Rangyayo - an East Asian language of the elixir of life
Posted: Fri Mar 26, 2010 10:02 pm
Rangyayo - spoken on the islands of the elixir of life
Rangyayo audio sample 01 on Youtube
Rangyayo audio sample 02 on Youtube
Rangyayo featured in Conlangery #05: Scripts and Writing on Conlangery Podcast
Rangyayo on Conlang Wiki
Rangyayo/Word_List on Conlang Wiki
Rangyayo/Sample/Quickchat on Conlang Wiki
Kingdom of Rangya on Constructed World Wiki
Online Rangyayo Input Method
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Background
Rangyayo (or Anglicised name Rangyan) is the language spoken on Rangya Islands (no bigger than Luxembourg or roughly twice as big as Hong Kong) near Okinawa prefecture of Japan in East China Sea.
In Sinitic mythology, Rangya Islands hold the secrets of elixir of life. There are magical fruits growing on the islands that can heal any disease, grant eternal youth, and even raise the dead.
Historically, various emperors in ancient China sent their alchemists to the eastern seas to find the fabled elixir, but to no avail. Historical text stated that Rangya was found instead.
Overview
Rangyayo is an agglutinative, nominative-accusative and head-final language. It has no grammatical genders. Nouns are declined according to case but not number, gender or definitiveness. Verbs can be conjugated according to voice, tense and aspect.
Phonology
Consonants
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
1. /i/ is pronounced /ɪ/ before velar codas /ŋ, k̚/
2. /u/ is /ʊ/ before velar codas /ŋ, k̚/
Diphthongs
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
I will share more about Rangyayo here when I have more spare time as lately I have been busy editing the Rangyayo page at conlang.wikia.com
If anyone here is interested in East Asian conlang or linguistics, you are welcomed to join my East Asian Conlangs MSN group, or you can PM me your MSN contact so I can add you to the group.
Rangyayo audio sample 01 on Youtube
Rangyayo audio sample 02 on Youtube
Rangyayo featured in Conlangery #05: Scripts and Writing on Conlangery Podcast
Rangyayo on Conlang Wiki
Rangyayo/Word_List on Conlang Wiki
Rangyayo/Sample/Quickchat on Conlang Wiki
Kingdom of Rangya on Constructed World Wiki
Online Rangyayo Input Method
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Background
Rangyayo (or Anglicised name Rangyan) is the language spoken on Rangya Islands (no bigger than Luxembourg or roughly twice as big as Hong Kong) near Okinawa prefecture of Japan in East China Sea.
In Sinitic mythology, Rangya Islands hold the secrets of elixir of life. There are magical fruits growing on the islands that can heal any disease, grant eternal youth, and even raise the dead.
Historically, various emperors in ancient China sent their alchemists to the eastern seas to find the fabled elixir, but to no avail. Historical text stated that Rangya was found instead.
Overview
Rangyayo is an agglutinative, nominative-accusative and head-final language. It has no grammatical genders. Nouns are declined according to case but not number, gender or definitiveness. Verbs can be conjugated according to voice, tense and aspect.
Phonology
Consonants
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
1. /i/ is pronounced /ɪ/ before velar codas /ŋ, k̚/
2. /u/ is /ʊ/ before velar codas /ŋ, k̚/
Diphthongs
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
I will share more about Rangyayo here when I have more spare time as lately I have been busy editing the Rangyayo page at conlang.wikia.com
If anyone here is interested in East Asian conlang or linguistics, you are welcomed to join my East Asian Conlangs MSN group, or you can PM me your MSN contact so I can add you to the group.