Muntignasch

Berrowish (muntignasch) is a constructed Romance language, spoken in the large island of Daia by the descendants of Gallo-Romance speakers of the Alps, who started thriving on the island after the shipwreck of a large ship in the late 12th century.

Classification and Dialects
Berrowish is a contructed Romance language, which means it is derived from Latin. The main dialect subdivision is North versus South, with other minor differences within these two variants. Pronunciation can diverge significantly between formal and informal register, more in the South than in the North, while vocabulary is basically the same, especially in the formal register.

In informal speech, the distinction between long and short vowels is no longer made in the South, effectively merging historical /ɛ/ and /aː/ from Vulgar Latin; in both formal and informal speech, it is also common to drop /ð/ between vowels and /θ/ word-finally, and between two vowels that are different enough, a glide is inserted (e.g. partida [pəχˈti(ː)jə], perdiuda [pəʀˈdjuːʋə] or [pəʀˈdjuwə]). Still somewhat informally, /ʕ/ is transformed in a pharyngealised vowel, usually pronounced longer when reading (e.g. fuglar (household) [fʊˑˁˈlæ] or [fʊːˁˈlæːχ] in the South, but [fʊˈʕ̞læːʀ] or [fʊˈʁlæːr] in the North). In the North, mainly for people over 50 and in very formal settings, /ħ/ and /ʕ/ are pronounced as [χ] and [ʁ] and [ʀ] is pronounced as [r] (these two characteristics are considered stilted for younger people); also generally in the North, unstressed /i/ and /u/ are tense, not lax as in the South; and /ħ/ is pronounced [ç] after [i], reflecting the ancient velar pronunciation in other environments.

There is quite a large area in the Northeastern River Delta where [a] and [ɑ] merge into [ɑ]. In the Central Western county, still in the Northern dialect group, where [ɑ] and [ɒ] merge into [ɑ], and /aj/ is pronounced [æj]. In the Central Southern dialect, pharyngealised /u/ and /i/ are pronounced [o] and [ɨ], and /ɑː/ is rounded [ɒː].

The vocabulary and grammar of the standard language is based on a koiné of both dialects, with room for many variations in local pronunciation, but there is a general koiné educated standard of both the North and the South.



Consonants

 * /ŋ/ appears only word-finally
 * /k/ and /g/ are palatal ([c], [ɟ]) before non-back vowels and word-finally
 * /v/ is most often an approximant
 * /ð/ is basically always an approximant, except in extremely formal settings of the North, but this approximant is also retracted [ð̠˕], equivalent to canonical [ɹ]
 * /ʕ/ is always an approximant, as in most languages
 * /ʀ/ is unvoiced [χ] before voiceless consonants and word-finally

Vowels
/aj/, /uj/ (rare), /jeː/, /jɜː/, /juː/, /əw/, /wɒ/