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Some sounds are missing in the language, like D and V. Will you add them in the future?

TL;DRD and V will not be added to the proper Xi'an language, but the service dialect, which Xi'an also speak, includes them, and more about this is to be revealed.

Britton WatkinsXenolinguist, language consultant

That's a great question. The specific ones you mentioned will not be added to the proper language, the language that is the kind of textbook written language. They won't be added because that's not the way languages, humanoid languages, actually behave. Eventually, we'll be talking a little bit more about the service dialect, one of the other major languages that's spoken across the Xi'an Empire, and it does include a lot of those sounds, both D and V, that enable the Xi'an, who almost all of them are completely bilingual because they all do military service, so that means that they're able to pronounce a lot more things than show up in the proper language. So if you have a name, for example, that includes a D or a V, like Dave, for example, there will be a way to... Random example. Completely random example. You'll be able to get close to pronouncing that in a way that you would recognize it as a native speaker of Dave. And the Xi'an would also be able to recognize that, oh, most of the sounds in your name as a human are coming more from our service dialect than they are coming from our proper language. So the story of this phonological unfolding will continue maybe even next week, although I won't give away any concrete spoilers.

Happy Hour›Interview: The Xi'an Language and YOU·
Published on this date.17 Nov 2017
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