Proto-Insane
A world-internal conlang, derived from Classical Chinese', yet the grammar and lexicon are entirely a priori (tho influenced by its parent). Confused? Originally the language arose as a religious cryptolect, with meaning assigned to subphonemic modifications of chants.
Phonology
- [n] is split to /n ɲ ŋ ɴ/
- [l] is split to /l ɬ ʎ ʎ̝̊ ʟ ʟ̝̊/
- [r] is split to /r ʀ ɹ j ʁ/
- [ʃ] is split to /s z ʃ ʒ ç ʝ/ (certain scholars construct a fourth, retroflex series)
- [k] is split to /k kʰ kʼ q qʰ qʼ/
- [t] is split to /t tʰ tʼ c cʰ cʼ/
- [p] is split to /p pʰ pʼ/
- [ɡ] is split to /ɡ ɡʱ ɠ ɢ ɢʱ ʛ/
- [d] is split to /d dʱ ɗ ɟ ɟʱ ʄ/
- [w] is split to /b bʱ ɓ β w/
- [u] is split to /u ɯ/
- [i] is split to /i y/
- [o] is split to /o ɔ/
- [oː] is split to /oː ɔː ou ɔu/
- [e] is split to /e ɛ/
- [eː] is split to /eː ɛː ei ɛi/
- [a](ː) is split to /ɑ æ ɐ/(ː)
Fate
The language survives into the modern day, with some highly unusual descendants.
Some initial phonetic developments are loss of difthong openness and high vowel roundness distinctions;, follo'd by raising of the difthongs to high long monoftongs. Glottalization, unfamiliar in the region, separates as a prosodic feature medially and is lost initially. The palatals decay to postalveolars (sometimes velars), and the velar lateral fricativ becomes /χ/. Proto-Insane thus comes to contain a slightly diminished but still formidable sound inventory of 42 consonants and 18 vowels:
pʰ | tʰ | ʧʰ | kʰ | qʰ | ||
p | t | ʧ | k | q | ʔ | |
bʱ | dʱ | ʤʱ | ɡʱ | ɢʱ | ||
b | d | ʤ | ɡ | ɢ | ||
n | nʲ | ŋ | ɴ | |||
l | lʲ | ʟ | ||||
ɬ | ɬʲ | |||||
s | ʃ | χ | ||||
β | z | ʒ | ʁ | |||
w | ɹ | j | ||||
r | ʀ |
---
i | iː | u | uː |
e | eː | o | oː |
ɛ | ɛː | ɔ | ɔː |
ɐ | ɐː | ||
æ | æː | ɑ | ɑː |