Azrán Historical Linguistics

In the world of the TV series Into the Badlands, the Azrán language is descended from contemporary Mexican Spanish, having evolved over the course of more than 500 years. No constraints on the language's recognizability were imposed by production, allowing for some profound changes in phonology and grammar. However, David J. Peterson still considers the language more conservative than he could have made it.

Sound changes

The ordered sound changes leading back to Spanish are as follows:

• s became h before consonants and at the end of a word.
• Voiced fricatives disappeared between vowels and at the end of a word.
• Voiced fricatives hardened (ɣ > ɡ, β > b, ð > d).
• Voiceless sounds became voiced after vowels, even at the end of a word.
• All glottal fricatives were lost.
• Vowels were lost at the end of words.

Following these changes, stress patterns began to shift, leading to the emergence of high and low tones. Vowel coalescence occurred, resulting in the merging of high and low tones, ultimately giving rise to falling tones. While there are instances of low-high melody, they do not occur on a single vowel, exemplified by the transformation of nadar to naá [na˩.a˥].

Peterson considers these sound changes possible, but implausible, especially the voicing of voiceless sounds after vowels. This is, however, intentional; the language is intendended as a speculative "what if" scenario that fits in the fantastical setting of Into the Badlands in the former American Southwest and Mexico.