Ahoreni

''' The creator of Hwayi, Olive11224, asks of thee not to alter this page in any way. ''' The language of Hwayi is being somewhat significantly altered all the time. Many details may be inconsistent. Comments, criticism, and concerns are welcome.

General Information
Hwayi (Haqi: 魂语，Hagu: 화이 IPA: /xwa.i/) is an agglutinative language which was once found from Manchuria to Shandong. It is now spoken only in areas around the Changbai mountains. It is a recognized regional language by the People's Republic of China.

Hwayi is one of the only survivng languages in the Youcu language family. The only other known surviving language is the Zhugwe language.

Vowels

 * [x] shifts to [h] before the front and near front vowels.
 * [r] may shorten [ɾ], as long as [r] is not the initial consonant.
 * The retroflex series shifts to Palatal before the vowels [ɪ, i, ɯ].
 * [a] shifts to [æ] after [x].

Phonotactics

 * The language's main syllable structure is (C)(S)N(F)
 * C = Consonant
 * S = Sibilant Fricative
 * N = Nucleus
 * F = Nasal
 * The nucleus structure is (G)H(L)
 * G = Glide
 * H = Prominent vowel
 * L = Diminished vowel
 * All possible nuclei are listed here in green.


 * An alternate syllable is consisted of a syllabic nasal.

Pitch Accent
Hwayi pitch accent can be presented with a simple two-pitch-level model. Each syllable is either low (L), or High(H).
 * 1) If the accent is on the first syllable in a clause, the following syllables in the clause are low, but the syllable twice before the last is high: HLLLHLL
 * 2) If the accent is on a syllable other than the first, the first syllable is low, and the next is high. This repeats until it is interrupted by the accented syllable, which is high. All following syllables are low: LHLHLL.
 * 3) If no word has an accent, the first syllable is high, the next two are low, and this repeats. HLLHLL.

Writing System
This language usually uses a modified variation of the Korean alphabet in conjunction with a Chinese- based logography.

Grammar
The language is SOV.

Nouns phrases
Nouns in Hwayi lack grammatical gender, articles and number. Hwayi also has the distinction of being somewhat head-initial; the noun almost always preceds its complements, although there are notable exceptions. In order to show number and definiteness, the noun must be bound to a classifier.

Example 1: 애태왜猫 Etewemani, literally one [classifier- small animate] cat.

Example 2: 샅 왜 猫  Satwemani, literally this [classifier- small animate] cat.

There are many suffixes used to further elaborate on the locative case.

Classifiers
Classifiers work similarly to Chinese, and must be bound to a noun if one were to describe number or definiteness. Here is a list of the classifiers which are commonly used.

Pronouns
The pronouns in Hwayi act similarly to Japanese pronouns; they aren't true pronouns. They act more similarly to regular nouns, and are derived from nouns. Also like Japanese, they are an open word class.