Ghost language: Difference between revisions

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:''This article is about the Lamuan languages descended from [[Khulls]] and spoken on the planet Teppala.  There exists another conlang called Lamu which is not part of this world.''
Ghosts were just one of many groups.  This is a direct sister language of [[Ogili II]], with no more recent non-shared common ancestor on either side, meaning that any other languages in their shared family must be either early-branching forks of Ogili or of Ghost.


[[Lamuan languages|Lámū]] is a name for the southern branch of the Khulls family, including the languages which are spoken inside [[Pusapom|Pabap territory]].  Lamuans are not immigrants; they are an indigenous minority of Khulls speakers who never moved away from their homelands even as they were outgrown by the Pabaps.
==Leaper (~4700 AD) to Ghost (~6000 AD)==


Shared features are few because of the early date of divergence.  A properly designed family tree of Khulls and its descendants would show the Lamuan languages as several different families, each as diverse from the others as whole families are from other families in the West.  Nevertheless all Lamuan languages share:
The consonant inventory of Leaper was


*<span style="text-decoration: line-through">The early unrounding of all vowels, so that /a e i o u/ turned into /a e i ɤ ɨ/, which can be spelled as {a e i ə y} or {a e i ø y}. All languages later grew new rounded vowels, generally arising in part from vowels next to labialized consonants.</span>
Rounded bilabials:      pʷ  ṗʷ  bʷ      hʷ          w
Spread bilabials:       p  ṗ  b  m 
Alveolars:              t  ṭ  d  n  s  r  l
Postalveolars:          č      ǯ      š  ž  (ł)  y
Velars:                  k  ḳ      ŋ  x  g
Labiovelars:            kʷ  ḳʷ  ġʷ      xʷ  gʷ
Postvelars:              q              h      ʕ
  Labialized postvelars:  qʷ


*Loss of distinctive labialization except before a vowel.
And the vowels /a e i o u/ on six tones: à ă ā á â a͆, where the last two differ in sandhi effects only.


*The devoicing of all voiced stops, unconditionally.
All five vowels are unrounded except when following a labialized consonant.  Because /u/ almost always follows a labialized consonant, its unrounded form is very rare unless analyzed as /Ø/.  This can be spelled /ʉ/.


*Change to a vertical vowel inventory consisting of /a ə ɨ/.
A rare palatal lateral '''ł''' (IPA /ʎ/) can be added, which occurs only in environments where /y/ can also occur.  Unlike the other five palatal consonants /č ǯ š ž y/, however, it is entirely of secondary origin, arising entirely from the sequence /ly/, and it cannot contrast with the sequence /ly/, even over a morpheme boundary.


*The change of all non-aspirated stops into ejectives (in stressed syllables) and later often into geminates, thus eliminating the "three series" system of the parent language with its latent instabiliity due to the rarity of the voiced and voiceless non-aspirate series.
#The high vowels ''i u'', ambivalent to tone, shift to '''ʲɨ ɨ'''. Meanwhile pharyngealized ''î û'' merge as '''ɨ̄''', and this is almost the only /ɨ/ in the language that was not preceded by a labialized consonant.
*The simplification of the tone system, such that although proto-Lamu did still have three tones, the distinctions were weak and the whole system was quick to decay into a length/stress distinction.
#:And as such, it is possible that /ʷɨ/ is actually /ʷʉ/ from the beginning.
#The mid vowels ''e o'', ambivalent to tone, shift to  '''ʲʉ ʉ'''.  Meanwhile pharyngealized ''ê      ô'' merge as '''ʉ̄'''.
#:The longs and phars may actually target to '''ā''', and cause vowel harmony shifts with unstressed /o/ also moving to /a/ when this happens.
#Palatalization is lost after ejectives and if the vowel is pharyngealized.  It is important that palatalization is minimized in every way possible, perhaps even being restricted to tonic syllables, because it mostly contrasts with labialization instead of with plain articulation.
#The sequence ''ʷɨ'' (on all tones) shifted to '''ɨ'''.
#The velar ejectives ''ḳ ḳʷ'' shift to uvulars '''q qʷ'''. 
#:There needs to be at least one environment in which they remain velar, and this spreads analogically to most unstressed syllables.  Alternatively, the ejectives could shift to plain voiceless stops in unstressed positions, though it would be traditional for the language to allow at least some unstressed uvulars, so the reverse type of analogy would need to then take place.
#All voiceless stops lost their aspiration.
#The pharyngeal approximant ''ʕʷ'' shifted to ''' ʀ'''.
#:Possibly shift /g/ > /Ø/ here, and while ʀ still remains ʀ, it fills the fricative column rather than the approximant column.  Instead, /h/ could drop.
#The ejectives ''ṗʷ ṗ ṭ'' shifted to '''pʷ p t'''.
#The voiceless fricative  ''hʷ'' shifted  to '''f'''.
#All syllabic consonants gained a prosthetic '''ɨ'''    unless before a vowel. 
#All unstressed ''ɨ'' was lost; alternatively, this rule can be united with the above and all resulting clusters declared syllabic.     
#The long high tones ''ā á'' merged as '''ā'''.
#The short high tone ''à'' shifted to '''aʔ'''.
#Final glottal stops were lost.
#''d'' > '''r'''.  Note that this was a merger, since they were not in complementary distribution.
#Labialization was lost in the coda.
#Likely the voiced stops ''ġ ġʷ'' merge with '''g gʷ''' (meaning that primordial /g gʷ/ do not delete after all), with the distinction between stop and fricative being allophonic.
#Palatalized labials, if they ever existed, likely shift to plain ones.


*<span style="text-decoration: line-through">With regards to labialized consonants, Lamuan languages fall into the "K" group, meaning that they neither palatalized the plain velars (as did "C" languages such as [[Moonshine]]) nor changed the labiovelars into labials (as did "P" languages such as [[Ogili]]).  Some languages did lose distinctive labialization, but did so at a late stage of development and generally in a way that did not add any new phonemes to the language.  e.g. kʷ pʷ > k p, not p p.</span>
Possibly long vowels shorten in closed syllables, but superheavy syllables were common in neighboring languages as well.
:''Note, the above may be repurposed for a different language family.  It could be said that I'm not abandoning the idea so much as I am changing the name "Lamu" to refer to a new language family with completely different sound changes.''


==Proto-Lamuan phonolpogy==
In one daughter language, palatalization of all velars occurs, with an early shift of  ''kʷi'' > '''ćʷi''', and then uvulars turn into velars. This   language  then shifts the mid vowel to /u/.  It probably also does /r/ > /d/.
===Vowel shifts===
===Culture===
/a e i o u/ > /a ɜ ɨ ɜ ɨ/, probably unconditionally with no effects at all on the surrounding phonemes. This is because /e/ and /u/ were much rarer than /o/ and /i/, and had in  many cases arisen in tandem with consonant shifts, so that, for example, /čo/ never existed in Khulls, since /čo/ > /če/ in an earlier shift.
:''See edit history for more information about the Lamu subgroup of the Ghosts.''
At least some Ghost languages border Moonshine territory, but the capital and center of population of the Ghost Empire is well within the tropics.


===Consonant shifts===
Though the Ghosts were racially diverse at the time of the founding, the decline of transportation led to the concentration of power in the tropics, and thus the Ghosts by 6000 AD were a dark-skinned tribe similar in appearance to the [[Crystals]] with some traits of the aboriginals of [[Kxesh]].
====Palatalization of non-coronals====
The language palatalized most of the non-coronal consonants that were not labialized, and then delabialized the labialized ones.  However, there were exceptions:
:*/p ṗ b/ changed to /f f v/ instead of becoming palatalized.  This shift also occurred in Moonshine and [[Poswa]] much later, but was unrelated. 
:*The nasals /m n ŋ/, which had no labialized counterparts, also did not palatalize. 
:*/ḳ ḳʷ/ shifted to /q q/, and resisted palatalization.
::*note, this last shift MUST be conditional, or else /q/ would be more common than /k/.


:*Also there will be a gap of almost no /či/, but there will be plenty of /ki/, which would be unusual.  So perhaps /kʷi/ > /ćʷi/ > /ći/, part of a pushchain shift that also causes /qi qʷi/ > /ki kʷi/ and probably the rest of the /q/ > /k/ later on.
It is not clear whether the  Ghosts retained any significant following in the areas of the northwest that came to represent one of the three strips of [[Cosmopolitan Play languages]].  The Ghosts had in fact been founded in this region, but the dominant powers were [[Baeba Swamp]] to the west, and the [[Moonshine culture|Moonshine]] Empire to the east.


 
==Notes==
The phoneme /gʲ/ quickly merged with /j/ (spelled /y/ in Khulls).
 
Meanwhile, those coronal consonants that were postalveolar came to behave as if they were palatalized, and those that were alveolar came to behave as if they were labialized.  The sole exception was /l/, which behaved as if it were a dorsal consonant, and therefore became palatalized in all environments to /lʲ/.  This treatment of /l/ as dorsal is shared with many languages of the area such as [[Andanese]] and Khulls itself.  /ʕʷ/ came to be seen as the labialized version of /l/, which is true to its Khulls derivation, and its pronunciation shifted roughly to [[wikipedia:Voiced uvular fricative|ʀ]], which still contrasted with the voiced velar fricative /g/.
 
The old phoneme /ǯ/ came to behave as if it were /rʲ/.  However, it is likely that /r/ and /z/ soon merged, and took /ǯ/ and /ž/ with them, creating a merged phoneme pair of /r rʲ/ which would be [r ž].
 
====Loss of ejectives====
The ejectives /ṗ ṭ/ had survived the shift that had removed /ḳ/, but they soon merged in with the corresponding aspirated voiceless stops unconditionally.  (Unless they triggered gemination instead.)
 
===Tone shifts===
The high tone "crystallized" into low tone plus /ʔ/, as in [[Thaoa]].  This caused gemination of the following cosnonant except before a fricative, in which case it formed an affricate.  This allophonic gemination/affrication was already part of standard Khulls, such that, .e.g. in Khulls /àx/ was always pronounced [àk], but in Lamu it became truly phonemic because the tone contrast disappeared.
 
ā and á merged as ā, which lost its tonal contrast but retained its length contrast.
 
Pharyngealization survived, but was no longer considered a tone.  Instead, it was considered to be /g/ in the syllable coda.  This was an orthographic choice, although there were still a few words in the language where /g/ and the pharyngeal vowel marker /ʕ/ appeared to derive from each other.
:NOTE, this doesnt work because a literal /g/ can also occur in the syllable coda and the two are unlikely to merge.  /R/ would not work either.
 
Thus, all tones had been eliminated.
 
===Summary of phonology===
Thus the phonology of proto-Lamu was:
 
;CONSONANTS
p b m f v t n s r č š ž ʀ l ć ǵ ś j k ġ ŋ x g q ʔ
 
;VOWELS
a ɜ ɨ
 
The consonants that could occur word-finally were /p m n ŋ s l ʔ ʕ/, plus those that had resulted from delabialization.  Thus, all except some of the palatals. 
 
Consonant that cannot occur wordfinally: /t r č ž ć ǵ ś/, but note that word-final /s/ was allophonically [ʔs] all along and might change to a simple [t].
 
/q/ might be a mirage, if it shifts to /k/.
 
====Descendant languages====
Some shift the vowels to /a i u/, since there was no palatalization or labialization to pull the vowels to the edges of the vowel space.  This shift essentially restores the original system that the [[Gold language]] had had more than 4000 years earlier, which makes these languages look especially conservative, but this is false.  It is reminiscent of the situation where Moonshine appears to be the only Khulls daughter language that preserves the Khulls á tone, when in fact it lost that tone and then redeveloped it from sequences of other tones.
 
For consistency, if this shift happens in *all* daughter languages (Lamuan languages share many areal traits), or even most of them, the vowels of the parent language could also be written as /a i u/ with the explanation that the parent language /u/ was very close to schwa.

Latest revision as of 17:42, 31 July 2021

Ghosts were just one of many groups. This is a direct sister language of Ogili II, with no more recent non-shared common ancestor on either side, meaning that any other languages in their shared family must be either early-branching forks of Ogili or of Ghost.

Leaper (~4700 AD) to Ghost (~6000 AD)

The consonant inventory of Leaper was 

Rounded bilabials:       pʷ  ṗʷ  bʷ      hʷ          w
Spread bilabials:        p   ṗ   b   m   
Alveolars:               t   ṭ   d   n   s   r   l
Postalveolars:           č       ǯ       š   ž  (ł)  y
Velars:                  k   ḳ       ŋ   x   g
Labiovelars:             kʷ  ḳʷ  ġʷ      xʷ  gʷ
Postvelars:              q               h       ʕ
Labialized postvelars:   qʷ

And the vowels /a e i o u/ on six tones: à ă ā á â a͆, where the last two differ in sandhi effects only.

All five vowels are unrounded except when following a labialized consonant. Because /u/ almost always follows a labialized consonant, its unrounded form is very rare unless analyzed as /Ø/. This can be spelled /ʉ/.

A rare palatal lateral ł (IPA /ʎ/) can be added, which occurs only in environments where /y/ can also occur. Unlike the other five palatal consonants /č ǯ š ž y/, however, it is entirely of secondary origin, arising entirely from the sequence /ly/, and it cannot contrast with the sequence /ly/, even over a morpheme boundary.

  1. The high vowels i u, ambivalent to tone, shift to ʲɨ ɨ. Meanwhile pharyngealized î û merge as ɨ̄, and this is almost the only /ɨ/ in the language that was not preceded by a labialized consonant.
    And as such, it is possible that /ʷɨ/ is actually /ʷʉ/ from the beginning.
  2. The mid vowels e o, ambivalent to tone, shift to ʲʉ ʉ. Meanwhile pharyngealized ê ô merge as ʉ̄.
    The longs and phars may actually target to ā, and cause vowel harmony shifts with unstressed /o/ also moving to /a/ when this happens.
  3. Palatalization is lost after ejectives and if the vowel is pharyngealized. It is important that palatalization is minimized in every way possible, perhaps even being restricted to tonic syllables, because it mostly contrasts with labialization instead of with plain articulation.
  4. The sequence ʷɨ (on all tones) shifted to ɨ.
  5. The velar ejectives ḳ ḳʷ shift to uvulars q qʷ.
    There needs to be at least one environment in which they remain velar, and this spreads analogically to most unstressed syllables. Alternatively, the ejectives could shift to plain voiceless stops in unstressed positions, though it would be traditional for the language to allow at least some unstressed uvulars, so the reverse type of analogy would need to then take place.
  6. All voiceless stops lost their aspiration.
  7. The pharyngeal approximant ʕʷ shifted to ʀ.
    Possibly shift /g/ > /Ø/ here, and while ʀ still remains ʀ, it fills the fricative column rather than the approximant column. Instead, /h/ could drop.
  8. The ejectives ṗʷ ṗ ṭ shifted to pʷ p t.
  9. The voiceless fricative hʷ shifted to f.
  10. All syllabic consonants gained a prosthetic ɨ unless before a vowel.
  11. All unstressed ɨ was lost; alternatively, this rule can be united with the above and all resulting clusters declared syllabic.
  12. The long high tones ā á merged as ā.
  13. The short high tone à shifted to aʔ.
  14. Final glottal stops were lost.
  15. d > r. Note that this was a merger, since they were not in complementary distribution.
  16. Labialization was lost in the coda.
  17. Likely the voiced stops ġ ġʷ merge with g gʷ (meaning that primordial /g gʷ/ do not delete after all), with the distinction between stop and fricative being allophonic.
  18. Palatalized labials, if they ever existed, likely shift to plain ones.

Possibly long vowels shorten in closed syllables, but superheavy syllables were common in neighboring languages as well.

In one daughter language, palatalization of all velars occurs, with an early shift of kʷi > ćʷi, and then uvulars turn into velars. This language then shifts the mid vowel to /u/. It probably also does /r/ > /d/.

Culture

See edit history for more information about the Lamu subgroup of the Ghosts.

At least some Ghost languages border Moonshine territory, but the capital and center of population of the Ghost Empire is well within the tropics.

Though the Ghosts were racially diverse at the time of the founding, the decline of transportation led to the concentration of power in the tropics, and thus the Ghosts by 6000 AD were a dark-skinned tribe similar in appearance to the Crystals with some traits of the aboriginals of Kxesh.

It is not clear whether the Ghosts retained any significant following in the areas of the northwest that came to represent one of the three strips of Cosmopolitan Play languages. The Ghosts had in fact been founded in this region, but the dominant powers were Baeba Swamp to the west, and the Moonshine Empire to the east.

Notes

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