Quhtanese

General information
Quhtanese (natively we Lus i Q’ùtá /ʁǣ ɺɤ̄ʃ ī qʰɤ̂tʰɑ̌/; literally: “the speech of the officials”) is a dialect continuum spoken across most of western, southcentral, and coastal Quhtan (wi Sâiyu i Cûis or Cûis). Because most Quhtanese dialects are found in the west, the group is also referred to as the "western dialect(s)". When the Quhtanese continuum is taken as one language, as is often done in academic literature, it has the secondmost native speakers (nearly a billion) of the languages on Aetho.

Consonants

 * A glottal stop appears epenthetically between two vowels in the standard variety. It is phonemic is some dialects.
 * The approximants tend to be fricativized when spoken emphatically.

Vowels

 * Allowable diphthongs are: /iæ/, /iɤ/, /iɑ/, /ɤi/, /æɤ/, /ɑɤ/, and /ɑi/

Phonotactics
(C)V(n, ŋ̟, k̟, s̻, ʃ, χ, ɻ)
 * Minimal syllable: è /æ̂/
 * Maximal syllable: tlùin /tɬʰɤ̂i̯n/

Parts of Speech

 * nouns and pronouns: tlej "stone"
 * verbs, adpositions, coverbs, and adjectives: dêg "help"
 * copulae: ay "is"
 * adjectival nouns: qìe "west"
 * articles, determiners, enclitics (inc. interrogative): we "the"
 * numbers: di "one"
 * particles: tlèj "very"
 * preverbs: ca- "association with water"
 * conjunctions: u "and"
 * interjections: Hìr "hello, pay attention"
 * ideophones: rîus "glass breaking"

Numbers
Nàu nûj cùs è díu su. [nɑ̂ɤ̯ nɤ᷈χ k̟ʰɤ̂ʃ æ̂ tǐɤ̯ ʃɤ̄]
 * 1) di /tī/
 * 2) zà /sɑ̂/
 * 3) rú /ɻɤ̌/
 * 4) hès /hæ̂ʃ/
 * 5) dilu /tīɺɤ̄/
 * 6) zàlu /sɑ̂ɺɤ̄/
 * 7) seujâ /ʃǣɤχɑ᷈/
 * 8) jâ /χɑ᷈/

tlèj=very