South Albic

South Albic
Spoken in:	southern Britain and elsewhere
Timeline/Universe:	League of Lost Languages
Total speakers:
Genealogical classification:	Albic  South Albic   Old Albic   Low Elvish   Macaronesian
Created by:
Jörg Rhiemeier	2001-

South Albic is a branch of the Albic family spoken in southern Britain and several colonial areas including Macaronesia. It includes the classical form of Old Albic as well as the modern Low Elvish and Macaronesian languages.

South Albic is the largest branch of Albic in terms of both languages belonging to it and speakers of those languages.

The classical Old Albic language is based on the South Albic dialects of the classical period, and the modern South Albic languages can be considered more or less direct descendants of it.

Sound changes in South Albic

Symbols:

T neutral stop
T` aspirated stop
D voiced stop
Th fricative
C any consonant
C* zero or more consonants
V any vowel
X any segment
X* zero or more segments of any kind
# word boundary

The three grades of stops (neutral, aspirated, voiced) remain distinct.

*h deletes with vowel lengthening in codas:

Vh > V: / _(C,#)

Clusters of s+stop are simplified except intervocally:

sT > T`
sT` > T`
sD > D

Clusters of stop+s undergo metathesis:

Ts > sT
T`s > sT`
Ds > sD

Intervocalic s becomes r (partly restored by analogy):

s > r /V_V

In the eastern dialects, s also deletes word-initially before resonants.

Aspirates are changed into neutral stops if another aspirate or h follows (precedence from right to left):

T` > T / _X*T`
T` > T /_X*h

Vowels undergo umlaut (precedence from right to left):

V > [+open] / _C*a
V > [+front] / _C*i
V > [+round] / _C*u

Aspirated stops are changed into fricatives:

T` > Th

This latter change was still underway in classical times: many rural dialects still had aspirated stops.