Xarrano

General information
Xarrano (pronounced /ʃa'rano/) is a romlang mainly inspired by Iberian Romance languages, also showing influence from Italian. The goal is that it resemble a language of the Iberian family while having a vowel alternating plural system due to specific sound changes.

Its family tree can be traced as Indo-European, Italic, Romance, Western Romance, Ibero-Romance, West-Iberian, Xarrano.

Its speakers mostly live in an isolated mountainous region in the Iberian peninsula called Xarra Alta ("tall sierra").

Historical sound changes
When compared to other Iberian languages, Xarrano shows some conservative features, such as distinction between voiceless and voiced fricatives and preservation of most final vowels, while having innovated in other areas like the coalescence of coronals before /je/ and palatalization of final /s/, eventually causing the loss of distinction between masculine and feminine in plural forms.

General changes
a) Loss or lenition of final consonants:

AMAT, LUPŌS, VĪTAM (polysyllables) > ama, lobe (< loboi), vida

AUT, MEL, QUEM, TAM, SĪC (monosyllables) > o, miel, quien, tan, si

b) Loss of /h/:

/h/ ADHAESIONEM,HABĒRE,PREHENDERE > /-/ adeson, aver, prender

c) Monophthongization of AE and OE:

/ai, oi/ CAELUM, GRAECUM, POENAM > /ɛ, e/ > /(j)e, e/ cielo, grego, pena

d) Minor changes:

/VnsV/ MENSEM, PREHENSUM > /VzV/ mes, preso

/CCC/ ASSŪMPTUM, FUNCTIONEM > /CC/ assunto, funçon

/lle#/ ILLĒ, MĪLLE, PELLEM > /l#/ el, mil, piel

Changes related to Western Romance
a) Shift from vowel quantity to vowel quality (extended to Italo-Western):

/iː, i, eː, e, a(ː), o, oː, u, uː/ > /i, e, e, ɛ, a, ɔ, o, o, u/

/ɛ, ɔ/ > /jɛ, wɔ/ > /je, we/ only in stressed open syllables

b) Monophthongization of AU (extended to Italo-Western):

/au/ AURICULAM, AUT, *autoricare, PAUCUM, TAURUM > /o/ oregha, o, otorgar, poco, toro

c) Lenition of intervocalic plosives:

/b, d, g/ BIBERE, NŪDUM, *vagativu > /v, -, -/ bever, nuo, vadío

/p, t, k/ CAEPULLAM, RECIPERE, PRĀTUM, FOCUM > /b-v, d, g/ cebogha, recivir, prado, fuego

/pp, tt, kk/ STUPPAM, GUTTAM, PECCĀTUM > /p, t, k/ estopa, gota, pecado

(plosives surrounded by a semivowel were somewhat preserved, but suffered other changes)

d) Early process of syncope (between sonorants and plosives, and the sequence /sVt/):

/VCVCV/ COLAPHUM, OPERAM, COMITEM, POSITUM > /VCCV/ golpo, obra, conde, posto

/VCVCV/ LEPOREM, OCULUM, *cosutura > /VCCV/ lebre, ogho, costura

(to be continued)

Consonants
- /n/ has many allophones that are homorganic with a following consonant.

- /r/ is realized as a weak trill. It can often be realized as the single tap [ɾ].

- /h/ is only used in some loanwords. It is realized as a weak [x] or another back fricative, or not pronounced at all.

Vowels
- The mid vowels are realized as close-mid vowels, but sometimes they can be more open when they are in closed stressed syllables.

- Beside the basic vowels, there are two more vowel phonemes represented by the diphthongs /je/ and /we/. They are both regarded as front vowels.

Alphabet
Officially, all the 26 letters of modern Latin alphabet are taught, but K, W don't appear in Xarrano native vocabulary. The letter Y, now obsolete, was once used in older versions of the language.

Orthography
Xarrano's orthography is considered to be shallow. However, some traditions have been preserved.

The letters A, B, D, E, F, H, I, L, M, N, O, P, R, T, U, V represent their basic phonemic values.

Other representations in writing are presented below:

/ɲ/: Ñ.

/tʃ/ and /dʒ/: CH and GH. They are perceived as belonging to the plosive group.

/k/: C before A, O, U; QU before E, I.

/g/: G before A, O, U; GU before E, I.

/θ/: Ç before A, O, U; C before E, I.

/ð/: Z (rare word initially).

/s/: S word initially, after consonant and before consonant or pause; SS intervocalic.

/z/: S, only in intervocalic position.

/ʃ/: X.

/ʒ/: G before E, I; J before A, O, U but also before E, I in some words.

The letter Y used to represent /j/, but nowadays it tends to be pronounced just like GH when word initially and intervocalic. As a vowel, it usually represents the same phoneme as the vowel I and is limited to proper names and loanwords.

As for diacritics, the diaresis is used over U in the sequences QÜE and GÜE to represent /kwe/ and /gwe/. The acute accent marks a stressed syllable under the following conditions: a) open oxytone; b) paroxytone with a closed last syllable (except foreign plural with -s); c) proparoxytone; d) stressed open monosyllable if not using it may cause confusion.