Proto-Hesperic (2018)

Proto-Hesperic is a Macro-Indo-European diachronic conlang by Jörg Rhiemeier that is currently under construction, and represents the reconstructed common ancestor of the Hesperic language family. It is a lostlang and forms a part of the League of Lost Languages. Proto-Hesperic is a head-final agglutinating active-stative language related to Proto-Indo-European, assumed to have been spoken in Central Europe around 4000 BC; it also resembles Proto-Uralic in its morphology, and seems to form a kind of "missing link" between the two families. The vocabulary is in part based on Proto-Indo-European, in part on words with uncertain etymologies in Celtic and Germanic that may be loanwords from lost substratum languages; there are also some original creations in the vocabulary and a few words from argots such as Shelta or Rotwelsch.

Phonology

Consonants

	Labial	Coronal	Palatal	Velar
Aspirated stops	*ph	*th		*kh
Neutral stops	(*p)	*t		*k
Voiced stops	*b	*d		*g
Fricatives		*s		*x
Nasals	*m	*n
Liquids		*l *r
Semivowels	*w		*j

Notes

• The phoneme *p (neutral labial stop) is marginal and may not have existed. All Hesperic words with this sound have limited distribution and may have been borrowed.

• Aspirated and voiced stops do not co-occur in a true Proto-Hesperic root; exceptions occur only in a few words with limited distribution that probably were borrowed from other languages. Neutral stops may co-occur with either.

• No two neutral stops may occur in the same Proto-Hesperic root, and they do not occur in affixes. Again, exceptions have limited distribution and are probably borrowed.

• Because of these constraints, it has been suggested that the neutral stops once were ejectives (compare the glottalic theory in Indo-European), but as no Hesperic language actually shows such ejectives, this is doubtful. It should also be considered that in the Kartvelian languages often cited by supporters of the glottalic theory, no such constraints exist (e.g., Georgian k'op'e 'ladle' has two ejectives in the root, one of them labial). Yet, it may indeed be the case that the neutral stops evolved from some highly marked type of articulation, but it is pretty certain that at the time of breakup, they just were ordinary stops that were neither voiced nor aspirated.

• The language may have also had a labialized velar series (*kh° *k° *g° *x°), but these probably just were plain velars followed by *w.

• Likewise there may have also been a labialized coronal series (*th° *t° *d° *s°), but that is even less likely than the labialized velar series. They probably were just plain coronals followed by *w.

Vowels

	Front	Central	Back
High	*i		*u
Low		*a

Notes

• The diphthongs *ai and *au exist, but are perhaps better considered vowel-semivowel groups *aj and *aw instead, as they show the same distribution as vowel-liquid groups.

• The high vowels *i and *u do not occur in roots or affixes in which a nasal, liquid or semivowel follows the vowel (across morpheme boundaries, such combinations may exist). Exceptions may occur in words of limited distribution that are probably borrowed from non-Hesperic languages.

• There are no vowel-initial lexical roots; all roots begin with a consonant. The demonstrative *a (source of the West Hesperic definite article) is an exception.

Syllables

The maximal syllable structure is sCRVRC, wherein C is any consonant ans R a nasal, liquid or semivowel.