Leaper language

This language was originally spoken in AlphaLeap. It is the scriptural language of the Ridiam religion, although many scriptures were originally written in earlier forms of the language, going back to a stage where it was united with other neighboring languages as the Gold language.

During the staeg of classical Gold and much of early Leaper, there was a grammatical rule limiting closed syllables to only one per word. When two CVC morphemes were joined to form a compound, the first reverted to a grammatically prescribed CVCV form. As the language evolved, these CVCV forms became CVC as well, but the forms they took did not closely resemble the free forms, and the clusters involved were often further simplified.

Also, in most cases, a CVC morpheme would shift to CVCV even if the second part of the compound did not also have a CVC syllable.

1. The velar fricatives h hʷ came to be spelled x xʷ.
2. tʷ dʷ nʷ shifted to tl dl nl.
3. The vowel u , in all tones and lengths, changed to o of the same tone and length.
4. The diphthongs əi ai changed to ĕ ē . əu au became ū ō .
5. The plain schwa (which was always low tone) disappeared to Ø and labialized any consonant that preceded it. This was considered an allophone of /u/. Following consonants became syllabic. Where /ə/ collapsed, stress shifted syllables to the nearest adjacent one. This tone was mid-tone (ă), which was sometimes called the low tone since it behaved as such when joined to any other morpheme that carried stress. Thus all morphemes that had once contained a schwa came to be pronounced entirely with low tones.
6. Sequences like aʕa became pharyngealized vowels; these could still have tones, but later all pharyngealized tones merged with each other except for sandhi effects. Pharyngealized vowels are spelled â ; though there is only one pharyngealized surface tone, pharyngealized vowels exhibited different sandhi effects depending on their origin, and this is not reflected in the Romanization. Note that /iʕV/ did not create pharyngealization, but /uʕV/ did.
7. The clusters mh nh ŋh dh became mp nt ŋk t, except that nč replaces /nt/ before any /i/. These clusters were often morphologically /s/ + a voiced consonant, but the [h] pronunciation is actually the more archaic one.
8. After the vowel [u] (any tone, any length), k ḳ in a syllable coda became coarticulated labial-velar stops kp ḳṗ . This change also took place after the /Ø/ that had replaced earlier schwa, since this was behaving as an allophone of /u/.
9. After a syllabic nasal, the final stops k ḳ (which was the only ones that did occur) changed to match the position of the nasal. However, these were written with the letters for "p ṗ".
10. The voiced stop d became l in initial position, but r (a flap) elsewhere. This did *not* affect dʷ.
11. Labialized coronals became velar.
12. The sequences mmṡ ŋŋṡ shifted to mpṡ ŋkṡ.
13. The sequences gp gṗ shifted to p ṗ.
14. In unstressed position after a vowel, the syllabic consonants ṁ ṅ ŋ̇ ḷ ṡ shifted to plain consonants m n ŋ l s. Thus unstressed closed syllables were created.
15. Final ḳ raised the preceding vowel to a high tone à (á if it was long) and then disappeared, though it left an allophonic glottal stop in some positions. Then, final k disappeared and changed the preceding vowel to the long high tone á. The surface tone change did not apply to pharyngealized vowels, but the sandhi effects did. Thus there were two pharyngealized tones .... both pronounced the same, but with different effects on surrounding unstressed syllables.
16. The labialized fricative šʷ became hʷ .

    NOTE ON POLITICS: The Proto-Moonshine language breaks off here. (Year 3958)

17. ya yo (on all tones) shifted to ye.
18. Nasal consonants followed by /y/ hardened to voiced stops: my ñy became by ǯy . (This includes the reflexes of /ny/ and /ŋy/.)
19. The palatal glide /y/ was deleted when not before a high vowel (it was only /e i u/ by now anyway).
20. sl>q, which is an allophone of /h/. This probably also shifts /lh/.
21. p>h except after a high tone (excludes /kp/).

    NOTE THAT THE SPELLING OF /h/ as ħ is for clarity only, because in many names, /x/ is spelled with the plain "h".

22. The clusters ml nl ŋl changed to bl dl ġl , thus restoring voiced stops to a marginal phonemic position. WHAT ABOUT PALATALS?
23. The labialized consonants mʷ ŋʷ changed to bʷ ġʷ .
24. The sound /l/ disappeared after a voiced stop: the clusters bl dl ġl changed to b d ġ .
25. Lastly, /l/ also disappeared after any other stop, even over a morpheme boundary.
26. The coarticulated stops kp ḳṗ shifted to p ṗ. (If there ever was a voiced /ġb/, it too would shift.)

Note that the only /y/ is before /i/ and unlabialized /u/, the latter of which was rare. The only other clusters in the language had initial elements unmarked for place of articulation, possibly aside from a few marginal holdovers across morpheme boundaries involving inherited syllabic nasals.

Because syllabic consonants after vowels in unstressed syllables had shifted to plain consonants, the rule prohibiting more than one closed syllable per word became void, and new transparent compounds were created alongside the older opaque ones. Sometimes these newly coined words had sound changes as well, but they were much simpler and typically resolvable into their constituents. Thus, for example, the newly coined sodos "blanket trap" (with /nl/ > /d/) drove out the older ħʷolos. The syllable /ħʷo/ corresponded to many possible CVC forms, but since all /d/ in Leaper arose from earlier /nl/, there was no other possible interpretation of the new word.