User:Soap/NE

See also User:Soap/SE.

This is a hypothetical setup page for a group of lost languages spoken on the northeastern part of the continent, separate from the Repilian languages and their relatives. The migration time is arbitrary and the languages need not be tied to any other languages, as even if the migration time were close to the Repilians' time they could have come from an area of Laba that did not speak a closely related language.

The territory here may be much the same as Repilia's, but since this corresponds to "Lenia", it is likely north of Repilia. It may be that Repilia pushed the speakers of these languages against the icecap and that they assimilated and then died out. This could have happened very far in the past. In some ways this new Lenian area resembles a mirror of Dreamland.

Timing

Unknown but probably before 8000 BC. Remember the rapidly changing climate, however.

Climate

Probably inhabited the northeast coast as far as possible, meaning wherever the ice began was their northern boundary. Thus they would be dependent on eating fish.

The eccentricity would have been similar at around 8000 BC, though check exact values on Teppala. The axial tilt was not related to this.

Phonology

The phonology of the parent language must superficially resemble Lenian languages despite the wide time gap. This may be due to anatomy, and the traits could have hung around for tens of thousands of years past the disappearance of the family.

The phonology may have arisen from an earlier one in which most or all of the consonants could be plain, labialized, or palatalized (pʷ p pʲ). A maximal consonant inventory is such as

Consonants

Rounded bilabials:      pʷ   bʷ   mʷ   m̥ʷ        w    hʷ
Spread bilabials:       p    b    m    m̥         β    φ
Linguolabials:          þ    ð    μ              υ    ϝ
Labiodentals:           ṗ    ḅ    ṃ    ṁ              f    v
Dentals:                ṭ    ḍ    ṇ              ḷ    ṣ    ẓ  
Alveolars:              t    d    n    n̥    r    l    s    z    c    ʒ
Postalveolars:                    ň         ř    λ    š    ž    č    ǯ
Retroflexes:            ʈ    ɖ    ɳ    ɳ̊    ɹ    ɭ    ʂ    ʐ
Palatals:               ć         ń              y    ś
Velars:                 k         ŋ             (Ø)   x
Labiovelars:            kʷ        ŋʷ                  xʷ
Postvelars:                                           h

This is a MAXIMAL inventory. But note the scarcity of dorsal consonants even here. It is possible that there will be some languages with no dorsals at all despite having a sizable inventory overall, and some other languages might have dorsals only allophonically. (Even Play, Pabappa, and Poswa all hav e at least one dorsal consonants.)

It is possible the spelling of the linguolabials could be shifted to all Greek letters to complete the theme, but the mixed spelling above is in tune with languages that use them where other languages use dentals. /θ/ is a voiceless linguolabial fricative in this system, but there is no way to indicate a voiced form.

There might be additional sibilants in some languages, like /sʷ sʲ/, which would contrast with all of the others, but these would likely not be in the parent language.

A possible sound change before the parent language split up is lenition of all labialized coronals, leading to an abundance of /w/, and retention of peripherals.

Vowels

Despite the large consonant inventory arising largely from coalescence of glides, the vowel inventory remains large as well, distinguishing length (likely not for all vowels) and perhaps tone. The tones would most likely contrast only in accented syllables, and have a limited array of codas, such that suprasegmental tone consonants could remove them from the phonology. They would most likely contrast in length, so length could not be considered separate from tone. Another idea is to use something like the Gold system. In both cases, the tones would be considered part of the vowel inventory.

Possible histories

Free growth

It is possible that this language is tied to no others. There may be a cultural link to Thaoa, the Sleep Flower Hills, and various other peoples who became mixed with the Players and their descendants. This could also replace Haswaraba culturally, with the Haswaraba language being moved to Laba.

Repilian branch

It is possible that this is a branch of Repilian, even though the people are physically different, because just as Repilians "evovled from Zeniths", Lenians could evolve from Repilians (not literally but through population exchange). THis is unlikely however.

Cultural characteristics

"Kxesh" could be a branch of this group.