Rangyayo

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Name: [[]] Type: Alignment: Head Direction: Number of genders: Declensions: No Conjugations: No Nouns declined according to Case Number Definitiveness Gender Verbs conjugated according to Voice Mood Person Number Tense Aspect

	Gender	Cases	Numbers	Tenses	Persons	Moods	Voices	Aspects
Verb	No	No	No	No	No	No	No	No
Nouns	No	No	No	No	No	No	No	No
Adjectives	No	No	No	No	No	No	No	No
Numbers	No	No	No	No	No	No	No	No
Participles	No	No	No	No	No	No	No	No
Adverb	No	No	No	No	No	No	No	No
Pronouns	No	No	No	No	No	No	No	No
Adpositions	No	No	No	No	No	No	No	No
Article	No	No	No	No	No	No	No	No
Particle	No	No	No	No	No	No	No	No

Phonology

Consonants

The following are phonemic transcriptions of Rangyan consonants.

		Bilabial	Alveolar	Palatal	Velar	Glottal
Nasal		m	n		ŋ1
Plosive	plain	p b	t d		k g
	aspirated	pʰ	tʰ		kʰ
Fricative			s z2			h3
Affricate	plain		ts dz4
	aspirated		tsʰ4
Liquid			ɾ~l5
Approximant		w		j

1. /ŋ/ appears only in the syllable coda.
2. /s, z/ are palatalised [ɕ, ʑ] before /i, j/
3. /h/ is palatalised [ç] before /i, j/; and is bi­la­bialised [ɸ] before /u, w/
4. /ts, dz, tsʰ/ are palatalised [tɕ, dʑ, tɕʰ] before /i, j/
5. /ɾ/ is an alveolar flap [ɾ] in the syllable onset; and is [l] in the syllable coda.

Vowels

Monophthongs

	Front	Central	Back
Close	i1	ɨ	u2
Open-mid	ɛ		ɔ
Open	a

1. /i/ is pronounced /ɪ/ before velar codas /ŋ, k̚/
2. /u/ is /ʊ/ before velar codas /ŋ, k̚/

Diphthongs

In the Rangyan language, because semivowels /j/ and /w/ may follow consonants in initial position in a word, which no other consonant can do, and perhaps due also to yenmun orthography, which transcribes them as vowels, they are sometimes considered to be elements of diphthongs and triphthongs rather than separate consonant phonemes.

j-	w-	-i
ja	wa	aɪ
jɛ	wɛ	eɪ
jɔ		ɔɪ
ju1		uɪ~wi2

1. /ju/ is pronounced /jʊ/ before velar codas /ŋ, k̚/
2. /uɪ/ is a falling diphthong [uɪ] after a consonant in an open syllable; and is a rising diphthong [wi] when it is a syllable of its own or in a closed syllable.

Triphthongs

j-	w-
jaɪ	waɪ
jeɪ	weɪ

Positional allophones

Rangyan consonants have two principal positional allophones: initial and final. The initial form is found at the beginning of a syllable and the final form is found at the end of a syllable.

Phoneme	p	t	k	ɾ
Initial allophone	p	t	k	ɾ
Final allophone	p̚	t̚	k̚	l

All plosives [p, t, k] are unreleased [p̚, t̚, k̚] at the end of a syllable. Final [ɾ] is a liquid [l].

Phonotactics

Rangyan syllable structure is maximally CgVC, where the first C is the initial consonant; g is a semivowel glide /j/ or /w/; V is a vowel; the second C is a coda. Any consonant but /ŋ/ may occur initially, whereas only /m, n, ŋ, p, t, k, l/ may occur finally.

Below is the table of all syllable finals (gVC) in Rangyan.

Finals		Codas
		(none)	m	n	ŋ	p	t	k	l
Monophthong nuclei	a	a	am	an	aŋ	ap	at	ak	al
	ɛ	ɛ	ɛm	ɛn	ɛŋ	ɛp	ɛt	ɛk	ɛl
	ɔ	ɔ	ɔm	ɔn	ɔŋ	ɔp	ɔt	ɔk	ɔl
	u	u	um	un	ʊŋ	up	ut	ʊk	ul
	ɨ	ɨ	ɨm	ɨn	ɨŋ	ɨp	ɨt	ɨk	ɨl
	i	i	im	in	ɪŋ	ip	it	ɪk	il
Diphthong nuclei	ja	ja	jam	jan	jaŋ	jap	jat	jak	jal
	jɛ	jɛ	jɛm	jɛn	jɛŋ	jɛp	jɛt	jɛk	jɛl
	jɔ	jɔ	jɔm	jɔn	jɔŋ	jɔp	jɔt	jɔk	jɔl
	ju	ju	jum	jun	jʊŋ	jup	jut	jʊk	jul
	wa	wa		wan	waŋ		wat	wak	wal
	wɛ	wɛ		wɛn	wɛŋ		wɛt	wɛk	wɛl
	wi	wi1		win	wɪŋ		wit	wɪk	wil
	aɪ	aɪ
	eɪ	eɪ
	ɔɪ	ɔɪ
	uɪ	uɪ2
Triphthong nuclei	jaɪ	jaɪ
	jeɪ	jeɪ
	waɪ	waɪ
	weɪ	weɪ

1. pronounced [wi] when it is a syllable of its own or before codas /n, t̚, l/; and pronounced [wɪ] before codas /ŋ, k̚/
2. pronounced [uɪ] after an onset in an open syllable.

Additional finals /wam/, /wɛm/, /wim/, /wap/, /wɛp/, /wip/ can be found in foreign loanwords.

Vowel harmony

Traditionally, the Rangyan language has had strong vowel harmony; that is, in pre-modern Rangyan, not only did the inflectional and derivational affixes change in accordance to the main root vowel, but native words also adhered to vowel harmony. However, this rule is no longer observed strictly in modern Rangyan. In modern Rangyan, it is only applied in certain cases such as onomatopoeia and conjugation.

There are three classes of vowels in Rangyan: positive, negative and neutral. The vowel classes loosely follow the vowel heights. Exchanging positive vowels with negative vowels usually creates different nuances of meaning, with positive vowels sounding fast, hot, dry, hard, solid, focused or aggressive, and negative vowels sounding slow, cold, wet, soft, insubstantial, diffuse or tranquil.

	Monophthongs	Diphthongs	Triphthongs
Positive	a, ɔ	ja, wa, aɪ, jɔ, ɔɪ	jaɪ, waɪ
Negative	ɛ, u	jɛ, wɛ, eɪ, ju, uɪ~wɪ	jeɪ, weɪ
Neutral	i, ɨ

Grammar

Nouns

Rangyan has no grammatical number, gender or articles. Thus, Rangyan nouns are non-inflecting. The noun iku (犬; /i.ku/) can be translated as "dog", "dogs", "a dog", "the dog", "some dogs" and so forth, depending on context. However, as part of the extensive pair of grammatical systems that Rangyan possesses for honorification and politeness, nouns too can be modified. Nouns take politeness prefix a- (아; /a/) to produce their respectful forms. A few examples are given in the following table.

Plain	Honorific	Meaning
kao (夫; /ka.ɔ/)	a-kao (아夫; /a.ka.ɔ/)	husband
nori (名; /nɔ.ɾi/)	a-nori (아名; /a.nɔ.ɾi/)	name
bu (目; /bu/)	a-bu (아目; /a.bu/)	eye
hiku (毛; /çi.ku/)	a-hiku (아毛; /a.çi.ku/)	hair (on body)

Rangyan does not differentiate between count and mass nouns. A small number of nouns have collectives formed by reduplication, for example, oro (人; /ɔ.ɾɔ/) "person" and orooro (人々; /ɔ.ɾɔ.ɔ.ɾɔ/) "people". However, reduplication is not productive. Words in Rangyan referring to more than one of something are collectives, not plurals. Orooro, for example, means "a lot of people" or "people in general". It is never used to mean "two people". A phrase like rangya ke orooro (琅冶거人々; /ɾaŋ.ja.kɛ.ɔ.ɾɔ.ɔ.ɾɔ/) would be taken to mean "the people of Rangya", or "the population of Rangya", not "two people from Rangya" or even "a few people from Rangya".

Lacking grammatical number, the noun hapi (鳥; /ha.pi/) may refer to a single bird or several birds. Where number is important, it can be indicated by providing a quantity (often with a counter word). For example, hapi ho ik (鳥八翼; /ha.pi.hɔ.ɪk̚/) means eight birds.

Pronouns

First Person	Speaker	Speech	Note
khi 我; 키	both	plain	often written in yenmun by women
mora 吾	male	plain
kigomi 기꼬미	both	humble
otto 僕	male	humble
ube 奴; 우뻐	female	humble	sometimes written in yenmun for a more feminine feel

Second Person	Speaker	Speech	Note
one 尓	both	plain
ebi 汝; 어삐	both	plain	female singular you
ane 아너	both	respectful
anemi 아너미	both	very respectful
anerumi 아너루미	both	very respectful	the most formal polite version
soka 君	both	respectful	male singular you
imme 임머; 媛	both	respectful	female singular you; often written in yenmun

Third Person	Speaker	Speech	Note
hoda 彼	both	plain
oda 오따	male	plain	slang version of hoda; used by men; rarely used in written language
suki 伊; 수기	both	plain	she; sometimes written in yenmun for a more feminine feel
asoda 아소따	both	respectful
asobeda 아소뻐따	both	very respectful

Suffixes are added to pronouns to make them collective, for example, kigomi-te (기꼬미더; /ki.gɔ.mi.tɛ/) "we" and asobeda-ne (아소뻐따너; /a.sɔ.bɛ.da.nɛ/) "they".

Suffix	Speaker	Speech	Note
te 더; 等	both	plain humble	added to plain or humble forms of pronouns usually written in yenmun (khite 我더); sometimes in hanji if appended to pronouns written in hanji (morate 吾等); almost never in hanji for pronouns in yenmun (kigomite 기꼬미더)
ne 너; 輩	both	respectful	added to respectful forms of pronouns usually in hanji (sokane 君輩) unless appended to pronouns written in yenmun (anerumine 아너루미너)

Demonstratives

Demonstratives occur in the i-, ne-, and ko- series. The i- (proximal) series refers to things closer to the speaker than the hearer, the ne- (mesial) series for things closer to the hearer, and the ko- (distal) series for things distant to both the speaker and the hearer. With ma-, demonstratives turn into the corresponding interrogative form.

	Proximal (i-)	Mesial (ne-)	Distal (ko-)	Interrog. (ma-)
Adjective	i 이 this	ne 너 that	ko 고 that over there	ma 마 what
Thing (-ko)	iko 이고 this one	neko 너고 that one	koko 고고 that one over there	mako 마고 which one
Person (-wa)	iwa 이와 this person	newa 너와 that person	kowa 고와 that person over there	mawa 마와 who
Place (-su)	isu 이수 here	nesu 너수 there	kosu 고수 over there	masu 마수 where

Demonstratives limit, and therefore precede, nouns; thus i maro (이石; /i.ma.ɾɔ/) for "this stone", ne maro (너石; /nɛ.ma.ɾɔ/) for "that stone", and ko maro (고石; /kɔ.ma.ɾɔ/) for "that stone over there".

Writing system

The modern Rangyan writing system uses two main scripts:

• Hanji (漢字; /han.dʑi/), ideographs from Chinese characters, and
• Yenmun (諺文; 연문; /jɛn.mun/), a Korean phonemic alphabet organised into syllabic blocks that make up words.

To a lesser extent, modern written Rangyan also uses the Latin alphabet. Examples include abbreviations such as "CD" and "DVD".

Romanised Rangyan, called romaji (로마字; /ɾɔ.ma.dʑi/), is frequently used by foreign students of Rangyan, who have not yet mastered the two main scripts, and by native speakers for computer input.

Romanisation

There are a number of methods of rendering Rangyan in Roman letters. The Mackenzie method of romanisation, designed for English speakers, is a de facto standard widely used inside and outside Rangya.

Onset	ㄱ	ㄲ	ㅋ	ㅇ	ㄷ	ㄸ	ㅌ	ㄴ	ㅂ	ㅃ	ㅍ	ㅁ	ㅈ	ㅉ	ㅊ	ㅅ	ㅆ	ㅎ	ㄹ
Mackenzie	k	g	kh	(null)	t	d	th	n	p	b	ph	m	ts	j	ch	s, sh	z, zh	h, f	r
IPA	k	g	kʰ	(null)	t	d	tʰ	n	p	b	pʰ	m	ts~tɕ	dz~dʑ	tsʰ~tɕʰ	s~ɕ	z~ʑ	h~ɸ	ɾ

Nucleus	ㅏ	ㅐ	ㅑ	ㅒ	ㅓ	ㅔ	ㅕ	ㅖ	ㅗ	ㅘ	ㅙ	ㅚ	ㅛ	ㅜ	ㅝ	ㅞ	ㅟ	ㅠ	ㅡ	ㅣ
Mackenzie	a	ai	ya	yai	e	ei	ye	yei	o	wa	wai	oi	yo	u	we	wei	ui, wi	yu	ü	i
IPA	a	aɪ	ja	jaɪ	ɛ	eɪ	jɛ	jeɪ	ɔ	wa	waɪ	ɔɪ	jɔ	u~ʊ	wɛ	weɪ	uɪ~wi	ju~jʊ	ɨ	i~ɪ

Coda	ㄱ	ㅇ	ㄷ	ㄴ	ㅂ	ㅁ	ㄹ
Mackenzie	k	ng	t	n	p	m	l
IPA	k̚	ŋ	t̚	n	p̚	m	l