East-A Altaic'
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A more conservativ subfamily of East Altaic', spoken in NW Himalayas.
Some sound changes from Proto-East Altaic':
- ʈ → q, ʂ → s
- ɪ ʊ → ə → ʌ
- ɜ → ∅ (generally)
- æ → e, je, ɑ varyingly
- i u → e o / _q(ʷ)
- loss of labialized uvulars (merging into labiovelars or plain uvulars)
- prenasalization drops
- ɢ → ʁ → ∅, h
- β → v
- labialized velars → labial-velars
- stop lenition k q → x χ, similar to West
- these generally then collapse to a single phoneme /x/ with a possible allophone [χ] before back vowels; the front allophone may shift → h
- in a few branches also p → f
- labiovelars unaffected
- this change seems to be younger than the Western one by a minimum of 1.5 ka, possibly as much as 3 ka - a slo diffusion thru pre-Altaic' languages of south-central Asia (of especially Klusterax, but possibly also Persian' and extinct families) is possible, but another choice would be "rub-off" from the alternation's systematic employment in acrolectal Old Sadabax.
- fricativ voicing intervocally
A typical phoneme system is (phonemes only occuring in few languages in parentheses):
| Labial | Dental / alveolar |
Post- alveolar |
Velar | Labial- velar |
Uvular / glottal | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Voiceless stops | p | t | ʧ | k | kp | q |
| Voiced stops | b | d | ʤ | ɡ | ɡb | |
| Voiceless fricativs | (f) | s | ʃ | (x) | h | |
| Voiced fricativs | v | z | ʒ | (ɣ) | ||
| Nasals | m | n | ŋ | ŋm | ||
| Approximants | l | r j | w |
| Front | Lax | Back | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Hi | i | (ɪ ~ ɨ) | u |
| Mid | e | ʌ | o |
| Lo | a ~ ɑ | ||
