As teased in my last post, I made a new conlang! It’s an idea I’ve had for a while and I decided to finally make it. I learned a lot from my previous work and I hope the outcome here is much better. There’s also more descriptive lore for this language as I tried to make it more realistic. I hope y’all enjoy it as I’m proud to showcase;
Bocozan (囿且 舌, bukotso hudū)
Classification and Overview
The Bocozan language, natively known as bukotso hudū, is an Indo-European language descending from the Tocharian branch. It is spoken by the Bocozan people of southern Japan, an ethnolinguistic group tracing their ancestry to the ancient Tocharians of the Tarim Basin. Though heavily influenced by contact with East Asian languages, Bocozan has maintained its Indo-European roots, developing a distinctive phonology, grammar, and writing system that blend Central Asian and East Asian features.
The name Bocozan derives from the Portuguese Bucozão, itself a borrowing of the native autonym bukotso, meaning “Wanderers.”
Phonology
Bocozan phonology shares surface similarities with Japanese, though it still resembles an Indo-European language at its core.
Consonants can undergo either gemination or palatalization, forming a symmetrical and morphologically productive system. Geminated plosives get realized as affricates, and /ɾ/ (a tap) geminates to /r/ (a trill). Palatalized /n/ and /h/ surface as /ɲ/ and /ç/, while /s, z, ɕ, ʑ/ lack palatal forms. /h/ has no geminated form either, and /ŋ, tɕ, dʑ, w, j/ lie outside the system entirely. Vowel length is phonemic.
Word-final non-nasal consonants are weakly articulated, producing a fricative release on the preceding vowel. When followed by a vowel or /h/ across word boundaries, these consonants are fully realized as fricatives in a process similar to liaison in French:
一 (hez, [heᶞ̠] “one”)
一太陽 (hez hūng, [heð̠‿uːŋ] “one sun”)
Grammar
Bocozan follows a Subject–Object–Verb (SOV) word order and is primarily agglutinative. Its structure is characterized by the use of grammatical particles comparable to those in Japanese. Common particles include:
ウヌ (unu) — topic marker
へ (he) — subject marker
テ̣ (tye) — object marker
フセ (huse) — interrogative marker
The language distinguishes seven noun cases: nominative (base case), genitive (“of the”), ablative (“from the”), locative (“in/at the”), instrumental (“using the”), comitative (“together with the”), and allative (“towards the”). Bocozan uses its noun cases as a predication system.
Here’s a chart showing the noun cases, using 水 (bur “water”) as an example:
Verbal morphology is expressed through a series of suffixes denoting tense, aspect, and function:
-ゾヂュ (-(o)zoju) — infinitive marker (“to”)
-オー (-ō) — future tense (“will/shall”)
-アワ (-awa) — past tense
-サワ (-(o)sawa) — past progressive (“was”)
-タッ (-(o)tsa) — agentive derivation (“one who…”)
-ヨ (-yo) — gerundive or nominalized form
-オ (-o) — nomen actionis
Bocozan also exhibits a three-way T–V distinction in its pronouns, reflecting degrees of formality and tone:
ツー (tū) — “thou,” informal/casual
デ̣ㇲ (dyes) — “you,” formal/respectful
チュー (chū) — “little you,” used affectionately or condescendingly depending on context
The language’s alignment system is not firmly classified, though it exhibits characteristics consistent with nominative–accusative structures typical of Tocharian descendants.
Writing System
Bocozan employs a writing system derived from Japanese kanji and katakana. Kanji are used semantically, much like in Japanese, while katakana is used phonetically in a manner closer to Ainu and Taiwanese kana orthographies.
Distinct orthographic features include:
Small kana to indicate word-final consonants
Under-dot diacritics to mark palatalization
Gemination and vowel length marked as in Japanese
Moraic nasal also like in Japanese
Unwritten epenthetic /o/ when consonant-initial suffixes attach to consonant-final stems
Use of Latin punctuation (., ?, !) due to English influence
Optional spacing between words
Historical Background (Lore)
The Bocozan people trace their lineage to the ancient Tocharians of the Tarim Basin. During the time of the Xiongnu Confederacy, a Tocharian-speaking group migrated eastward into the Eurasian Steppe. They became known by the Chinese as the 囿且 (Yòujū).
When the Xiongnu Confederacy collapsed and the sixteen kingdoms period ravaged China, the Yòujū fled to escape the chaos to the Korean Peninsula, becoming the Hyujeo as they were known by the Koreans.
Following the Mongol invasion of Korea (13th century), the Hyujeo escaped across the sea to southern Japan, where they would become the Bocozan as we know today. Despite centuries of persecution and assimilation pressures, they preserved their language and cultural identity through oral transmission and isolated communities.
Today, Bocozan is recognized as a heritage language with ongoing revitalization efforts among descendants and linguists interested in its unique fusion of Tocharian and East Asian linguistic traits.
End
To end this, I’ll provide an example sentence of Bocozan using the first article of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. I hope you all like this new language!
全 人間ワ ウヌ 自由 デ̣ 同 価値ノ デ̣ 法律ノワ ヂ̣ツッ 誕生アワ. 人間ワ へ 知オ デ̣ 意識 テ̣ ヂ̣ツッ 与アワ, デ̣ ラトッ 他チュ へ 兄弟ノ̣ 方法ノ 振舞オーアワ.
hod shōmowa unu tsup dye homa heneno dye herenowa dyitsu tungawa. shōmowa he huso dye dyūme tye dyitsu ēawa, dye ratso rrayōchu he rrocheronyo dyikoneno uireōawa.
“All human beings are born free and equal in dignity and rights. They are endowed with reason and conscience and should act towards one another in a spirit of brotherhood.”