Zhanlika

Classification and Dialects
Zhanlika is a language designed by adam and osswix as a cooperative language. It is an highly agglutenative language with hinty kitchen-sinky grammar.

Phonotactics
A basic notation of the phonotactics could be (C)(M)V(F) where, C is any consonant, M is a medial which depends on the initial consonant, V is any vowel and F is any final consonant.

The final consonant can only be nasals, stops, /s/, /l/ or /r/.

The medial can always be /j/, /w/ and /r/, but after stops also /s/ can occur, after nasals also /l/ can occur.

Allophony
/h/ is pronounced as [ç] before /i/. /tʼ/ and /kʼ/ are pronounced [t] and [k] respectively word finally. /b/ and /d/ are pronounced [p] and [t] respectively word finally. /tʼ/ and /kʼ/ are pronounced [tʰ] and [kʰ] respectively word initially. /n/, /ɲ/ and /ŋ/ are pronounced [ɾ], [j] and [ŋɣ] intervocally. /n/ and /ɲ/ are both pronounced as [m] before any bilabial consonant (mb and ɸ). /tʼ/, /kʼ/ are pronounced as [t] and [k] respectively before an /s/. /s/ is pronounced [z] after /b/ and /d/.

Consonants
' is used to seperate possible digraphs from actual single graphs (an example with minimal pairs would be /ɲa/ vs /nja/ which would be written as nja and n'ja respectively.)

Vowels
in the handwritten latin variant v is actually written like ʌ

vowel harmony
The vowels have a harmony, where i /i/ + e/ɛ/ and u /u/ + /ɔ/ cannot occur in the same word. The first 'strong' vowel (either i, e, u or o) that occurs in the root of a word is the vowel everything harmonizes to. If a word doesn't contain any of the vowels i, e. u or o (thus only cointains the vowels a, y and v) it is considered a 'neutral root' and suffixes do not change (unless there is a suffix or compound that creates a 'strong' root). strong o/u roots are roots where the first 'strong' vowel is either o or u. strong e/i roots are roots where the first 'strong' vowel is either e or i. All other vowels harmonize to these roots (in a root contradicting vowels cannot occur). The vowels of suffixes and compounds might change depending on the harmony, u and o change to y and v respectively in strong e/i roots and i and e change to y and v respectively in strong o/u roots. an example with the suffix in : mal (neutral root) + in > malin mon (strong o/u root) + in > monyn mik (strong e/i root) + in > mikin

an example with the suffix om : mal (neutral root) + om > malom mon (strong o/u root) + om > monom mik (strong e/i root) + om > mikvm

Nouns
All affixes but the root are optional.