Rangyayo

Consonants
The following are phonemic transcriptions of Rangyan consonants.


 * 1) /ŋ/ appears only in the syllable coda.
 * /s, z/ are palatalised [ɕ, ʑ] before /i, j/
 * 1) /h/ is palatalised [ç] before /i, j/; and is bi­la­bialised [ɸ] before /u, w/
 * 2) /ts, dz, tsʰ/ are palatalised [tɕ, dʑ, tɕʰ] before /i, j/
 * 3) /ɾ/ is an alveolar flap [ɾ] in the syllable onset; and is [l] in the syllable coda.

Monophthongs

 * 1) /i/ is pronounced /ɪ/ before velar codas /ŋ, k̚/
 * 2) /u/ is /ʊ/ before velar codas /ŋ, k̚/

Diphthongs
In the Rangyan language, because semivowels /j/ and /w/ may follow consonants in initial position in a word, which no other consonant can do, and perhaps due also to yenmun orthography, which transcribes them as vowels, they are sometimes considered to be elements of diphthongs and triphthongs rather than separate consonant phonemes.


 * 1) /ju/ is pronounced /jʊ/ before velar codas /ŋ, k̚/
 * 2) /uɪ/ is a falling diphthong [uɪ] after a consonant in an open syllable; and is a rising diphthong [wi] when it is a syllable of its own or in a closed syllable.

Positional allophones
Rangyan consonants have two principal positional allophones: initial and final. The initial form is found at the beginning of a syllable and the final form is found at the end of a syllable. All plosives [p, t, k] are unreleased [p̚, t̚, k̚] at the end of a syllable. Final [ɾ] is a liquid [l].

Phonotactics
Rangyan syllable structure is maximally CgVC, where the first C is the initial consonant; g is a semivowel glide /j/ or /w/; V is a vowel; the second C is a coda. Any consonant but /ŋ/ may occur initially, whereas only /m, n, ŋ, p, t, k, l/ may occur finally.

Below is the table of all syllable finals (gVC) in Rangyan.


 * 1) pronounced [wi] when it is a syllable of its own or before codas /n, t̚, l/; and pronounced [wɪ] before codas /ŋ, k̚/
 * 2) pronounced [uɪ] after an onset in an open syllable.

Additional finals /wam/, /wɛm/, /wim/, /wap/, /wɛp/, /wip/ can be found in foreign loanwords.

Vowel harmony
Traditionally, the Rangyan language has had strong vowel harmony; that is, in pre-modern Rangyan, not only did the inflectional and derivational affixes change in accordance to the main root vowel, but native words also adhered to vowel harmony. However, this rule is no longer observed strictly in modern Rangyan. In modern Rangyan, it is only applied in certain cases such as onomatopoeia and interjections.

There are three classes of vowels in Rangyan: positive, negative and neutral. The vowel classes loosely follow the vowel heights. Exchanging positive vowels with negative vowels usually creates different nuances of meaning, with positive vowels sounding fast, hot, dry, hard, solid, focused or aggressive, and negative vowels sounding slow, cold, wet, soft, insubstantial, diffuse or tranquil.

Nouns
Rangyan has no grammatical number, gender or articles. Thus, Rangyan nouns are non-inflecting. The noun iku can be translated as "dog", "dogs", "a dog", "the dog", "some dogs" and so forth, depending on context. However, as part of the extensive pair of grammatical systems that Rangyan possesses for honorification and politeness, nouns too can be modified. Nouns take politeness prefix a- to produce their respectful forms. A few examples are given in the following table.

Rangyan does not differentiate between count and mass nouns. A small number of nouns have collectives formed by reduplication, for example, oro "person" and orooro  "people". However, reduplication is not productive. Words in Rangyan referring to more than one of something are collectives, not plurals. Orooro, for example, means "a lot of people" or "people in general". It is never used to mean "two people". A phrase like rangya ke orooro would be taken to mean "the people of Rangya", or "the population of Rangya", not "two people from Rangya" or even "a few people from Rangya".

Lacking grammatical number, the noun hapi may refer to a single bird or several birds. Where number is important, it can be indicated by providing a quantity (often with a counter word). For example, hapi ho ik means eight birds.

Pronouns
Suffixes are added to pronouns to make them collective, for example, kigomi-te "we" and asobeda-nün  "they".

Demonstratives
Demonstratives occur in the i-, ne-, and ko- series. The i- (proximal) series refers to things closer to the speaker than the hearer, the ne- (mesial) series for things closer to the hearer, and the ko- (distal) series for things distant to both the speaker and the hearer. With ma-, demonstratives turn into the corresponding interrogative form. Demonstratives limit, and therefore precede, nouns; thus i maro for "this stone", ne maro  for "that stone", and ko maro  for "that stone over there".

Adjectives
All Rangyan adjectives end in -i, for example, ko'i "big" and hyogi  "heavy". Their syntactic role is to modify a noun or pronoun, giving more information about the noun or referent of pronoun. In Rangyan, adjectives form an open class of words, that is, it is relatively common for new adjectives to be formed via such processes as derivation.

A given occurrence of a Rangyan adjective can generally be classified into one of the two major kinds of uses:
 * Attributive adjectives are part of the noun phrase headed by the noun they modify, for example, ko'i is an attributive adjective in ko'i fupi "big bear". Since Rangyan is a head-final language, attributive adjectives always precede their nouns.
 * Predicative adjectives are linked via a copula to the noun or pronoun they modify, for example, ko'i is a predicate adjective in fupi no ko'i karü "bear is big".

Adjective order
In Rangyan language, attributive adjectives usually occur in this default order, with other orders being permissible:
 * 1) demonstrative
 * 2) intensifier (adverb of degree)
 * 3) opinion
 * 4) size
 * 5) age
 * 6) shape
 * 7) colour
 * 8) proper adjective (e.g. nationality, origin, material)
 * 9) noun adjunct (noun used as adjective)
 * 10) head noun

Example:

ne ya'i nitsi ugi hapi "that good small black bird"

Comparative
Rangyan adjectives, unlike their English counterparts, do not have a comparative form. To compare two things ( NP1 and NP2 ), the noun phrase being compared ( NP2 ), together with the postpositional comparative particle ei, are placed between the subject noun phrase ( NP1 ) and the predicative adjective in a sentence ended with a copula.

Example:

ne iku no i hapi ei ko'i karü "That dog is bigger than this bird."

Superlative
Rangyan adjectives also lack a superlative form. The adverbial noun itban "most; lit. number one" is placed before adjectives for superlative degree of comparison.

Example:

ne iku no itban ko'i karü "That dog is the biggest."

Particles
Particles in Rangyan are postpositional, as they immediately follow the modified component.

Writing system
The modern Rangyan writing system uses two main scripts: To a lesser extent, modern written Rangyan also uses the Latin alphabet. Examples include abbreviations such as "CD" and "DVD".
 * Hanji, ideographs from Chinese characters, and
 * Yenmun, a Korean phonemic alphabet organised into syllabic blocks that make up words.

Romanised Rangyan, called romaji, is frequently used by foreign students of Rangyan, who have not yet mastered the two main scripts, and by native speakers for computer input.

Romanisation
There are a number of methods of rendering Rangyan in Roman letters. The Mackenzie method of romanisation, designed for English speakers, is a de facto standard widely used inside and outside Rangya.