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Choangatla (IPA: []) is a constructed language devised by Tobias Søborg for the motion picture Stranger as the language of the local Mesolithic hunter-gatherers in present-day Denmark at the dawn of the Neolithic Revolution, c. 4000 BCE. The movie revolves around a pair of siblings from an invading farmer tribe who are forced to integrate in in the hunter-gatherer tribe and who learn to speak their language.

External history
Søborg began to construct the language in 2020 and worked on it up until the shooting began in 2023. Søborg is a historical linguist and Indo-Europeanist with a specialization in Anatolian languages. He used this background to create the language of the farmers, who have been proven to originate in Anatolia, basing it off the earliest known autochthonous language in the area, Hattic.

The language of the hunter-gatherers naturally had to be and sound different. The language was inspired by several languages, including Choctaw, Nahuatl, Quechua and Ainu.

Phonology
Choangatla is built around a number of phonological characteristics: It has no phonemic voice distinction, but instead has both voiceless and ejective stops and affricates. It also has the following characteristic consonant phonemes: a lateral fricative // and a corresponding affricate //, a glottal stop //, a palatal lateral //, and both a palatal nasal // and velar nasal //. It has a simple but unusual four-vowel system with phonemic length distinction and the vowels //, //, // and //. There is no phonemic stress system.

Consonants
A word-internal combination of /h/ with another consonant produces various non-phonemic results. An /h/ in front of a stop, affricate, nasal or /ɾ/ is realized as preaspiration: i.e. /ht/ is pronounced [ʰt], /hm/ [ʰm], and /hɾ/ [ʰɾ]. The preaspiration can be realized as regular glottal friction [h], but also as either [ç], [x] or [xʷ] depending on the preceding vowel ([ç] after /ɪ/, /iː/ and sometimes /ɪ̵/ and /ɨ(ː)/, [x] after /ɐ/, /aː/, [xʷ] after /ʊ/ and /oː/). For the nasals and /ɾ/, the clusters with preposed /h/ can also be realized as the voiceless variant of the respective sound: i.e. /hm/ can also be realized as /m̥/, /hɾ/ as /ɾ̥/. If /h/ stands before one of the two semi-vowels, the clusters /hj/ and /hw/ are pronounced [ç] and [ʍ], respectively. Any combination of /h/ with /l/ yields /ɬ/. An /h/ cannot come before /t͡ɬ/, /t͡ɬʼ/, /ʔ/, /ʎ/ or any fricative.

Vowels
Choangatla has a rather unusual vowel system consisting of four short and four long vowels, respectively:

Allophones of the phonemes are as follows:

/i/ is normally pronounced as [i], but may be realized as [ɪ] or [e], the latter normally after velar stops. After labiovelar consonants and /ʃ/, /i/ may be realized as rounded [y].

/ɨ/ is normally realized as [ɨ], [ɘ] or [ɤ], the latter normally after dorsal consonants. After labiovelar consonants and /ʃ/, it may be realized as rounded [ʉ] or [ɵ].

/o/ is normally realized as [o], [ʊ] or [ɔ], the latter normally before and after velar and labiovelar stops.

/a/ is normally realized as [a] or [ɐ], but may be realized as [æ] after palatal and alveolar consonants and as [ɑ] before and after velar and labiovelar consonants.