Seŋoŋ language

Seŋoŋ is a language spoken by approximately 600,000 people on Migqeżk, the southernmost island of the nation of Xjetjeŋ. Seŋoŋ is the most spoken language belonging to the Seufaŋ language family. According to linguist Noki Pedhatsusuri (1977), it has the smallest phonology out of any known natural language, with there being only 10 phonemes and 13 phones.

Phonology

The phonology of Seŋoŋ consists of 10 phonemes.

Consonant phonemes

	Labial	Alveolar	Guttural
Fricative	f /ɸ~m/	s /s/	h /h~ħ/
Nonfricative	w /w~b/	n /n/	ŋ /ŋ/

• /ɸ/ is always pronounced as /m/ when it is present in the first syllable of the word, or if it is followed by the vowels /ũ/ and /ɔ/.
• /w/ is always pronounced as /b/ when it is followed by /ɔ/.
• /h/ and /ħ/ are in free variation between speakers. Younger speakers seem to tend towards /ħ/, with older speakers mostly tend to pronounce it as /h/.

Contrary to linguist Noki Pedhatsusuri's analysis, [placeholder] reports the existence of upwards of 12 phonemes in certain dialects - according to them, the dialect spoken in Hewŋeo contains two extra nonfricative consonants - /t/ and /l/.

Vowel phonemes

	Front	Back
Close	i /i/	u /ũ/
Open	e /e:/	o /ɔ/

It appears that in all circumstances, /ũ/ receives "light to moderate nasalization".

Morphology

Seŋoŋ follows an ergative morphological alignment, and has 5 noun cases. It follows a SOV word order.