spanish. Sound change and lexical shift has resulting in a language that bears little resemblance to its ancient ancestor, featuring consonant mutation, inflecting prepositions, and an unrecognizable verb system.

A Mun Dechiz
"A tear makes mud from the ash,

A flame makes sand into glass,

Fear makes nightmares out of dreams,

Pain makes the wind into screams.

For what reason do they scatter

When all left of our world is shattered?"

-Áje the Bloody

"Sinis par luz da zuloro

Arin par bij da eplusho

Séño par mez da tilonush

Aled par ghif da zulo mush.

Pále ghaso ta n-ekafan zho,

Pan mu dechiz a mun so?"

-Áje ko Zánge

The world didn't end in a bang or a cough, but with a shriek.

The collapse of human society came as hordes of interdimensional parasites called Shriekers swarmed into our world. As they leeched biolectricity from their victims and transformed them into horrific killing machines, only the brave, the ruthless, and the dangerous were able to survive.

As Mexico was overrun with vampiric predators and supernatural monsters, clans of warring raiders and pirates fought over the scraps left in the ruined cities. What civilization was left was forced brutal in its efficiency and cruel in its drive to survive.

And all the while, the Spanish we know today shifted with the people, becoming something altogether unrecognizable.

This is Míkhan, the language of ash.

Inventory
The language left over after hundreds of years of evolution and isolation is very different from the Spanish of old. It has simultaneously retained archaic elements and innovated a vast number of phonemes and features.

Consonants
There is a far amount of allophonic variation among the consonants. In particular, /χ/ ranges from [x~χ] and even to [ħ] in certain dialects, and /ɣ/ follows a similar gradient as [ɣ~ʁ]. /ɾ/ can be found as a trill [r] following stressed vowels. Certain northern dialects pull the post-alveolars forward to palato-alveolars, pronouncing /ʃ ʒ tʃ dʒ/ as [ɕ ʑ tɕ dʑ]. By far the most tenuous position is the alveolars, which as often as not are pronounced as dental.

Vowels
Unlike the heavily shifted consonants, the vowel inventory of Míkhan is remarkably unchanged from its Spanish roots. Only two major sound changes- the loss of diphthongs and the raising of mid vowels- occurred to affect the system. The amount of variation among vowels is fairly manageable. The pronunciation of /a/ ranges wildly, on a continuum from [æ~ɑ]. However, the most common realization is as the central low vowel [ä]. Many common single syllable particles that end in /a/ are pronounced [ə]. Mid vowels lower in closed syllables, with /e/ becoming [ɛ] and /o/ becoming [ɔ]. There are no diphthongs. Sequences of vowels + /w/ are analyzed as just that, vowel followed by approximant.

Stress
Stress is a contrastive feature in Míkhan. The vast majority of the time, the stress falls on the final syllable. In the romanization system, final stress is unwritten, and all other stress is marked by an acute accent.

The most common grammatical elements that tend to shift stress are noun plurals and the present plural 2nd person/3rd person plural, which almost always contrasts with the infinitive.

kume /ku.ˈme/- "to eat"

kúme /ˈku.me/- "you/they eat"

ñalag /ɲa.ˈlag/- "claw"

ñalága /ɲa.ˈla.ga/- "claws"

It can also act as a lexical marker.

sáwan /ˈsa.wan/- "blanket"

sawan /sa.ˈwan/- "grassland"

Phonotactics
The phonotactics of Míkhan are fairly stringent. Max syllable structure is CVC. Onset can be any consonant, except no word starts with /ɾ/. The coda can be any consonant except /l/. /h/ does not occur in clusters. Nasals assimilate in place of articulation to what follows them. Most clusters also assimilate in voicing.

a- V "the"

bo- CV "I will"

paj- CVC "father"

ghepef - CVCVC "respect"

seksho- CVCCV "chapter"

kozjuzher- CVCCVCVC "they built"

Phonological Evolution
Over several hundred years, Spanish underwent numerous sound shifts and changes that resulted in a language that sounds very different than its ancestor. The major sound changes and their effect on the grammar and nature of Míkhan are documented here.

Note: These sound changes are not given in exact order of occurrence, and not all changes are documented, only ones majorly important to Míkhan's evolution.

Palatalization
The dental/alveolars palatalized to postalveolars in many circumstances:


 * Before semivowel /j/
 * Before /ɾ/
 * /ʝ/ shifts to /dʒ/ initially and /ʒ/ intervocalically



Labialization
When /w/ or an equivalent semivowel followed a velar or /n/, they shifted to labial sounds.


 * Before semivowel /w/
 * Before /ɾ/

This will prove important in the mutations, when a subset of labials will mutate to velar forms as the mutations overrode the labialization shift.

Spirantilization
Between vowels, obstruents were drawn out into fricatives. This was the direct cause of the Siwban mutation. It led to the development and phonemicization of several sounds, namely, /w z ɣ h/. Earlier in Míkhan's history, it produced /ð/ from /d/ and /θ/ from /t/, but these shifted to /z/ and /f/ respectively.

Nasalization
Nasals caused heaving assimilation to the sounds that followed them and the vowels that preceded them. In vowels, this nasalization prevented the later vowel raising. Among consonants, voiceless sounds were voiced, voiced stops became nasals, and voiced fricatives hardened into stops. This directly produced the Koghilan mutation.

Coda Loss
Most of the coda consonants of Spanish disappeared in one way or another. Nasalization claimed coda nasals, coda /ɾ/ would vocalize and coda /s/ debuccalized. All of these prevented the later vowel raising. Words that had such final sounds do not allow mutation nowadays. Also important is that these sounds prevented final vowel loss, resulting in much of the modern plural and verb conjugation systems.

R-shift
The trill /r/ was lost in various ways. Final /r/ left from final vowel loss remained as /ɾ/. Intervocalically, /r/ shifted to /l/. Following /n/, it became /z/. And finally, initially, /r/ became /ʁ/, then shifted to /ɣ/. This has created a two way mutation split among words beginning with /ɣ/, with those descended from /g/ not lenited and nasalizing to /ŋ/, and those descended from /r/ leniting to /l/ and nasalizing to /z/.

Vowel Raising
In non-final open syllables, /e/ rose to /i/ and /o/ rose to /u/. This basically steamrolled the already tenuous distinction between -er and -ir verbs. Final codas prevented this shift.

Monophthongization
The loss of diphthongs occured in tandem with palatalization and labialization. For most diphthongs, the semivowel was simply lost. Among falling diphthongs, /au/ remains as /aw/, /ei/ and /ai/ became /e/, /ou/ and /oi/ became /o/, and /ui/ became /u/.

Vowel Loss
Vowels disappeared in several contexts. Final vowels were the most conspicuous, destroying the Spanish gender marking and most of its verb system in its wake. Unstressed medial vowels also were liable to disappear. Among verbs, this created a class of verbs that gain internal vowels in all present tense forms except 1st person plural. And finally, many unstressed initial vowels disappeared, which resulted in the phonemicization of many fricatives.

Coda Shift
Finally, certain of the new coda phonemes were disallowed. /l/ became /w/ following vowels, which dissimilated to /v/ then /b/ following /o/ and /u/. /ɲ/ and /h/ were disallowed as final codas, changing to /ŋ/ and /s/ respectively. These all produce irregular plurals, where the singular form's final consonant changes to the disallowed variant once a vowel is suffixed.

Mutations
One of the major developments in Míkhan is the system of initial consonant mutations. Mutations like these develop when the sound changes that generally occur within a word bleed over into the words that follow them. Usually this occurs with particles, prepositions, articles, and auxiliary verbs, and in other circumstances where the modifier and word occur together often enough for such sound changes to drift past sandhi barriers. In Míkhan, mutations are used to mark varied information, including noun gender, tense, negation, possession, and and status as a prepositional object. There are two major mutations, namely Siwban (hissing) or lenition, and Koghilan (congealing) or nasalization. The closely mirror the Irish séimhiú and urú mutations, though many of the individual changes are unique.

Siwban
Siwban mutations, or lenition, developed from obstruents in intervocalic position. Consonants that undergo Siwban soften into fricatives.

Words that receive Siwban include:


 * Feminine nouns following the definite article
 * Adjectives following feminine nouns
 * Verbs occurring after the future particles bo, bam, and ba
 * Verbs in the 3rd person singular after the progressive particle ta
 * Singular possessed nouns following the prefixes u- (2nd and 3rd person singular) and mech- (1st person plural)
 * Verbs following the accusative prefixes i- (2nd person plural) and a- (3rd person singular)
 * Verbs following the dative prefix i- (2nd and 3rd singular)
 * Verbs following all dative-accusative paired pronouns based on 2nd and 3rd person singular accusative
 * Human or animate direct objects (optional, marks focus)
 * Nouns following the prepositions par (for, specifically in the forward sense, see below), da (of, from), sikaz (at, near), and others

Koghilan
Koghilan mutations, or nasalization, developed due to contact between coda nasals and obstruents. Kogilan causes voiceless obstruents to voice, voiced stops to transform into nasals, and voiced fricatives to harden into stops.

Words that receive Koghilan include:


 * Masculine nouns following the indefinite article
 * Verbs in the 2nd or 3rd person plural after the progressive particle ta
 * Negated verbs following the negative particle nug
 * Objects of the copula so when describing a plural subject
 * Singular possessed nouns following the prefix i- (1st person singular)
 * Verbs following the accusative prefixes i- (1st person singular) and o- (1st person plural)
 * Verbs following the dative prefixes i- (1st person singular) and o- (1st person plural)
 * Verbs following all dative-accusative paired pronouns based on 1st person accusative
 * Nouns following the prepositions e (in, on), ko (with, using), and others

Mutations
The reason for the two sets of mutations of gh are due to the twin evolution from Spanish g and rr. Which mutation to use must be memorized.

There are also a number of irregular mutations that apply to labials. The source of these mutations was labialized velars and /n/. Mutations had evolved before the labialization could occur, and they overrode the /w/ semivowel that causes it. These are irregular and must be memorized.

Also, a small number of words take the prefix na- in when undergoing Koghilan. This developed from the lost initial vowels of many of these words.

Orthography
Most speakers of Míkhan are illiterate. What is the point to reading when surviving is such a daily battle? As well, the language is, as most new languages are at first, generally seen as a corruption of the purer Spanish of old, a true child of the apocalypse in which it was birthed. As such, writing in Míkhan is looked down upon in favor of writing in Spanish and sometimes English in the northern regions. The writing system shown here is a romanization system, used as a tool for readers here. The only major rule to the romanization system is the placement of the accent mark. No monosyllabic word can receive the accent mark. If a multisyllabic word receives stress on the final syllable, it is unwritten. Any other stress placement is however marked with the accent mark.

Also, as a nod to its ancestor, question marks and exclamation points are reversed and doubled.

Nouns
Nouns in Míkhan bear great resemblance to the nouns of Spanish. They inflect for number and gender, albeit in a much more irregular fashion than the meticulously simple pattern of Spanish.

Gender
Míkhan has inherited the masculine and feminine genders of Spanish. The vast majority of words retain the gender of their ancestors, but shuffling has still occurred. Unlike in Spanish, one cannot easily guess the gender based on the noun itself. The simple -o/-a distinction was lost when final vowels were lost. Thus, to tell gender, one must look at plural behavior, relationship with articles, derivational suffixes, and other less-than-immediately-obvious-means.