Andanic languages

The Andanic languages are those descended from Old Andanese. Most are very conservative; however, the Andanese language for which the family is named is not particularly conservative at all, and its speakers numerically outweighed those of all of the other languages combined.

Phonology

Consonants

Old Andanese had the following consonants:

 /p m t n l k g h q kʷ gʷ hʷ ŋʷ qʷ/ 

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 Old Andanese. The Old Andanese cognate of the rare Gold language voiced velar stop /ġ/ is always /k/.)

Treatment of labialized consonants

The labialized coronal consonants /tʷ dʷ nʷ/ changed to /kʷ kʷ ŋʷ/ unconditionally. However, there was no corresponding plain [ŋ] sound to contrast with, since this had changed to a plain /n/ already. Also, [gʷ] was just an allophone of /w/. Lastly, although [qʷ] did occur, it was far less common than /kʷ/ and could be analyzed as a sequence. /hʷ/ resulted from a merger of inherited /hʷ/ with inherited /f/. Thus the consonant inventory could also be analyzed as

/p m w f t n l k g h q kʷ/

With just a single labialized consonant. However, because the labialized consonants often behave as a set in most of the daughter languages, they are spelled as such when this notation is helpful. Thus, for example, in mainline Late Andanese, /kʷ/ > /p/ unconditionally, but /ŋʷ/ > /ŋ/, so in Late Andanese the ʷ is not used for the nasal.

Allophony and sandhi

Old Andanese /p/ and /t/ are pronounced as voiced stops [b d] between vowels. Since the language is highly CV, this means that [b d] are actually more common in speech than [p t]. Note that the parent language, Tapilula, had had a distinction between voiced and voiceless stops. In early Old Andanese, the voiced stops became voiceless, and then later on they came to be voiced allophonically in intervocalic position. Thus, for the primordial voiced stops, they first became voiceless, and then changed back again, rather than remaining voiced all along.

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.

Vowels

The vowels are /a e i o u/. The inherited schwa disappeared or changed to /i/.

Representation of dorsal consonants

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/.

Comparison with Gold

The phonology of Old Andanese shares many developments with the Gold language, from which it had split around 2000 years earlier. Among these shared characteristics are:

1. The stop system has many minimal pairs between /t/ and /d/, but relatively few contrasts between /p/ and /b/ and fewer still between /k/ and /ġ/.
2. Long vowels have a falling tone, and can contrast with a sequence of two short vowels, which is much rarer.

These developments happened in parallel, but appeared under different circumstances, so there are very few words, or even morphemes, that have the same form in both languages.

Daughter languages

Old Andanese had a few daughter languages that survived, mostly spoken in Nama. 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 Tapilula 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 the dialect spoken in Paba. Paba's Andanese had a single dialect because Paba was a single nation, primarily flatland, and its people had greater mobility than those living in Subumpam or Nama.

North Andanic languages

Gala

See Gala language.

Litila

See Litila.

Similar to Galà, but develops the labiovelars into coronals, making it appear to have Gold language traits. /kʷ hʷ gʷ/ > /t s z/.

Udami

Spoken to the west of Galà.

• Tones preserved.

• /hʷ gʷ/ > /f w/, but other labials drop.

• /q/ > /k/ unconditionally.

• /b d/ > /p t/ (that is, allophonic voicing was reverted). Thus this language doesnt "suffer" from the lack of /t/ found in neighboring languages.

• /g/ (still a fricative) > /x/, thus removing the last voiced/voiceless pair from the language.

• Possibly a Palli-like "staircase shift" to get phonemic /s/. But how? Palli's was /fa fi fu sa si su ša ši šu ha hi hu/ > /fa fi fu sa si su sa si fu fa si fu/. This shift could have been affected by front vowels on *both* sides of the consonant. For sure, /h/ is the "weakest" consonant, probably shifting away completely by changing to /s/, /x/, or /f/, depending on the surrounding consonants. Even with all of this, /s/ will still be rare unless /k/ is somehow pulled into the shift.

• Possibly /f w/ > /h 0/ later on. Under some circumstances, maybe also /p m/ > /h 0/, but the /m/ nasalizes vowels and thus causes a final -n.

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.

Olati

South Andanic

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. Thus, unlike most other languages of the area, /p t s/ all occur in abundance and are not restricted to specific environments such as bordering primordial [i].

/q/ shifts to /k/, thus being the only dorsal. There are 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.

Olati retains the voiced stops /b d/ intervocalically, where many other branches restored their original voiceless pronunciation. This means that the new, innovated /p t/ that come from earlier /kʷ k/ do not merge and cause homophony.

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. This sound change appears in several othger branches to generate [s], but this is not necessary here because [s] was a very common sound.

later sound changes

• A possible further shift is /b d/ > /m n/, and then /v/ > /b/, yet again unconditionally.

• In one daughter language, /f s/ > /0 h/. In another, /f/ > /w/.

West Andanic languages

note, this may be incorrect, these are3 just "left over" languiages. however, west would be a good place to put them since they cannot be in the mtns.

Yoy language

The Yoy language was spoken in the Thunder Empire from 3844 AD to 3884 AD, during (and only during) the time when the THunder Empire was governbed by Dreamland. Yoy was confused with Dreamlandic, and the two languages had a similar sound, but they are not closely related. Rather, the anti-Thunder policies of the Dreamers allowed minority languages such as Yoy to flourish. After the overthrow of the Dreamer government, Yoy went back into suppression; however, the people who spoke Yoy were generally anti-Dreamer by this point as they had been no better treated by the Dreamers than were the majority Thunderers.

Characteristics

• Deletion of /b d g/ after a stressed vowel; before this, /ab/ > /o/. This meant that the only stops that occurred between vowels were /t k q/.
• Probably, the loss of voicing contrasts in stops altogether, since there would be relatively few minimal pairs by this point (only /t/ vs /d/ after unstressed vowels). Possibly remaining /d/ > /r/ before this happens.
• The growth of falling diphthongs resulting from the deletion of these consonants, without the monophthongization that characterized most languages of this area. THe name Yoy would have quicvkly become *Yē in most of the neighboring langs, even those not closely related.

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. For example, the word for "dolphin" appears to be a compound of sa "love" and gu "breast", but the two smaller words are used with classifiers only. Other words are attested but not often used: for example, the common word for torch in Late Andanese is not hunupu but the related ihunu.

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
pĕ	hip; side face	pĕ			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
hṅda	snow	hĭnda			gina(?)
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		sa
nŭbu	fruit that grows on trees	nŭbu	rŭbu		nupu