Goyhunese

Goyhunese (hGyweoi-hu-rngyo 鬼湖語) is the official language of hGyweoi-hu. It is a Sinitic language with a grammar that is more similar to Classical Chinese than to modern Chinese.

With a few exceptions, Goyhunese is written in traditional Chinese characters. (An example of an exception is substitution of 湾 for 灣. Similar simplifications are in use for other characters with 䜌 as a part.) The official transliteration of Goyhunese, shyo-seikh-heum 書析音, has been in use since 1963.

Pronunciation Guide

Goyhunese is monosyllabic. Shyo-seikh-heum transliteration of Goyhunese characters/syllables consists of five parts:

1. an optional tone letter;

2. an optional initial consonant;

3. an optional glide;

4. the nucleus;

5. an optional final consonant.

Tone

Neutral tone is unmarked. High rising tone (˧˥) is marked with the letter h; low falling tone (˧˩) with the letter r. To avoid ambiguity an apostroph follows the tone letter when necessary. Thus, h'ao is pronounced /ɑo̯˧˥/ and hao is pronounced /hɑo̯/.

Tone letters are not usually capitalized. Hence, Hgyweoi-hu is technically incorrect and should be written hGyweoi-hu.

Initial Consonant

Most terms/syllables start with a consonant, but this isn't always the case. The following letters are pronounced similar to their standard English pronunciations: m, n, p, t, k, b, d, g, f, s, z. The list below explains the pronunciation of some of the other initial consonants. Note that in a number of cases, the closest English approximation is still quite different from the Goyhunese pronunciation.

• q — /ʈ/ — T in the American pronunciation of art.

• j — /ɖ/ — D in the American pronunciation of herd.

• r — /ɹ / — R in work.

• rg — /ʁ/ — Does not occur in English. R in French garage.

• sh — /ʂ/ — Sh in show.

• zh — /ʐ/ — Si in vision.

• h — if not followed by a glide: /h/ — H in hot.

• h — if followed by a glide: /ç/ — H in hue in British English and some other accents.

• kh — /x/ — Ch in Scottish loch.

• ts — /t͡s/ — Ts in bats.

• dz — /d͡z/ — Dds in adds.

• ch — /t͡ɕ/ — Ch in chew.

• xh — /d͡ʑ/ — J in jeans.

Additionally, there are six prenasalized consonants and four breathy-voiced consonants. The first are mb, nd, nj, ng, ndz, and nxh. All of these starts with a nasal consonant like m or [/n] and then turn into a voiced plosive like b or d. Notice that ng as a an initial consonant is always prenasalized g, and thus not the English ng sound. Breathy-voiced consonants sound more or less as if they are followed by a little puff of air.

Glide

There are three possible glides but not nearly all syllables/terms have a glide. The three glides are the following:

• y — /i̯~j/ — Y in yes.

• w — /u̯~β̞/ — W in water.

• yw — /ɥ/ — Does not occur in English. Sounds roughly like a sequence or combination of the previous two. U in French nuit.

Nucleus

The nucleus is the only part of a syllable/term that isn't optional, meaning that each syllable/term must have a nucleus. The nucleus is either a vowel or a diphthong. Length is not phonemic in Goyhunese.

• a — /ɑ/ — A in father.

• aa — /a/ — A in China.

• ai — /ɑi̯/ — Eye.

• ao — /ɑo̯/ — Ow in cow.

• e — /ɛ/ — E in yes.

• ei — /e/ — Ai in pain.

• eo — /œᵝ~ɞᵝ/ — Does not occur in English. Closest is u in but.

• eu — /yᵝ~ʉᵝ/ — Does not occur in English. Closest is Oo in goose in some (mainly non-British) dialects.

• ey — /øᵝ~ɵᵝ/ — Does not occur in English. Closest is Oo in foot in some (mainly British) dialects.

• i — /i/ — Ea in peak.

• o — /ɔ/ — O in job.

• oi — /ɔi̯/ — Oy in boy.

• ou — /o/ — O in snow.

• u — /u/ — Oo in book.

Final Consonant

The most common final consonants are m, n, and ng, which are pronounced the same as in English. (Note that there is a difference between the pronunciation of ng as initial and as final consonant.) Two other final consonants are r and kh, which are pronounced the same as when they occur in initial position. The only other option is final i (which cannot follow another i), which is sometimes pronounced /j/ (as y in yes), but more often as /i̯/, meaning that this is not strictly speaking a final consonant.

Notes about Grammatical Particles and Function Words

particle	explanation
之 xhi	Genitive marker.
与/與 ryo	"And" in between nouns. This is another example of a simplified character in Goyhunese (see above). The traditional form 與 is still used in formal and ceremonial text.
即 dzikh	"Is the same as", "is identical to".

(This section will be extended with new grammatical details whenever necessary.)