Míkhan

A Mun Dechiz
"A tear makes mud from the ash,

A flame makes sand into glass,

Fear makes nightmares out of dreams,

Pain makes the wind into screams.

For what reason do they scatter

When all left of our world is shattered?"

-Áje the Bloody

"Sinis par luz da zuloro

Arin par bij da eplusho

Séño par mez da tilonush

Aled par ghif da zulo mush.

Pále ghaso ta n-ekafan zho,

Pan mu dechiz a mun so?"

-Áje ko Zánge

The world didn't end in a bang or a cough, but with a shriek.

The collapse of human society came as hordes of interdimensional parasites called Shriekers swarmed into our world. As they leeched biolectricity from their victims and transformed them into horrific killing machines, only the brave, the ruthless, and the dangerous were able to survive.

As Mexico was overrun with vampiric predators and supernatural monsters, clans of warring raiders and pirates fought over the scraps left in the ruined cities. What civilization was left was forced brutal in its efficiency and cruel in its drive to survive.

And all the while, the Spanish we know today shifted with the people, becoming something altogether unrecognizable.

This is Míkhan, the language of ash.

Phonology
The language left over after hundreds of years of evolution and isolation is very different from the Spanish of old. It has simultaneously retained archaic elements and innovated a vast number of phonemes and features.

Consonants
There is a far amount of allophonic variation among the consonants. In particular, /χ/ ranges from [x~χ] and even to [ħ] in certain dialects, and /ɣ/ follows a similar gradient as [ɣ~ʁ]. /ɾ/ can be found as a trill [r] following stressed vowels. Certain northern dialects pull the post-alveolars forward to palato-alveolars, pronouncing /ʃ ʒ tʃ dʒ/ as [ɕ ʑ tɕ dʑ]. By far the most tenuous position is the alveolars, which as often as not are pronounced as dental.

Vowels
Unlike the heavily shifted consonants, the vowel inventory of Míkhan is remarkably unchanged from its Spanish roots. Only two major sound changes- the loss of diphthongs and the raising of mid vowels- occurred to affect the system. The amount of variation among vowels is fairly manageable. Mid vowels lower in closed syllables, with /e/ becoming [ɛ] and /o/ becoming [ɔ]. Many common single syllable particles that end in /ä/ are pronounced [ə]. There are no diphthongs. Sequences of vowels + /w/ are analyzed as just that, vowel followed by approximant.

Stress
Stress is a contrastive feature in Míkhan. The vast majority of the time, the stress falls on the final syllable. In the romanization system, final stress is unwritten, and all other stress is marked by an acute accent.

The most common grammatical elements that tend to shift stress are noun plurals and the present plural 2nd person/3rd person plural, which almost always contrasts with the infinitive.

kume /ku.ˈme/- "to eat"

kúme /ˈku.me/- "you/they eat"

ñalag /ɲä.ˈläg/- "claw"

ñalága /ɲä.ˈlä.gä/- "claws"

It can also act as a lexical marker.

sáwan /ˈsä.wän/- "blanket"

sawan /sä.ˈwän/- "grassland"

Phonotactics
The phonotactics of Míkhan are fairly stringent. Max syllable structure is CVC. Onset can be any consonant, except no word starts with /ɾ/. The coda can be any consonant except /l/. /h/ does not occur in clusters. Nasals assimilate in place of articulation to what follows them. Most clusters also assimilate in voicing.

a- V "the"

bo- CV "I will"

paj- CVC "father"

ghepef - CVCVC "respect"

seksho- CVCCV "chapter"

kozjuzher- CVCCVCVC "they built"

Phonological Evolution
Over several hundred years, Spanish underwent numerous sound shifts and changes that resulted in a language that sounds very different than its ancestor. The major sound changes and their effect on the grammar and nature of Míkhan are documented here.

Note: These sound changes are not given in exact order of occurrence, and not all changes are documented, only ones majorly important to Míkhan's evolution.

Palatalization
The dental/alveolars palatalized to postalveolars in many circumstances:


 * 1) Before semivowel /j/
 * 2) Before /ɾ/
 * 3) /ʝ/ shifts to /dʒ/ initially and /ʒ/ interocalically



Labialization
When /w/ or an equivalent semivowel followed a velar or /n/, they shifted to labial sounds.


 * 1) Before semivowel /w/
 * 2) Before /ɾ/

This will prove important in the mutations, when a subset of labials will mutate to velar forms as the mutations overrode the labialization shift.

Spirantilization
Between vowels, obstruents were drawn out into fricatives. This was the direct cause of the Siwban mutation. It led to the development and phonemicization of several sounds, namely, /w z ɣ h/. Earlier in Míkhan's history, it produced /ð/ from /d/ and /θ/ from /t/, but these shifted to /z/ and /f/ respectively.

Nasalization
Nasals caused heaving assimilation to the sounds that followed them and the vowels that preceded them. In vowels, this nasalization prevented the later vowel raising. Among consonants, voiceless sounds were voiced, voiced stops became nasals, and voiced fricatives hardened into stops. This directly produced the Koghilan mutation.

Coda Loss
Most of the coda consonants of Spanish disappeared in one way or another. Nasalization claimed coda nasals, coda /ɾ/ would vocalize and coda /s/ debuccalized. All of these prevented the later vowel raising. Words that had such final sounds do not allow mutation nowadays. Also important is that these sounds prevented final vowel loss, resulting in much of the modern plural and verb conjugation systems.

R-shift
The trill /r/ was lost in various ways. Final /r/ left from final vowel loss remained as /ɾ/. Intervocalically, /r/ shifted to /l/. Following /n/, it became /z/. And finally, initially, /r/ became /ʁ/, then shifted to /ɣ/. This has created a two way mutation split among words beginning with /ɣ/, with those descended from /g/ not lenited and nasalizing to /ŋ/, and those descended from /r/ leniting to /l/ and nasalizing to /z/.

Vowel Raising
In non-final open syllables, /e/ rose to /i/ and /o/ rose to /u/. This basically steamrolled the already tenuous distinction between -er and -ir verbs. Final codas prevented this shift.

Monophthongization
The loss of diphthongs occured in tandem with palatalization and labialization. For most diphthongs, the semivowel was simply lost. Among falling diphthongs, /au/ remains as /aw/, /ei/ and /ai/ became /e/, /ou/ and /oi/ became /o/, and /ui/ became /u/.

Vowel Loss
Vowels disappeared in several contexts. Final vowels were the most conspicuous, destroying the Spanish gender marking and most of its verb system in its wake. Unstressed medial vowels also were liable to disappear. Among verbs, this created a class of verbs that gain internal vowels in all present tense forms except 1st person plural.

Coda Shift
Finally, certain of the new coda phonemes were disallowed. /l/ became /w/ following vowels, which dissimilated to /v/ then /b/ following /o/ and /u/. /ɲ/ and /h/ were disallowed as final codas, changing to /ŋ/ and /s/ respectively. These all produce irregular plurals, where the singular form's final consonant changes to the disallowed variant once a vowel is suffixed.