Mablic language

Mablic
blaw9hpla Plaw Hmaephla
Pronunciation	[plàw m̥āpʰlà]
Region	West, Northwest Nagu
Ethnicity	Mablic
Native speakers	34.2 million Second Language: 5.1 million  (2016)
Language family	Prra-Blen North Prra-Blen Mablic
Early forms:	Old Mablic Mablic
Writing system	Mablic alphabet
Official status
Official language in	Mablag
Regulated by	Society for the Furthering of the Mablic Language (KTPPH)
CWS code	mbi

The Mablic language (Mablic: blaw9hpla, DLRM: plaw hmaephla, IPA: [plàw m̥āpʰlà]) is the Prra-Blen language spoken in Mablag where it is an official language. In 2018, it was spoken as a first language by 34 million, and as a second language by 5 million.

Mablic is a tonal and analytic language, largely monosyllabic, with a subject-verb-object word order. It is somewhat mutually intelligible with Deyab, another Prra-Blen language.

Classification

Mablic belongs to the North Prra-Blen branch of the Prra-Blen languages. Mablic is the most widely spoken of the Prra-Blen languages. Mablic was also the first Prra-Blen language to develop a writing system.

Registers

Mablic is a diglossic language with two distinguishable registers:

1. Literary High (H) form (xhbmf1bl<q nhaepmai auploing) the high variety, used in literature (formal writing), newspapers, and formal exchanges
2. Spoken Low (L) form (bemhx1bl<q pemaenh auploing) the low variety, used in daily conversation, television, and informal writing

The literary form of Mablic retains archaic words no longer used in the colloquial form. In most cases, the relation between words in the literary and spoken forms is arbitrary. Examples of this phenomenon include the following lexical items:

• "I" (pronoun): HIGH b)f prrai → LOW bex penh
• "you" (pronoun): HIGH byaq pyang → LOW c5y chhuuy
• "no" (marker): HIGH debwa tepwa → LOW 9f hmai
• "hey" (interjection): HIGH )iq rring → LOW 2 eu
• "have" (verb): HIGH 7dn>y ietnuiy → LOW b1y pauy
• "speak" (verb): HIGH byhdx6 pyaetnhii → LOW xhg nhaek
• "book" (noun): HIGH k)7blh khrrieplae → LOW p4 phou
• "field" (noun): HIGH blom pleim → LOW dag tak

The following sample sentence reveals that differences between literary and spoken Mablic occur in various words:

"The market was full that night due to the autumn harvest."

	noun	adjective	noun	part.	det.	conj.	noun	noun
Literary (HIGH)	m6g mig	pr1x phraunh	xa nha	92q hmeung	br2w preuw	phq phaeng	9ubra hmupra	p3g phiuk
Spoken (LOW)		n1y nauy			&4g hngouk	pw< phwoi
Gloss	The market	full	night	classifier	that	because	autumn	harvest

Phonology

Consonants

The consonants of Mablic are:

	Bilabial	Alveolar	Alveolo-palatal	Palatal	Labio-velar	Velar	Uvular
Nasal	m m̥	n n̥				ŋ ŋ̊	ɴ ɴ̥
Plosive	p pʰ	t tʰ				k kʰ
Affricate		t͡s t͡sʰ	t͡ɕ t͡ɕʰ
Approximant		l		j	w
Trill		r
Flap		ɾ

Vowels

The vowels of Mablic are:

	Front	Back
Close	i	ɯ u
Mid	ɛ
Open	a

Tones

Mablic is a tonal language, which means phonemic contrasts can be made on the basis of the tone of a vowel. There are four contrastive tones in Mablic. In the following table, the tones are shown marked on the vowel /a/ as an example.

Tone	Mablic	IPA (shown on a)	Symbol (shown on a)	Pitch
Low	t6xb)6x	[a˨]	à	low, often slightly rising
Mid	t4yb)6x	[a˧]	ā	mid, short
High	byfqb)6x	[a˦]	á	high, slightly rising
Falling	t+xb)6x	[a˦˨]	â	high, falling

For example, the following words are distinguished from each other only on the basis of tone:

• Low pv /pʰɯ̀/ "remnant; ash"
• Mid p+ /pʰɯ̄/ "today"
• High p< /pʰɯ́/ "gift"
• Falling p4 /pʰɯ̂/ "book"

Syllable structure

The syllable structure of Mablic is (C)(G)V(C), which is to say the onset consists of an optional consonant followed by an optional glide, and the rime consists of a monophthong alone or a monophthong followed by a consonant. Glides cannot stand in the coda. Some representative words are:

• V /ɛ̂/ "man"
• CV /tʰá/ "most"
• VC /ɛ̀k/ "maintain"
• CVC /tʰɛ̂́ŋ/ "site"
• CGV /tʰwɛ́/ "different"
• CGVC /tʰwɛ̄k/ "cook"