Andanic languages

Phonology

Old Andanese: /p m t n l k g h q kʷ gʷ hʷ ŋʷ qʷ/ for consonants, /a e i o u/ on two tones for vowels. Note that Old Andanese preserved the lack of /s/ passed down from the parent language. Note that all the fricatives (/h hʷ g gʷ/) are laryngeals. (The letter "g" always indicates a fricative; ġ is used for the stop in related languages but does not occur in any stage of Andanese.)

Allophony and sandhi

Old Andanese /p/ and /t/ became voiced between vowels.

In general, Old Andanese is "vowel-strong", meaning that vowels affect the pronunciation of consonants more than the other way around. This is in contrast to most of the languages of the Gold family, where consonants differ very little in pronunciation from one environment to another but have strong effects on the vowels that surround them. The Gold family's languages also tend to have more complex syllables than Old Andanese.

Representation of dorsal consonants

The language is very guttural compared to its neighbors; after all, it has 9 dorsal conosnants, but only 3 coronals and 2 labials (though five of the dorsals are labialized). However, the syllable strucutre is almost entirely CV, so it does not sound quite as aggressive as one might think.

Note, also, that /l/ patterns grammatically as a dorsal consonant, which means that from the viewpoint of the Old Andanese speakers, there were only four non-dorsal consonants in the language: /p m t n/.

Daughter languages

Old Andanese had a few daughter languages that survived, mostly spoken in Nama, before being overwhelmed by Khulls. THose that survived the longest tended to be found in the most isolated areas, but note that due to Nama's unusual geography, some of the most isolated areas were right along the coast.

There are four subfamilies of Andanic languages:

• North Andanic languages, as exemplified by Galai. They are spoken in the mountains north of Subumpam. They tend to have a guttural sound, have few fricative consonants, and be nearly or entirely CV. All three of these traits were traits of Old Andanese as well, and also of the Gold language it arose from, which means that the North Andanic languages are the most conservative branch, at least superficially. (Note: Lyugi might be an outlier in this group.)

• South Andanic languages, as exemplified by Olati. These languages tend to be "soft" in sound but otherwise very conservative.

• West Andanic languages, spoken west of Nèye (no state name given on map).

• Core Andanic, for Andanese itself. This was the dialect group that remained in the original homeland and was swamped by Pabaps and eventually was absorbed by the Pabaps.

Galai

Sometimes spelled G̣alai, as this language developed a true voiced stop /ġ/ alongside the fricative /g/ it inherited from Old Andanese. Galai is very conservative. /q/ > /ʔ/ > /0/ unconditionally; labialization was mostly dropped; intervocalic voicing became phonemic (because the consonants were restored to voiceless if stressed); the voiced fricatives /g gʷ/ hardened in initial position into stops.

• Because the language is vowel-strong, it may do /ti/ > /si/ (likely t > č > š > s). Possibly also /ki/ > /si/, and then /kʷi/ > /ki/.

• /q/ > /0/ may be ignored in monosyllabic words, or perhaps in initial position generally, in favor of shifting to /k/. This would prevent words consisting of just single vowels from arising. If so, this /q/ > /k/ must be made later than the /k/ > /s/ shift.

• Also, the syllable /qi/ might delete its /i/ early on, leading to a setup similar to that of Japanese, where geminate conosnants appear in place of the earlier /qi/. Possibly /qu/ also. Note, however, that this would not likely happen if there was not also a nasal coda other than that left by the remnants of the very rare syllabic consonants.

• Initial /d/ is rare, coming only from the sequence /ġi/ plus a vowel. There are probably no phonemic palatals in the language; if there are, they are like Japanese in that they cannot occur before /i/.

• /g/ merges with /ġ/, with the stop pronunciation winning out eventually. The dot above the /ġ/ is to keep it distinct when Galai words are loaned into other languages that still have a contrast.

PROBABLE FINAL PHONOLOGY

/p b m/

/t d n s l/

/k ŋ h g/

/a e i o u/

/ă à ā á/

/j/ and /w/ could be considered phonemes as well, despite being written as vowels, since they cannot carry tones.

A rare /r/ may come from the sequence /lj/.

NOTE, EVEN WITH THE HUGE WORDLIST BELOW THERE IS STILL *NO* /s/ IN THE ENTIRE LANGUAGE!!

Olati

Possibly an entire family, since these speakers are more isolated from their neighbors than those of the other branches. However, as the evolution time is short, the languages will be very similar to each other and possibly best considered dialects with somewhat divergent phonologies.

Olati is "softer" than the others in that it pushes consonants forward in the mouth, like Pabappa. Labialization of dorsals and palatalization of dorsals both occur. That is, /kʷ gʷ hʷ ŋʷ qʷ/ > /p v f m p/, but /k g ŋ h/ > /t j n s/. Both shifts are unconditional. /q/ shifts to /k/; /n/ shifts to /r/(maybe). There are almost no changes of vowels or tones. None of the consonants shifts to hiatus, at least during the stage of common Olati before the dialects broke up.

NOTE, ITS POSSIBLE IT WAS K>T, H>S. I DONT HAVE THE SOURCE DOCUMENT ANYMORE

Also, I suspect I did /n/ > /r/ unconditionally before I did /ŋ/ > /n/, as this language otherwise avoids large collisions. Note that there was no /s/ in the parent language, nor an /f/ or /v/; and that the labialized stop consonants that became /p/ were rare, as was /j/.

After /g/ > /j/, many words were created with the vowel sequences /ēa ēe ēi ēo ēu/, from former sequences of /ag eg og/ plus a vowel. (/ig ug/ went to ī.) These could contract into simple long vowels, with perhaps the /i/ versions contracting into /j/ + simple long vowels. Thus palatalization was created.

Lyugi

A language that changed more than the others. Spoken in the mountains of Repilia. Possibly a "Tarise" language.

• High vowels were deleted in unstressed syllables in some environments, creating consonant clusters. They were never deleted after labialized consonants, however, or when long (though all long vowels were stressed anyway). There are now palatalized and labialized versions of consonants, and these can occur before other consonants, but the plain (/a/) consonants do so only very rarely. (e.g. /top/ "blood" was native.)

• The labialization is deleted in most such clusters, while the palatalization moves towards /s/-like sounds and then is also deleted. However, before a vowel, labialization survives and then changes to a true /w/. Also, /q/ resisted palatalization.

• Word-final consonants in unstressed syllables are dleeted. (These words had two unstressed syllables in a row.)

• Word-final consonants in stressed syllables are often deleted, changing the tone and length of the vowel.

• Other clusters are generally resolved either by creating geminates, wholly new consonants, or making the preceding vowel long.

• Perhaps /e o/ > /i u/ in environments where the previous /i u/ had disappeared. (c.f. some dialects of Greek) And perhaps in fact it is unconditional, such that unstressed syllables can only have /a i u/. Again this would not affect long vowels because they are always stressed.

• /ʷa ʷe ʷi ʷo ʷu/ > /o o u u u/ (?) Some of these might be long vowels.

• /e o/ > /ə/. Thus, this is now a four-vowel language.

• /k/ > /c/, perhaps going further to /č/, /š/, or even /s/, when before /i/.

• /q/ > /k/ unconditionally. (Thus, it does not delete itself.)

• Intervocalically, /g/ > /0/ and /b/ > /w/. (/d/ > /r/, but this is considered just an allophone.) This may have been influenced by Khulls' shift.

• The resulting vowel sequences change to single (usually long) vowels. The changes are again similar to those of Khulls, but definitely unrelated, as Khulls had done its shift more than a thousand years beforehand. Note that /o/ now only occurs where there was once a /b/, and /e/ only occurs where there was once a /g/. Possibly /ja/ > /e/, but /ai/ > /ē/ (also as in Khulls).

• There should be more sound changes pushing towards /s/. All of the palatals, for example, up above could be simply merged together as /s/. (Escept nasals.)

PROBABLE FINAL PHONOLOGY

/p m/ <--- Note the lack of /b/ (because it was always intervocalic(?)) and of /w/ (considered just an allophone of /u/).

/t n s l r/ <--- Likewise /d~r/ is considered one phoneme. /s/ arises from multiple paths.

/c/ <-- Possibly just merges to /s/.

/k g ŋ h/ <--- Note that /g/ survived in initial position, and did not merge to any other sound.

/a e i o u ə/ <-- tentative. Schwa might merge to /o/ as in Japanese, to /u/ as in Khulls, or to /a/ as in Moonshine.

NOTE, also, that /p/ and /t/ will both be very rare phonemes in this language, and that might be a problem.

Table of cognates

The table below makes some assumptions, such as unconditional /k/ > /t/ in Olati.

Note that many roots are preserved only as parts of words rather than independent words, since this language family made abundant use of classifier prefixes to pad problematic words that collided with other words. This means that the homophones, especially those found in Late Andanese, did not cause problems in comprehension. Furthermore in these languages, especially Classical (and Late) Andanese, there are no differences between the sound changes that take place word-internally and those take affect independent words.

Also, semantic shifts are not given here.

This also assumes Galà ēa > yā, but īa > ya. As in Japanese, the shfit fails if the second element is /e/ or /i/.

Old Andanese	meaning	Galà	Proto-Olati	Lyugi	Late Andanese
kakŏbe	tree	kakŏbe	tatŏbe	kakē	kakupi
lonŏṁ	orange	lonŏn	lorō (?)		lunu
gimòga	whip	gimòga	yimā		imua
gegŭbo	semen	gegŭbo	yúbo	gigū	yupu
hʷekăl	seaweed	hekā	fetā (?)	hukā
hʷèyunge	claw	hyūnge	fūne (?)		sugi
kŏgu	tree bark	kŏgu
agʷùdu	countryside, plain field	agùdu	avùdu		alutu
galàqi	Galàqi (placename)	galà	yalàki		alai
hʷèyabe	the Sĕyepa religion	hyābe	fābe		hiapi (sapi?)
pudigʷèyo	diaper	pudigyō	pudivō		putiliu
lìya	beaver	lyă (?)	lyā (?)		lia
nàgo nòma	honeybee	nagonòma	rōroma (?)		naguma
hìqi	key	hì	sìki		hii
heyăbo	lap (body part); pubis	hyābo	sábo		sapu
lòqa	mouth		lòka		lua
làda	girl, woman; child	làda	làda	làra	lata
qĕi	wheel	kē	kē		i
qèga	sawgrass	kèga	kā		ya
hʷàhʷa	hair of the head	hàha	fàfa		haha
gʷū	milk	gū	vū		lu
qʷū	urine; pee	kū	pū		pu
ukòna	wine	ukòna	utòra		ukuna
hʷŭba	Fuba (a placename and tribal name)	hŭba	fŭba		hupa
pè	a type of tall grass; cognate to gʷăga	pè	pè		pi
hʷŭm	breast; nipple	hun	fū(?)		gu
hĭbo	cranberry	hĭbo	sĭbo		hipu
gìbi	water				ipi
hʷugʷàyi	menstrual pad	hugē	fuvī		hulai
kùqi	bird's beak	kùi	tùki		kui
qŏqu	rain	kō(?)	kŏku		wu
qùne	slicing knife	kùne	kùre		uni
gʷàda nŏda	Heaven; spiritual paradise	gadanŏda	vadarŏda		latanuta
hʷonùbu	torch	honùbu	forùbu		hunupu
kulagʷī	step; stair	kulagī	tulavī		kulali
ăpmi	woman; female	àmi			ami
hʷèdu	duck (bird)	hèdu	fèdu		hitu
hʷeyahʷŭm	dolphin	hyāhun(?)	fāfū (?)		sagu
ùqi	eye	ù	ùki		wi
hʷō	fire	hō	fō		hu
hʷiă	love	hyă	fyá
nŭbu	fruit that grows on trees	nŭbu	rŭbu		nupu