MSEAL

MSEAL (Mainland South East Asian Language) is a Universal Language covering a sprachbund of otherwise unrelated languages.

MSEAL [-]
Timeline/Universe	Universal Languages
Period	Future Utopia
Spoken in	Mainland Southeast Asia
Total speakers	240 million
Writing system	New Tai Lue
Classification	sprachbund
Typology
Basic word order	SVO
Morphology	Isolating
Alignment	N-A
Credits
Created by	User:Aquatiki

MSEAL has

• Sesquisyllabicity - a "minor syllable" before a stressed main syllable.
• Four tones
• CV, CVC - no clusters
• Isolating/Analytic Morphology: Almost no inflection or derivational morphology, with meaning expressed via word order, particles, and compounding.
• Classifiers: Required when counting nouns. Many languages distinguish human, animal, object, and abstract classifiers.
• Serial Verb Constructions (SVCs): Verbs often appear in chains without overt conjunctions (e.g., “go buy eat” instead of “go to buy and eat”).
• Post-Verbal Aspectual Markers: Instead of tense, aspect is often marked via sentence-final particles or auxiliary verbs.
• Pronoun Systems with Honorifics: Complex pronoun systems based on politeness and familiarity.
• Topic-Comment Structure: Information flow prioritizes topics over strict subject-predicate structures.

VO Order with Heavy Postmodification: Most MSEA languages use SVO word order, but with frequent postnominal relative clauses.

• Sentence-Final Particles: Used for modality, politeness, evidentiality, and discourse functions (e.g., Mandarin 吗 “ma” for questions, Thai นะ “ná” for softening).
• Negation with Dedicated Particles: pre-verbal (e.g., Mandarin 不 “bù,” Vietnamese không)
• Reduplication: Used for pluralization, intensity, or aspectual modification (e.g., Thai ดีๆ "di di" = "very good").
• Directional Verbs: Motion verbs often specify direction explicitly (“go up,” “go down,” “come in”).
• Many sino-buddhist loan words

Isolating, mostly mono-morphemic words, no inflection and little affixation. Nouns are derived by compounding. Grammatical relations are typically signaled by word order, particles and coverbs or prepositions. Modality is expressed using sentence-final particles.

Anthropology

• Indo-Arayan
  • Bengali
• Austro-Asiatic
  • Khmer
  • Vietnamese
• Sino-Tibetan
  • Chinese
    • Hokkien, Hakka, Cantonese, Southwestern Mandarin
  • Bermese
• Kra-dai
  • Tai, Lao, Shan, Kam
• w:Austronesian languages
  • w:Chamic
• Hmong-Mien
  • Hmong
  • Mien

Phonology and Orthography

MSEAL should have monosyllabic morphemes, lexical tone, a fairly large inventory of consonants, including phonemic aspiration, limited clusters at the beginning of a syllable, and plentiful vowel contrasts. Consider sesquisyllables. Isolating, mostly mono-morphemic words, no inflection and little affixation.

MSEAL uses the w:New Tai Lue alphabet for its writing system, using it as a true alphabet, not an abugida. This is a novel way to use an existing alphabet, but it is more familiar to the neighbor who use the latin script, and are accustomed to writing everything down.

Consonants

MSEAL Initial Consonants

	Labial	Alveolar	Palatal	Velar	Glottal
Nasals	/m/ ᦙ	/n/ ᦓ		/ŋ/ ᦇ
Unaspirated	/p/ ᦔ	/t/ ᦑ	/tɕ~c/ ᦈ	/k/ ᦂ	/ʔ/ ᦀ
Aspirated	/pʰ/ ᦘ	/tʰ/ ᦒ	/tɕʰ~cʰ/ ᦋ	/kʰ/ ᦅ
"Voiced"	/b~ɓ/ ᦢ	/d~ɗ/ ᦡ
Fricative	/f/ ᦝ	/s~ɕ/ ᦉ			/h/ ᦣ
Approx.	/v~w~ʋ/ ᦞ	/l/ ᦟ	/j/ ᦊ

Finals and Tone

Coda Sounds

p	t	k	m	n	ŋ	ʔ
ᧇ	ᧆ	ᧅ	ᧄ	ᧃ	ᧂ	ᧁ

level	rising	departing	checked
-	ᧈ	ᧉ	coda

The presence of a coda letter marks the checked tone.

Vowels

Vowels and Diphthongs

	Front	Middle	Back
High	/i/ ᦲ	/ǝ/ ᦹ	/u/ ᦴ
Middle	/e/ ᦵ		/o/ ᦷ
Low	/a/ ᦱ

ai = ᦺ; au=ᦸ, ei=ᦾ; ou = ᦳ

Universal Languages
AFRICA	SEDES (Horn of Africa), Middle Semitic (Semitic languages), Kintu (Bantu languages), Guosa (West Africa)
CENTRAL ASIA	Jalpi (Turkic languages), Zens (Iranian languages), Dravindian (Dravidian languages), Neo-Sanskrit (Indo-Aryan languages)
EUROPE	Interlingua (Romance languages), Folksprak (Germanic languages), Interslavic Slavic languages, Balkan (Balkans)
FAR EAST	Dan'a'yo (CJKV), MSEAL (Mainland Southeast Asia), Indo-Malay (Maritime Southeast Asia)