Archive:Thuun

Thuun
Tuum
Pronunciation	[tʉ:m]
Native speakers	~ 300 000  (2015)
Language family	East-Mirarian Proto-Kuoggvi Northern (L) Kuoggvi Thuun
Writing system	Kuoggvi / Mahavic
Official status
Official language in	Uvanga
CWS code	UO1

Background

Thuun (Tuum /tʉ:m/) is the primary language of Uvanga, and is distantly related to Mahavic and Elipo-Sucaelian. It has over 100 vowels but only 9 consonants.

Phonology

Consonants

	Bilabial	Alveolar	Dorsal
Nasal	m	n	ŋ
Plosive	p	t	k
Fricative		s
Approximant		l	j

Vowels

	Front		Back
	Unrounded	Rounded	Unrounded	Rounded
Close	i i: i::	y y: y::		ʉ ʉ: ʉ::
Mid	e e: e::	ø ø: ø::	ɤ ɤ: ɤ::	o o: o::
Open	æ æ: æ::		ɑ ɑ: ɑ::

These vowels can combine to form up to almost 80 phonemic polyphthongs, including length distinctions.

Phonotactics

(C)V(C) syllable structure, where /ŋ/ cannot appear initially and /j/ cannot appear finally.

Thuun has a system of vowel harmony. A word cannot contain both front and back vowels, so affixes automatically adapt to the same backness as the stem. The only neutral vowel is /i/, which can occur in words of either backness.

Orthography

a /ɑ/

ä /æ/

e /ɤ/

ë /e/

i /i/

j /j/

k /k/

l /l/

m /m/

n /n/

ng /ŋ/

o /o/

ö /ø/

p /p/

s /s/

t /t/

u /ʉ/

y /y/

Long and overlong vowels are written doubled or tripled, eg. <ää> /æ:/, äää /æ::/
Diphthongs are written with their components side by side, eg. <ië> /ie̯:/, <iië> /ie̯::/

Grammar

Morphology

Thuun is highly synthetic and almost exclusively suffixing. Suffixes attach agglutinatively, but are usually fusional for multiple morphemes, such as person, number, tense, and negativity.

Syntax

The word order is fairly unrestrictive, but tends to be SVO.