Charwattan

Fax
Area where Charwattan is spoken as a majority native language (orange) and as a common second language (green). Borders of Æsuwa outlined in black.

Charwattan (tzr̄wattę, pronounced [ˈt͡sr̩ːwätːɛ̃]) is an East Argevoean language spoken natively by most of the Šisoi population of Æsuwa and surrounding regions, and used as lingua franca across much of Argevoe and parts of southern Q'avara. It is the most spoken of the Meshan-Æsuwan languages with approximately 40.000.000 L1 speakers and an additional 110.000.000 L2 speakers.

Dialectal variation

Charwattan makes up a dialect continuum spanning the eastern half of Argevoe. The dialect spoken in Fewoz and Krmoa is often referred to as Standard Charwattan (tzr̄wattę e-râizæ) and is the dialect described in this article unless otherwise noted.

Phonology

Charwattan has a large inventory both of vowel and consonant phonemes, as well as four syllabic consonant phonemes with long and short versions. Syllable structure is (C)(C)V(C), where C is a consonant and V is a vowel, diphthong, or syllabic consonant. Allowed onset clusters include any non-identical obstruents, as well as any sequence of obstruent followed by a resonant, with the exception that velars and uvular may not be followed by /w/ or /ɰ/, and uvulars may not be followd by /j/. There are several rules of long-distance assimiliation for both vowels and consonants.

Consonants

The non-syllabic consonant phonemes of Charwattan are:

	Bilabial	Interdental	Alveolar	Palatal	Postalveolar	Velar	Uvular	Glottal
Nasal	m		n	ɲ
Stop	(p pʼ)		t d (tʼ)			k g kʷ gʷ (kʼ)	q qʷ (qʼ)
Affricate			t͡s d͡z (t͡sʼ)		t͡ʃ d͡ʒ (t͡ʃʼ)
Fricative	ɸ	θ	s	ç	ꭍ	x~χ		h hʷ
Approximant			r l	j	ɻ	ɰ w

• • Sounds in parantheses occur only in loanwords from Q'ao, e.g q̇āra /ˈqʼaːra/ "Q'avara".

The subject of this article has the following names in the languages of Vássoe: æsuæq̆an (Aaqhan), tsalawaat (Q'ao), tzr̄wattę (Charwattan), noďésua (Nordañ), sę̋rwait (Ęsa̋lęw).