Ćín

General Information
Proto-Çin, [tʃin], as the name suggests, is the proposed parent language of the Çin language family. It is believed to have been spoken around 13,000 years ago in the Çinǝl (Chinel, [tʃinəl]) valley. It was first discovered by Calistos Malia ([kalɪsθos mãlja]) in 6253 and has been developed by linguists over the past 150 years. The Çin language family is currently spoken by around 11.5 billion language speakers today and consists of about 25% of the world's languages, though it makes up about 63% of all language speakers due to how widespread those languages are.

While the langauge was written, the script is not able to be typed; this transliteration (suggested by Malia) be will be used instead.

Consonants
Proto-Çin's 23 consonants are listed below. The orthography is written next to them in bold. There are relatively few consonants in Proto-Çin. 1It is believed that [f] and [v] are allophones in colloquial speech, however, recoverd documents suggested that the official prounciation was closer to [v] than [f]


 * Palatal consonants can't end words, nor can they be follwed by /i/, another palatal consonants, /jV, jV:, wV, or wV:/.


 * n becomes palatal before a /jV or jV:/ diphthong and the cluster becomes /ɲV ~ nʲV/ (a long vowel is shortened).

Consonant clusters
Proto-Çin forms relatively few consonant cluster, and many are only allowed after vowel. Consonant clusters allowed at the beginning of a word are marked with *. They are listed below.

/kt/ - ct

/st/ - st*

/zt/ - zt

/lt/ - lt

/ʃt/ - şt*

/sp/ - sp

/sk/ - sc

/ʃp/ - şp*

/Pl/ - Pl* (P is a non palatalized consonant).

Any other case where two consonants are written next to each other are one of the following, though these cases are rare.

1) If the two consonants are different, the second consonat is a syllabic consnant (lownis* is ['lɔ.wṇ.is]).

2) If the two consnants are the same, it is a geminated consonant. (lowwis* is ['lɔ.w:is])


 * Not real words, just examples.

Vowels
Proto-Çin's 19 vowels are listed below along with the accepted dipthongs (V is a vowel). As with consonants, the orthography is written next to them in bold.
 * [e, ɛ, and a] become [ẽ, ɛ̃, and ã] before /m and n/.

Syllable
Because of the restriction on consonant clusters, syllables in Proto-Çin are simple. Note that if a syllabic consonant is the nucleus, the syllable may not contain another consonant (unless that consonant forms a cluster with the syllable  nucleus).

(C)V/C̣(C)

This leads to a possible syllables (once again, these are just hypothetical syllables, not actual words)

V Syllable

Clani - ['klan.i]

CV Syllable

Şatəl - ['ʃa.təl]

CVC Syllable

At̆el - ['a.tʲel]

C̣ syllable

lownis - ['lɔw.ṇ.is]

CC̣ syllable (extremely rare)

Knes - [kṇ.'es]

CC̣C syllable (less rare than CC̣, but still rare)
Vspal - ['vṣp.al]

Stress
Stress in Proto-Çin is very simple. Stress usually falls on the first syllable. However, if that syllable is a CC̣ syllable, the stress falls on the next syllable. Irregualr stress will be marked with an acute accent (V́), but stress is usually regular..

Double Stress
Exceedingly rare, it is possible for a word to have extra stress on the first syllable if the word before it is CC̣ (and no stress on the CC̣ word). This is usually realized as a rising pitch on the syllable.

Ex. Mn Z̧āmc - [mṇ ʒã:.mḳ],     A name of a religious leader.  

Overview
Nouns in Proto-Çin inflect for number, case, and definiteness, eliminating the need for articles; they also show gender, indicated by the stem of the noun. Nouns have 4 stems, which must be memorized. The dictionary entry of a noun is the definite nominative singular.

Gender

Gender in Proto-Çin is not "gender" in the classical sense, but rather a noun's classification. There are 5 genders in Proto-Çin: animate, living, natural, celestial, and inanimate. The animate gender is reserved for nouns that are both living and able to move, that is animals and humans. The living gender is reserved for nouns that are alive, but are unable to move. The natural gender is for nouns that are not living but that are not man-made, such as wood, water, fire, etc. The celestial gender is for nouns that are in the sky or space. Finally, the inanimate gender includes every other noun.

It is important to memorize the gender of a noun because adjectives and verbs must agree with a noun in gender. The gender of a noun is based on its stem, but many nouns have irregular gender, and natural and living nouns usually share a stem.

Nouns are separated into declension by gender.

Number

Nouns can have one of 4 numbers: single, dual, plural, and mass. The singular form of a noun is used, as expected, when there is only of the noun. The dual form of a noun, contrary to its name, is used when they are 2 - 3 of a noun (also when there are a few, some, etc.). The plural and mass forms are both used when there is a lot of a noun; however, the plural form is used when the number of items is known or is possible to be determined. The mass form is used when the number of items is unable to be determined.

Case

There are 9 cases in Proto-Çin: Nominative, Accusative, Dative, Genitive, Vocative, Instrumental, Ablative, Allative, and Locative. Other cases are expressed using prepositions + another case.

The instrumental case, in addition to marking a noun as being used in an action and marking association, it can also be used to turn the noun into an adjective (the noun is "being used" to describe another noun). This adjective then declines other adjectives.

As mentioned above, knowns have two stems. The A-stem is used for the Nominative, Accusative, Dative, Genitive, and Vocative cases. The B-stem is used for the Instrumental, Ablative, Allative, and Locative cases.

Definiteness Definiteness in Proto-Çin is very simple; nouns are definite (the) or indefinite (a/an). The difference between definite and indefinite is a stem change.

1st Declension
1st Declension nouns are for nouns of the animate gender. Their definite A-stem is -a, their indefinite A-stem is -ā, their definite B-stem is -es, and their indefinite B-stem is -oiz̧. Their declension is listed below.