Erclajese

Setting
Erclajese (or, as its natives know it, Ĕir-clāih-ṫĩ̀-cẽn), is a language spoken by a race known as the Erclai, who functioned similarly to the Mongols of Eastern Asia. Among other things, they valued bones, rather than blood or souls, as the true essence of a man or beast, and thus had several expressions relating to them.

Phonology
As the Erclai do not believe in having lips, there are no bilabial/labiodental consonants or rounded vowels.

Consonants
Note: For syllables with CVC patterns (see Phonotactics below), if the first consonant is more forward than the velar region, and the other more backward than it, then the first consonant is velarized (ˠ).

Vowels
Note: Vowels can be lengthened, nasalized, or both. In the ortography (see below), long vowels are represented by double vowels, and long nasal vowels by the nasalized vowel followed by N.

Tones
Erclajese is a tonal language, and thus has five tones to distinguish words. Tone 2 is considered the neutral tone. Note: Tones are represented in the orthography as follows: A macron (¯) for Tone 1, grave (`) for Tone 3, acute (´) for Tone 4, and circumflex (ˆ) for Tone 5. Tone 2 has no orthographical representation.

Orthography
Where there are two possible IPA values for a letter, the first is the normal, and all subsequent are voiced variants other than for R that are only used after a voiced stop (starred entries are allophones). For R, the second value is used after vowels.

Phonotactics

 * The Syllable Structure is (C)(L)V(R/N)(C)(F), where C is a generic consonant, L is a lateral fricative, V is a vowel (and required for all syllables), R is a tap, N is a nasal, and F is a fricative.
 * The following polyphthongs are allowed: AI (aɪ), AU (aɯ̟), OU (ʌɯ̟), ĔI (ɛɪ), ĔU (ɛɯ̟), ŎI (ɑɪ), OĬA (ʌja), OUI (ʌɯɪ), and IĔU (jɛɯ̟).
 * H cannot begin a syllable. In New Erclajese Script (see below), its glyph is also used as a vowel carrier.
 * Long versions of the vowels Ĕ, Ĭ, Ŏ, and Ŭ must be written with the diacritic(s) on the first iteration of the vowel only.
 * Nasals and fricatives are voiced in syllables beginning with voiced stops and the voiced lateral fricative, and unvoiced otherwise. Uvulars and glottals are exempt from this rule.

Writing
The Erclai in their early years would carve inscriptions into bone, documenting all things mundane and esoteric in their lives. Not much is known about this writing system, the Old Erclajese script, except that it was believed to be pictographic, with certain symbols denoting grammatical syllables. However, it was apparently cumbersome to write, and too complex once pen and ink were introduced to the Erclai. It was at that point that a new writing system was needed. Although many have set out to simplify their writing system, only a handful of merchants have perfected such an art. The fruits of their labor, the New Erclajese script, was simplistic yet somehow sophisticated in its application. As can be seen on the right, along with the standardized basic shapes for the majority of letters, there were also certain vowel shapes that could be rotated to fit within the confines of a square, which is believed to be the proportions in which the Old Script pictographs also fit. With certain refinements (such as clarifying certain vowel glyphs so as to reduce ambiguity), the script soon caught on with the Erclai, and is now the only known script still in public use.

Characteristics:
 * The consonants are grouped by their shapes: stops are square-shaped, while nasals are triangular, and fricatives are bent. The two exceptions are R and X, which were developed with little regard to relationships with other letters.
 * The basic vowel shapes are not unlike Korean hangul, save for the letter A, which was concieved to differentiate from the letter Ĭ.
 * Nasal vowels are formed by slashing the vowel to be nasalized.
 * Tones are always written beneath the syllables.