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.

Official status
Tzapalian is one of the de facto languages of Mexico, along with Spanish and other indigenous languages.

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 Kriolli 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 always (C)V(C) except in loanwords e.g. Bahranilli 'Bahrain'.

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: guai metziu
 * NA: metziu guai

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

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, c̣h and tzh respectively that only appeared at the end of words before the latter had been merged into separate phonemes /p.ʔ, t.ʔ, k.ʔ, ts.ʔ/. Thus, cutōc̣hayec 'woods' /ˈkʊtoːkʼɐjɛk/ became /ˈkʊtoːk.ʔɐjɛk/.