Khanic

Khanic (H̱aní, [xaniː]) is a language isolate spoken by several nomadic tribes living in the Greater Khingan mountain range in the Manchuria Khanate of Khingan. With only 5,000 to 6,000 native speakers, it is considered a definitely endangered language. It is a recognized minority language in the Khingalese Confederation.

Classification and Dialects
Due to the lack of knowledge about the language it is believed to be a language isolate, meaning that there are no other languages related to it. However, some linguists argue that Khanic might related to the neighboring Mongolic languages, especially Mongolian and Manchu.

Consonants

 * Before /k/, /g/, /x/ and /k͡x/, nasal consonants are realized as a velar [ŋ].


 * Between vowels, /r/ is very often reduced to [ɾ].


 * At the end of a syllable or when geminated, /k/ is pronounced [q].

Vowels

 * The schwa can replace a vowel in unstressed syllables.

Diphthongs
Possible diphthongs in Khanic are /aw/ and /aj/.

Phonotactics
The syllable structure in Khanic is as simple as (C)V(N)(C), meaning that there is always an obligatory nucleus, and that consonants may only cluster with nasals in a syllable's coda (for example /nt/).

Writing System

 * Geminant consonants are written double.
 * Long vowels are written with an acute accent and overlong vowels with a double accute accent.

Nouns
The Khanic language features no grammatical genders and definiteness is not marked. However, it makes extensive use of its twelve noun cases to mark morphosyntactical and semantical relations within a sentence. Khanic has two declension classes which are used depending on whether the stem of a noun ends in a consonant or a vowel. Nouns can be declined through gemination, vowel lengthening or simple affixation.