Proto-Xyao language

Proto-Xyao (Xyao, meaning "language") is the ancestor of the Xyao language family spoken along the coastal areas of northern Noco, in the Arctic and Polar Soco.

Consonants

 * {| class="wikitable" style="text-align: center;"

! colspan=2 | ! Bilabial ! Alveolar ! Palatal ! Velar ! colspan=2 | Nasal ! colspan=2 | Plosive ! rowspan=2 | Fricative ! voiceless ! voiced ! colspan=2 | Approximant ! rowspan=2 | Rhotic ! voiceless ! voiced
 * + Consonant phonemes of Proto-Xyao
 * m || n || ||
 * p || t || || k
 * || s || ç ⟨xy⟩ || x ⟨x⟩
 * || || || ɣ ⟨g⟩
 * || || j || w
 * || r̥ʰ ⟨rh⟩ || ||
 * || r~ɾ ⟨r⟩ || ||
 * }

Vowels

 * {| class="wikitable" style="text-align: center;"

! ! Front ! Central ! Back ! Close ! Mid ! Open
 * + Vowel phonemes of Proto-Xyao
 * i || || u
 * e || || o
 * || a ||
 * }

Pitch accent
Proto-Xyao has pitch accent which can change the meaning of words. Every syllable has either a low or high tone. A word may have multiple syllables with the high tone, but they must be next to each other. The high tone is optionally marked with the acute accent in the romanisation.

Grammar
Proto-Xyao is a mostly isolating language. Verbs are only inflected for tense, aspect and mood.

Nouns
Nouns in Proto-Xyao are invariable. Number is not marked, and case is expressed by means of various postpositions. Possession always requires a pronoun:


 * kaga — body
 * kaga puk — my body
 * kaga pan muno — the man's body (lit. his body, the man)

Pronouns
Apart from the personal pronouns, there is also the pronoun tama ('this, that').

Verbs
Verbs are conjugated for tense (past and non-past), aspect (in the past tense, perfective and imperfective) and mood (indicative, hypothetical and imperative), with three nonfinite forms: the infinitive, the present converb and the past converb. The infinitive is formed with the suffix -ma.

Syntax
Proto-Xyao is a subject–object–verb language (SOV). It is a mostly head-final language. Adjectives, possessors and relative clauses precede nouns. Demonstratives and postpositions follow nouns.