Languages of Teppala

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Humans on the planet Teppala are confined to a single continent, Rilola, and its offshore islands. Thus all human languages can be traced back to a single starting point, and have many traits in common.

Historical distribution of Teppalan languages

Human civilization on planet Teppala peaked twice: first around 1700-2600AD, and then again around 3500-4200AD. During the first peak, the human population was concentrated on the south coast of the continent of Rilola, from 10°N to about 28°N. During the second peak, humans were more spread out, but the areas with the most political and military power were in the interior of the continent, though always along major rivers and lakes, ranging from about 30°N to 37°N in the eastern (older) areas of settlement and upwards to about 45°N in the far west.

After the second peak, human civilization entered a long decline, the population decreased, and languages with small populations went extinct.

During the peaks of human civilization, it was common for every religion to have its own language. Since religions were tied to political parties, almost every political party also had its own language. This is why many Teppalan languages have unusual names, such as the Gold language and the Moonshine language; these were named after political parties rather than ethnic groups.

Since political parties (and religions) coexisted with rival parties within the same ethnic group's nation, the boundaries of a given language often hinged on tiny differences such as speech registers or a set of unique vocabulary words used only members of a particular political party. When languages such as this coexisted, they tended to evolve in parallel directions, so that mutual intelligibility might persist among a pair of languages for hundreds of years.

However, democratic governments were very rare throughout Teppalan history, and many political parties, once in power, banned and persecuted members of rival parties. In these nations, the population really did consist of just a single ethnicity since anyone not claiming membership would be arrested or killed.

Traits common to all Teppalan languages

Phonology

Bilabial consonants are very common, especially the stops p b and the nasal m. The commonest stop in a language is usually /p/. However, in some languages, this is because /p/ stands alone whereas stops further back in the mouth are divided into several articulation types. For example, a language may have /p/ as its only bilabial stop but also have a distinction between a plain velar stop /k/ and an ejective /ḳ/; or there may be co-articulations such as palatalization or labialization associated with dorsal stops but not with bilabials.
The commonest syllable shape is always CV, even in languages that allow dense consonant clusters and/or diphthongs and triphthongs.
If a language has only one series of coarticulated consonants, they are labialized consonants.

Grammar

Grammatical traits common to all of the languages on the entire planet throughout all of recorded history are confined to negatives.

For example, no Teppalan language has or has ever had a definite or indefinite article.

Traits common to most Teppalan languages

Phonology

Very few Teppalan languages have at any time in history ever gone beyond six vowels, and when there are six vowels, it is always /a e i o u ə/, where the /ə/ vowel may have considerable allophony.
Languages with five or more phonemic vowels often do not permit diphthongs; those that do have a very small set. Thaoa is an outlier in that it has six phonemic vowels and several diphthongs. Note that rising diphthongs are generally parsed as a sequence of consonant + vowel since, in almost all Teppalan languages, there is no restriction on which vowels can follow an onset of [j] or [w].
Dense consonant clusters do not appear, except in some languages where a certain vowel, usually /a/ or /ə/, is not distinguished at the phonemic level from silence. That is, some languages may always pronounce /tk/ as [tək], without the schwa actually being present as a phoneme.
Syllables are commonly front-loaded, such that a sequence like /papsa/ is more likely to be pronounced [pa.psa] rather than *[pap.sa]. This happens most often when the first element of a cluster is lower on the sonority hierarchy than any following consonants, but in many languages, nasal-stop clusters such as /mp nt ŋk/ will also be front-loaded.
On the continent of Rilola, the voiced velar stop /ġ/ (IPA /g/) is rarely used even in languages with a robust series of voiced stops. This is a long-standing trait and crosses language family boundaries. On the islands of Laba, however, /ġ/ is common.
There are no minimal pairs between a diphthong and a sequence of the same two vowels. Thus diphthongs can be analyzed as allophones of vowel sequences.
Voiceless obstruents occur more frequently than voiced ones. In some languages, /b/ or /d/ is the only voiced stop. In others, there are no voiced stops at all but the voiced velar fricative /g/ (IPA /ɣ/) takes on a stop allophone after a nasal or a high tone.
There are often marginal consonant phonemes. These mostly arise from previously existing consonant clusters that were worn down. However, some marginal phonemes arise from sound changes affecting consonants that previously were more common, which survived in only a few phonemic environments. For example, in Khulls voiced stops survived a lenition shift only after a nasal. Later, the nasal sometimes disappeared, meaning that the voiced stops could no longer be analyzed as allophones of voiced fricatives. But they remained rare.
It is common to have restrictions forbidding certain consonants to appear in certain parts of a word; for example, in Khulls /r/ cannot begin a word. Most languages allow only a small subset of their consonants to appear at the end of a word

Grammar

Polysynthesis is common, and it is nearly always fusional. It is common to find words with more morphemes than phonemes due to the prevalence of single-phoneme grammatical suffixes that represent two individual morphemes that at an earlier stage of the language were pronounced individually but combined into a new single sound after a sound change.
Pronouns are of limited usage, as verbs usually carry the relevant information about the person, number, and gender of the participants. In some languages, pronouns are entirely absent.

Gender

If there is any grammatical gender, feminine words in most semantic fields outnumber masculine ones.
Grammatical gender, if present, classifies people based on age and sex rather than just sex. The age categories are not firmly defined and can be used metaphorically. There are often several age categories for children, but all adults share just a single age category.
Many languages have a consonant-based gender system; if not grammaticalized, associated more weakly due to persistence of previously grammaticalized morphemes and contact with nearby languages.
Mixed gender categories are often present; a man and a woman, referred to as a unit, will take an epicene gender rather than having one gender overrule the other. If there is no epicene, a group containing both males and females will be described with words in one of the feminine genders.
Gender and animacy, if present, can be inherited by nouns describing syntactically inanimate objects, by borrowing from a parent object. That is, a man's arm will be animate (and masculine), and so will his books or any other possessions.

Structure of words

Most languages have a fixed word order, with SOV word order by far the most common. Anomalous constructions within SOV languages may require additional marking on certain words, usually those found near the beginning of the sentence.
Suffixes are nearly universal; infixes are common; prefixes are rare and usually confined to a single part of speech (for example, in Andanese, the only prefixes are the noun classifiers).
Verbs are generally the longest words in a sentence. Verbs are heavily inflected even in languages where noun inflection is absent or relatively skimpy.

Parts of speech

There are no adjectives or adverbs. Verbs are used instead of these. In some languages, even the nouns can be analyzed as a subset of the verbs.
Pronouns play only a minor role in the language, and some languages lack pronouns altogether, instead using nouns and verbs with person markers.
Person markers on nouns, denoting their possessor, are common. Languages that lose this system often redevelop it from grammatically unrelated words later on.

List of sound changes

Proto-Greater-Laban (18343 BC) to Mapi (year 14000 BC)

The Proto-Greater-Laban (PGL) language had a consonant inventory of /pʷ p mʷ m hʷ w t c s č š j k kʷ ŋ ŋʷ h l r ř/ and a vowel inventory of /a i u ə/. Schwa is usually spelled "e". /ŋ/ was allophonmically [g] and the other nasals could become stops occasionally in word-initial position. At first, "c" was homophonous with the cluster /ts/, but later /ts/ was dragged down to dental and /c/ remained aleolar.

The primordial final nasal -/n/ disappeared, but lengthened any preceding vowel (including schwa).
The schwa vowel ə disappeared in all positions, creating new consonant clusters.
Consonant clusters like hp ht hk flipped to put the stop first, as in ph th kh.
Possibly also /ki/ > /ć/ or even just /k/.
Word-final h disappeared, and also lengthened any preceding vowel. Thus, the final syllable /-hə/ had vanished completely. However, note that word-internal /h/ that was at the end of a syllable had survived this change.
Syllable-final -p became the glottal stop ʔ, except before a "weak" sound such as /h/ or before a vowel-initial syllable.
The consonant clusters ʔs ʔš ʔts ʔč became c č c č.
The consonant clusters ks kš kts kč kh sk šk čk tsk hk all become kh.
The consonant clusters ts th st ht all became th.
The consonant clusters ph sp šp čp tsp hp' all become ph.
Clusters of two voiceless stops were resolved in favor of the second stop, except for /pk/ and its kin.
The aspirated nasal mh became h.
The labialized stops kʷ kʷh changed to pʷ pʷh.
The aspirated stops pʷh ph th kh changed to hʷ h h x respectively. (possibly use f f f x)
The affricates c č became s š.
The glottal fricative h disappeared unconditionally, leaving vowel hiatus. This included the deaspiration of hʷ to w along with any other remaining sequences such as /nh/. VOWEL HIATUS STAGE 1!!!!
The vowel sequences ai au contracted into new vowels ē ō, but retained the glide if another vowel followed.
The identical vowel sequences aa ii uu became ā ī ū. The vowel system was thus /a i u ā ē ī ō ū/ and a tiny bit of remaining schwa.
The vowel ō was shortened to o, but ē remained long.
Before another vowel, the sequences aw iw ow uw āw ēw īw ūw became ō ū ō ū ō ē ī ū.
Before another vowel, the vowel u changed to w.
Voiced stops disappeared unconditionally, leaving vowel hiatus. VOWEL HIATUS STAGE 2!!!!! Note that sequewnces like /sua/ now contrasted with /swa/ from the earlier change.
Fricatives followed by /w/ changed to h. Note that there was still an /x/, from earlier /kh/.
The short vowels e o merged as ə (usually spelled "e"). The long vowels ē ō merged as ə̄ (usually spelled "ē").

Mapi (14000 BC) to Southeast Laban (8000 BC)

NOTE: Most languages in this section are reconstructed internally, meaning that they have the smallest possible phonology capable of developing into the phonologies of its immediate daughter languages. Marginal phonemes can thus be inserted arbitrarily into any language provided that they merge into one of the phonemes of the daughter language.

There were 3 vowels: /a i u /. The sequence /yi/ was common, and in some ways behaved as a fourth vowel. When not preceded by this /y/ on-glide, the /i/ was central. The sequences /ya/ and /yu/ were also common but the vowels here were unaffected. <------ Consider recasting this as a vertical vowel inventory

Syllables could either be open (the vast majority) or end in /n/. The /n/ bundles with consonants to make prenasalized stops, but can also occur at the end of a word or before a vowel.

The Mapi language started out with 11 "core" consonants: /p m t n s l r k ŋ x h/, from which can be derived all of the consonants of the daughter languages Silatibarra (8000 BC; sometimes just called "Southeast Laban") and proto-macro-Haswarabic. However the phonology also had additional consonants which merged with these core consonants in various ways. These were:

Postalveolars: (č ň š ł ř), or perhaps a subset of those five.

Note that Mapi is the parent language of the Paleo-Andanese languages, so called because they are the ancestral languages of the people who, 14000 years later, began to speak Tapilula and later Andanese.

Labial consonants lost any palatalization afforded to them by a following /y/.
Prenasalized stops become true plain voiced stops.
The alveolar approximant l dentalized to ḷ. (was later)
The voiced obstruents d ǯ ǵ become l y y unconditionally. (could be "l ly y").
The glottal fricatve h disappeared unconditionally.
Word-final primordial /n/ becaomes /ŋ/. However, this /ŋ/ still underwent palatalization in some compounds words by analogy.
The palatal consonants ć ś ń became the dentals ṭ ṣ ṇ unconditionally!!!!!! <--- apparently known from some Australian languages?
Plain /i/ (not /yi/) was deleted. <--- THEN WHERE DO SOUND SEQUENCES LIKE /ti/ COME FROM?
answer is from taya > tea > tia.
No, that wont help, because /ai/ rarely comes before a consonant and so these sequences would be confined only to the place where they are least useful!
Word-final voiced stops became nasals.
The labial consonants p b became f Ø between vowels.
The postaolveolar ř becomes retoflex, but spelling stays the same.
Postalveolar consonants (except /ř/) trapped in final positions become plain alveolars: č š ñ ł become t s n l. Note that there were no longer any palatals in the language.
The alveolar consonants t n s l r and the dental consonants ṭ ṇ ṣ (r) ḷ changed to the postalveolars č ñ š ł ř when occuring before /y/, and deleted that /y/.

Southeast Laban (8000 BC) to Pre-Proto-Tapilula (3770 BC)

č > š (retroflex, not postalveolar)
(pre-Silatibarra changes: t`a > t`e > te, etc)
retroflex r` changed to g (a fricatve) before a vowel.
retroflex r` disappears, changing to a schwa vowel e if after a vowel.
Geminate nasals mm ṇṇ nn n`n` ŋŋ became nasal + stop: mb ṇḍ nd n`d` ŋġ.
Voiceless stop + nasal became a simple voiced stop: pm ṭṇ tn t`n` kŋ into b ḍ d d` ġ.
Word-initial ř became d. Word-initial w became b.
Adjacent to a retroflex consonant, in either direction, the vowel a changed into e ( a schwa).
The voiceless stops p t k between vowels became b d ġ. Intervocalic fricatives became voiced.
The sequence gi before a vowel became ž (even if accented, due to analogy).
i....u > i...e; u...i > u....e .
Final schwa was deleted.
A few sequences, like abi> au, occcuirred here. (only if the /a/ was stressed).
The voiceless fricative s (never between vowels) became h unconditionally.
Voiced fricatives before a vowel were smeared out: v changed all preceding vowels into /u/; ž changed only /e/ > /i/; g z disappeared with no effect on the preceding vowel.
Gemionates weree simplified. Thus voiceless interovolcalic stops were created.

Pre-Proto-Tapilula (3770 BC) to Tapilula (500 AD)

The original dialect of Pre-Tapilula (so called because it had no other descendants), spoken around 3770 BC, had 18 consonants ( p b m w ṭ ḍ ṇ ḷ t d n l r j k ġ ŋ h ) and 4 vowels, a i u ə (schwa is spelled {y}). Most roots had 2 syllables, with fairly free phonotactis. But the i..u and u..i patterns so common in hte language's descendants were rare, essentially always being from compounds.

Nasals could be syllabic both after consonants and after other vowels. The apostrophe is a dipthong separator which was considered by the language to be a consonant. No tones. Vowel sequences were common, in many ways resembling Bābākiam except for the lack of contrasts between long vowels and double vowels. Thus ā = aa, etc.

(pre-Silatibarra changes: t`a > t`e > te, etc)
Note that far back in the past, nn > nd, hence explaining why there is no /nn/. Also tn > d. In a few compounds these rulse still apply by analogy.
Word-initial ř became d ??
Before a vowel, the sequences ei eu (pronounced /əj əw/) changed into i u.
The vowel e became u before a labial in a closed syllable.
Note a previous sound change around 5000 BC had occurred which removed all fricatives other than /h/. This had involved the change of neutral fricatives (possibly /g h/) into labials before /u/ and palatals before /i/. Thus, for example, while /v/ could occur before any vowel, it was commonest before /u/, and /ž/ was commonest before /i/. Later, though, these fricatives died out, changing the vowels before them also into /i/ and /u/. Thus double-vowel sequences of /ii/ and /uu/ were common. These here pulled up into /ji/ and /wu/ sequences. (/v/ pulled up all; /ž/ perhaps only /ə/.)
Palatalized alveolars change: /tʲ dʲ nʲ lʲ rʲ/ into /š ž ñ ź ź/. Note that this did not affect dentals.
Paltalized velars change: /kʲ ġʲ ŋʲ hʲ/ into /š ž ñ š/.
The patalaized dental stop ḍʲ changed into ž. This did not affect the voiceless form. Paltalized ṇʲ also > ñ.
The sequences iŋ uŋ, in syllable-final position, became lowered (allophonically at first) to ɛŋ oŋ. This /ɛ/ is the true /e/, not a schwa. (NOTE: A PREVIOUS LISTING OF THIS SOUND CHANGE ALSO SHIFTED primordial /əŋ/, BUT THISWOULD DEPRIVE TAPILULA OF SYLLABIC /ŋ/.)
Syllable-final stops p ṭ t k before a "strong consonant" changed into the glottal stop ʔ, which itself was generally silent except for changing the tone of the syllable to high. However, clusters like /pl/ instead changed to /kl/.
Syllabic nasals were created: im əm um > ṁ, ən > ṅ, and əŋ > ŋ̇.
The sequences /wi/ and /ju/, before another a vowel, became /w/. (when???)
Syllable-initial clusters such as kl changed into pharyngealized consonants such as ḳ. <--- note that a previous shift (not listed here) did things like pl>xl>kl, thus this shift produces mostly the velar ejective /ḳ/, not the others.
Syllable final /ŋ/ changed into a nasalaized vowel. Howeverr syllabic /ŋ̇/ after a voerl rtemains.
DEPALATALIZATION!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! /j/ was changed to /ʕ/ in all positions. This includes depalatalization of palatalized consonants, although for the meantime, this resulted in pharyngealized consonants such as /pʕ bʕ ṭʕ/ rather than plai nones.
....Between vowels, /ʕ/ soon became /'/, a silent diphthong separator. The actual new consonants created were /pʕ bʕ mʕ ṭʕ ṇʕ/, as the others had already changed into fricatives.
........ /ʕ/ disappeared after a fricative.
The phrayngealized stops /pʕ bʕ mʕ ṭʕ ṇʕ/ remained for the time being.
Importantly, the apalatal nasal /ñ/ changed to /ŋ/, not a simple alveolar.
sometimes there wad a ʕ, e.g. pj > pʕ, which stopped aspiration later.
š > s
ž ź > j (a new /j/ unaffected by other changes). Also the alveolar flap r became the palatal approximant j in all positions.
Palatalized labials stay labial, unaffected by this change even in vowel.
The vowel sequences aə əa changed to au ua. əi became ui (/wi/).
An h after an accented vowel metathesized and created an aspirated consonant at the beginning of the word, and leaving a gap in between the other two vowels. Note that voiceless stops were always aspirated, so this shift did not change them.
/h/ was removed in all positions (?), only to reappear later.
The sequene /ua/ changed to /wo/. /jwo/ > /jo/, thus the word for hand is just "yò".
An ʔ before an accented vowel disappeared, unless the previous syllable began with a voiceless stop, in which case it created a glottalized stop there.
The vowel sequences ai au changed to ɛ o unconditionally.
A schwa in an unaccented syllable after an accented /ɛ/ or /o/ changed to match that vowel. Some double schwa words also changed, e.g. məhə > moho "fire".
All voiceless stops except the glottalized ones became aspirated.
Labialized velars became rounded labials. e.g. /kw/ > /pw/, etc.
Labialized dentals became rounded labials. e.g. /ṭw/ > /pw/.
Naslaized vowerls caused the stops oreceing them to become deaspirated. THis afffects /m/ as well.
Aspirated voiced stops became voiceless fricatives. Plain voiced stops became voiced fricatives. THere may also be some phar tones that make these voiced.
All voiced fricatives merged as g (pronounced /ɣ/). Possibly sometimes /l/ for clusters.
All voiceless fricatives merged as h.
Aspiration disappeared on approximants, except for wʰ which became fʷ.
THere may also be some phar tones that make these voiced.
If final syllable had a high tone, the penultimate syllable (which was the accented one) became low tone. This is the source of almost all low tones in accented syllables. However, a few LOW+LOW words did exist. On the other hand, HIGH+HIGH did not exist, even if two syllables in a row had ended with stops, because this rule would automatically change that pattern into LOW+HIGH.
Other final nasals also change into nasal vowel markers, thus changing syllable weight.
The labial nasal 'm became f before a vowel facing another labial. (essentially a preview of Andanese). This did not affect /mʕ/.
The glottalized stops pʕ ṭʕ kʕ changed to b ḍ ḳ unconditionally.
Rounded labials became plain. Thus the language now had an abundance of labial consonants, especially stops, from the collision of most consonants followed by /w/. Labialized alveolar consonants still remained, however, as did the /hʷ/ that was distinct from the /f/.
All dental consontants became alveolar.

Tapilula to Gold (year 1900)

Alternate names: Ukieipi, G̣ʷidiʕìləs

Note on politics: It is not clear whether the Tapilula language split apart in 0 AD or in 500 AD. If 500, the various Subumpamese languages are almnost independent branches since they begin diverging not long aftre 600 AD. However, Sub and Gold share much more in common than either of htem does with Andanese, despite being supposedly only 100 years closer together. So perhaps the true date is 0 after all.

The aspirated velar stop k became č before the vowel i. If another vowel followed, the /i/ disappeared. This happened even if the /i/ was accented ... e.g. takʰìa > tačă.
When a "velar" consonant (k ŋ h ɣ l) followed an accented high tone vowel and the following vowel was the same, that following vowel disappeared, leaving a closed syllable. (Initial-stress "diphthongs" metathesized; e.g. ūhi became ūih and āku became āuk.) If the next syllable had begun with a vowel, a ʡ (voiced pharyngeal fricative) was added there. These new syllables were all high tone, and were the only closed syllables in the language. Thus the high tone came to be associated with closed syllables. "l" had been considered a velar consonant because of certain distribution patterns dating from Standard Animal, even though it was not a velarized l.
NOTE ON POLITICS: SUBUMPAMESE CAN BE CONSIDERED TO BREAK OFF HERE, AS THIS IS THE LAST OF THE SHARED CHANGES. (that is, there were only 2 of them)
effective unconditional merger of [a e o] > /a/, but see paper for details.
In absolute final position, syllable-final ŋ changed to n.
Accented syllables gained a pharyngeal ʕ as an onset if a consonant was not already there. If there was an /x/ (resulting from syllable-final /h/), it became ĥ (a "true" /h/, not like {h} which really is /x/). Thus, all long vowels now had their stress on the first vowel and thus had a falling tone.
After long vowels, all consonants became voiced. Also, consonants occurring after initial vowels also became voiced. This created the new consonants b v vʷ d z ġ dž . Thus, final -s in words like hʷīs became -z. However, analogy made it so that the change was confined to open syllables in most words. (This could also mean it didnt affect clusters.)
After initial unstressed /u/, all consonants became labialized. Thus uġau "heart" > uġʷau. This change extended even to clusters.
Initial vowels were deleted unless an illegal consonant cluster would have resulted. Sometimes initial vowels were retained due to classifier prefixes.
All schwas and diphthongs became low tone.
Labialized consonants lost their labialization when occuring after another labial or labialized consonant (used to explain bàigʷa > bàiga). This also affected labialized consonants occurring before syllabic ṁ ?
After a stressed syllable, intervocalic ʕ ʕʷ became g gʷ.
NOTE ON POLITICS: THIS IS WHERE THAOA SPLITS OFF (YR 1085 AD)
The velar fricatives h g were rounded to hʷ gʷ before u.
Some fricatives change: f v fʲ vʲ fʷ vʷ became s z ħ ʕ ħʷ ʕʷ.
In absolute final position, syllable-final h changed to s. (This could be earlier since it is in Thaoa too.)
The labialized coronals tʷ dʷ nʷ changed to tl dl nl.

Note: unlike the previous model, areal influences cannot be assumed here to keep the breakoff date of Thaoa at 1085 while having only a few changes not shared. This is because Thaoa and AlphaLEAP are no longer geographically contiguous. However,it had been a bad model anyway since it assumed friendly relations with Thaoa's enemy, Paba.

The chronology of the changes is not a problem, however. At most, Thaoa will have to forgo the last four shifts, but since these are mostly unconditional, they can be shown in Thaoa's sound change list as reversals of the Gold ones, so that Thaoa words (mostly placenames) can be derived from Gold instead of going back to Tapilula or setting up a middle-stage language.

Gold (1900) to Khulls (4700)

Alternate names: Kuroras

This language was originally spoken near Bābākiam, in the city of Paba.

NOTE: Much of what is spelled "k" here should in fact be "ḳ".

Initial phoneme inventory: /p b f v m w t d s z n l č ǯ j k g ŋ h ɣ r a i u ə/
Four tones: ă indicates stressed short vowels with no tone (i.e. a low tone), à indicates stressed short vowels with high tone, ā indicates stressed long vowels with a falling tone (seen as high + low), and á indicates stressed long vowels with a rising tone (seen as low + high). Two short stressed high vowels (e.g. àà) do not make a long vowel because there is an inherent glottal stop in the à tone whenever it comes before another vowel or at the end of a word. Thus the glottal stop could be considered marginally phonemic. Unstressed vowels can have tone in a shadowy way: no marker indicates a low tone, and a dot above (ȧ) indicates a high tone. However, these unstressed high tones are mostly swallowed except in long sequences of low tones.
Voiced stops other than "d" are rare, and cannot occur after another consonant except in some compounds. That is, there is no /mb/, /bb/, etc. But /d/ is an exception to this rule because it arose from different environments. /b/ and /g/ were marginal, in fact, and /g/ is generally spelled ğ or ġ which leaves {g} free for the much more common phoneme /ɣ/. But this is not carried over to the phonemic listings below.

The vowel u, in all tones and lengths, changed to o of the same tone and length.
The diphthongs əi ài changed to ĕ ē. əu àu became ū ō.
Fricatives preceded by ʕ became voiced. e.g. ʕs ---> z.
The plain schwa (which was always low tone) changed to ŭ.
Sequences like aʕa became pharyngealized vowels; these could still have tones, but later all pharyngealized tones merged with each other except for sandhi effects. Pharyngealized vowels are spelled â.
Voiced fricatives became ʕ, which was silent when unstressed.
The aspirated stop dʰ became tʰ. (There was no bʰ).
Clusters of /s/ + another consonant metathesized. /s/ in this posiiton was actually [h] and this pronunciation was actually a retention of the original pronunc of ~4000 yrs earlier. Thus sm sn sŋ became mh nh ŋh.
Nasals followed by /h/ turned into nasal + stop clusters. THus mh nh ŋh became mp nt ŋk. One excception to this shift was that if the following vowel was [i] (any length, any tone), the /nt/ would instead be nč. Thus tanči "wine", not *tanti.
After the vowel [u] (any tone, any length), k ḳ in a syllable coda became p ṗ. They were actually coarticulated labial-velar stops for quite a long time before merging with the pure bilabials, but because this merger happened in both branches of the language, it is treated as if it were such from the beginning.
The short vowel ŭ disappeared in all positions unless an illegal consonant cluster would be created. It labialized any consonant that preceded it. Thus labialized versions of all consonants were created. If the syllable ended in a consonant (which was particularly common after schwa), instead of becoming an "illegal" cluster, the consonant became syllabic. Thus the syllabic consonants ṡ p ṗ ż ḷ were created, and syllabic nasals became more common. The "syllabic" stops /p ṗ/ were indeed pronounced without an epenthetic vowel, creating words like sălṗ. ʕəs became a syllabic ż.
Where /ə/ collapsed, stress shifted syllables to the nearest adjacent one. This tone was mid-tone (ă) unless there had been a "dot" tone previously.
After a syllabic nasal, the final stops p ṗ (which was the only ones that did occur) changed to match the position of the nasal. However, these were written with the letters for "p ṗ".
Sequences like hṁm (in kahṁma "dark-skinned") changed to ṁp, and so on.
The consonant cluster hʷg became kʷ (not xʷ, even though g was a fricative).
The voiceless fricatives h hʷ became x xʷ in all positions.
The voiced sounds b bʷ v vʷ changed to ʢʷ. ġ ġʷ changed to g gʷ (fricatives).
The coronals č ǯ became š ž in all positions.
The voiced stop d became l in initial position, but r (a flap) elsewhere. Unlike the similar changesd above, this did *not* affect dʷ.
Labialized coronals became velar. (Possibly misplaced, but it wont matter.)
Final k raised the preceding vowel to a high tone à (á if it was long) and then disappeared, though it left an allophonic glottal stop in some positions.
The labialized fricative šʷ became hʷ.
NOTE ON POLITICS: The Proto-Moonshine language breaks off here. (Year 3958)
ya yo (on all tones) > ye.
Nasal consonants followed by /y/ became voiced stops: my ñy became by ǯy. (This includes the reflexes of /ny/ and /ŋy/.)
The palatal glide /y/ was deleted when not before a high vowel (it was only /e i u/ by now anyway).
The clusters ml nl ŋl changed to bl dl ġl, thus restoring voiced stops to a marginal phonemic position. WHAT ABOUT PALATALS?
The labialized consonants mʷ ŋʷ changed to bʷ ġʷ.
The sound /l/ disappeared after a voiced stop: the clusters bl dl ġl changed to b d ġ.
The voiceless labialized nasals mʷʰ nʷʰ ŋʷʰ changed to mpʷ ntʷ ŋkʷʰ. Non-labialized aspirated nasals also changed. In initial position, the nasal element dropped out. Thus there was once again a phonemic /tʷ/ in the language. However, there were some words such as kʷhʷnōn "beak" where there was an initial consonant as well, and in these cases the word became kʷhʷṅtōn.

Thus Gold's original four tone system was preserved unchanged in Khulls: ă à ā á (with unstressed variants a ȧ). However, minimal pairs between ā and á were few, and the whole system could still be analyzed as a length contrast, with ă corresponding to bare short vowels, à to short vowels followed by a glottal stop, ā to long vowels, and á to sequences of two short vowels (or in some words, one long vowel followed by a glottal stop). This is the method that was used for transcription of loanwords into Bābākiam.

The final phonology of Kuroras was /p pʷ m mʷ w t n s l r š ž j k ŋ x ɣ kʷ ŋʷ xʷ ɣʷ ʔ h ʢ hʷ ʢʷ b d ġ/ for consonants and /a e i o u ə/ with four tones for vowels. Dipthongs are not distinguished from vowel sequences and are mostly determined by accentuation patterns and tone. Many of the consonants are very marginal: /b d ġ bʷ dʷ ġʷ h hʷ ṃ ʔ ʢ ɣʷ/ all occurred in very restricted environments. Most of the labialized consonants were not particularly common either. Thus the "major" consonants were just /p m w t n s l r š ž j k kʷ ŋ x ɣ xʷ ʢʷ/.

Kuroras is unusual in that it has only unconditional changes for its vowels, apart from a few changes in tone. The other languages that descended from Ukieipi all had a few conditional changes that "filled out" the vowel system. Thus, even though Kuroras has five vowels, the vowels /e/ and /u/ are quite rare, because they descend from diphthongs that were themselves rare.</pd></pr></pbody></pable> <pable><pbody><pr><pd width="185"></pd><pd>

Bābākiam (4100) to Poswa (8700)

Alternate names: Ižda Mir, Blop, Bloppabop NOTE that this section is outdented for prominence. Poswa is a daughter language of Bābākiam, not of Gold.

Long vowels in initial syllables became double: ā ī ū became aa ii uu.
The double vowels ii uu became ʲi ʷu in all positions.
Between two consonants in a monosyllabic word, the diphthongs au ai eu ei changed to o ae u e. iu > y, ui > i/y, uu > u, ii > i (Note: eu > y if unstressed, hence peum > pym > pum; but this is actually a later shift) But in longer words, or when a consonant cluster was adjacent, a b was inserted and the individual vowels were retained. And in word-final position they remained as diphthongs (to undergo a slightly different shift later).
ā changed to aba in all positions.
At the beginning of a syllable and after p m, the semivowels w and j shifted to r and l respectively. At the end of a syllable, no shift took place, but the orthography was changed as if it had.
The voiced postalveolar fricative ž changed to the palatal approximant j in all positions.
The consonant šʲ became ś, a voiceless palatal approximant. fʷ became a voiceless rounded labial approximant.
The velar stops k ŋ changed to the labials p m in final position.
The medial clusters pt mt pn mn shifted to tt nt tn nn. Then pk mk sk pŋ mŋ sŋ became pt mpt št pn mn šn. ms mš became mps mpš.
The cluster sf changed to ff.
The labialized consonants sʷ tʷ nʷ shifted to ps pʷ mʷ in word-initial position, and ps pt bʷ medially.
The new clusters lw rw ww merged as w.
The consonant clusters mʷ mr ml ŋʷ shifted to bʷ br bl gʷ unconditionally.
Meanwhile šʷ changed to pš.
(***MOST KURORAS LOANS ENTER HERE***) year 4700
In initial position before a vowel, the voiceless labial fricative f changed to w. It also happened often to a word-internal -f- preceded by a /w/ of any origin. (e.g. bwafa "hug" > bwawa) This shift did not affect fʲ.
After a labialized consonant (except w), the schwa vowel y changed to u.
Labialized consonants lost their labialization when they occurred before u. (But later they were re-introduced through compounding.)
The sequences ow and uw changed to o and u respectively.
This is the stage at which most "early Poswa" loans entered the Sak languages.
The vowels i and u changed to e and o in closed syllables. (Note that verbs still had a weak vowel -u and thus did not participate in this change. For the same reason, many verbs did not participate in rule 2 either and thus did not have these vowels to begin with, even if the corresponding nouns did. Example, 'rum' (child) was still rimu here. However, they were later analogized as if they had in fact dropped those vowels, hence rum instead of rim.)
The vowel y in closed syllables changed to either i or u depending on the other vowel in the root. The default choice was u, unless it followed a w. i was chosen only when it followed a w or was in a word in which an i or e was in an adjacent syllable and that was the only other vowel in the word.
The sequences wu wo changed to wi we.
Then, s and p disappeared before nasals and sporadically in stem-final position due to back-formation from plurals (e.g. pe "island" from pena, earlier pes, pesna). sb -> b, not to be confused with later shifts in which it turned into žb (re-compounding of words ending in s with words beginning with b happened essentially continuously; this shift was one time only). Also not to be confused with a much earlier shift of sb -> s (persistent in verbs, but nowhere else). Thus the plurals of words ending in s lost the s in their nominal but not their verbal forms.
Unaccented i changed to e unless the accented syllable of the word contained an i.
Then unaccented y changed to i unless the syllable ended in a labial or the accented syllable of the word contained a y.
Politically, the proto-Poswobs became independent here (5547), but the language remained unified through physical contact for another 450 years or so.
The consonant cluster ŋʲ assimilated to nʲ.
Then unaccented u changed to y except when the syllable ended in a labial or the accented syllable also contained a u.
Before a vowel, unaccented y and yb changed to u.
Before a vowel, unaccented a and ab changed to i ("the karaoke shift").
Next, i changed to y if the next syllable had u.
The palatalized consonants pʲ mʲ sʲ lʲ rʲ, which had been created mostly by rule 28, changed to f v ś j b before a vowel. bʲ also changed to b. šʲ žʲ became ś j.
(year 6000; THIS IS WHERE PABAPPA BREAKS OFF)
In stressed syllables, in only a few words, ol ul or ur changed to we wi wa wa. The conditioning environment was that the syllables had to be unstressed and have only one consonant before them; in other words, they occured in compounds only, in a syllable which would be stressed if it weren't a compound.
Simultaneously, syllable-final r in most words changed to b. AQcutaly, it was f/v before coronals, b in absolute final position, stays r before šž + labials + velars (but really pronounced as /w/). rl > vl. rr > wr (spelled rr for now, but later as rw). probably š ž before šž actually, but f before s changing to š. Sometimes au+labial -> o even so, no particular rule. It always changed to /o/ in the initial sllable of a word, ignoring all these other rules. thus pautu > poty, not pafty.
The surviving final r changed to vʷ fʷ before labials. fʷ became w.
The palatal approximants ś j (including any /j/ taken from loans) changed to š ž in all positions.
fʷ became w before a vowel (that is, everywhere except before a labial).
In words not affected by the previous shift (mostly due to grammatical analogy), syllable-final ar and yr shifted to o and er and ir shifted to u. However ar did not shift to o after a /w/, but rather became abʷ (by analogy).
In unstressed syllables before a nasal, the sequences el il merged as i and or ur merged as u.
Unstressed ol and ul became e before a consonant or at the end of a word.
i and y shifted to u before a labial in a closed syllable, or before a syllable beginning with a labial cluster (in this case, even /pʷ/ etc counted as "clusters" ... see the shift a few lines below). Thus for example /tipwu/ > /tupwu/. However, other labialized consonants such /tʷ/ did not trigger the shift, so /titwu/ stays /titwu/.
NOTE ON POLITICS ... THIS IS WHERE TUPPY BREAKS OFF (year 6843)
ŋ was denasalized to g in all positions.
The palatalized velar consonants kʲ gʲ became the postalveolar affricates tš dž. In some dialects, including the one that produced Pabappa, this shift did not occur before back vowels, and instead the consonants were reduced to plain velars.
The labialized velar consonants kʷ gʷ pʷ bʷ were decomposed to the clusters kw gw pw bw.
Final y in trisyllabic words disappeared. Due to analogy, it disappeared in some shorter words as well. However, consos that now occurred at the end of a word because of the dropped y became labialized, though this is not shown in Romanizaiton. Thus minimal pairs such as nap "pyramid" versus napʷ "arrow" did exist.
The remaining palatalized consonants became labiodental fricatives: fʲ and tʲ merged as f, and nʲ changed to v. pf became ff.
Medial vowels in trisyllabic words disappeared if the resulting consonant cluster was acceppable ("the Debra shift"). wr>rw. Here again, labialization hung around if the deleted vowel was o u or y. Thus there were minimal pairs such as puppa "salamander" vs pupʷpa "kind, humanitarian". This period (around the year 7300) is the beginning of what is often considered "Classical Poswa" (Poswa Maswumbies).
Poswobs invaded Pabappa territory beginning around 7414, and the language was essentially unchanged at that time.
š before a nasal changed to ž and the nasal changed into a voiced stop. At this time, the new sound d was spelled with the letter v.
Clusters in which the two elements were at different PoA's AND different classes resolved in the following ways:
pn bn > vž
šn sn > žv
tm km > vb
fm vm > vb
šm žm sm šb sb > žb
tp > pp
pm tn > mm nn
The clusters pk and bg became pw and bi respectively. mk became mw (not mpw).
And likewise for other consonants.
The voiced velar stop g was fronted to dž unless it occurred in a cluster after another consonant and before a o u.
The clusters šb and bš were devoiced to šp and pš respectively.
The clusters žp and pž became žb and bž respectively.
The clusters pl and bl became p and b respectively when overlaying two unaccented syllables. The same also happened for other stop + nonstop clusters such as pr br pš ps bž pt pf bv, althoiugh pš, pf, and ps survived as aspirates pʰ for long enough to survive a particular subsequent shift. Clusters like mž and mdž > mbž > mb.
The sequences yw ww wy changed to ʷu in all positions (these three were all seen as the same thing anyway, w & y are just Romanization.)
wi+vowel > i+vowel (wawia "sadism" > waia but still spelled wawia). Likewise, the recently created ʷu > u before vowels. Neither of these changes occurred in absolute initial position, however; wialeb "also" remained wialeb.
iy > ia (platia "record"); ii > ie (plopie "grass").
In wholly unstressed syllables, except when preceded by a, the clusters rl and lr changed to al and ar respectively, and raised the preceding vowel.
The cluster rgw (occurring only in "wirgwep" and similar words) became vbw, with both consonants labialized.
A velar-onset syllable preceded by another changed to alveolar if the vowel was a back vowel, but postalveolar if it was a front vowel. The affected consonants were k g kw gw r.
The inherited vowel y had lowered and weakened to a schwa in most positions. Now the diphthong al (but not alʷ) went to ae and yl to e. ae was pronounced in some dialects as ai or a, with the a pronunciation winning out in all but a few words.
In some dialects, the labiodental fricatives f v came to be pronounced as the dentals ṣ ẓ in all positions, but there was no change in the spelling.
Geminate stops overlaying two unaccented syllables reduced to single if there was another geminate earlier in the word. This affected only compounds such as "talap bavva", which spawned a new variant talabbava and then created the new word "bava", and pam mepoppos became pam mepopos.
pb --> p sporadically, especially overlaying two unaccented syllables. Likewise also šb > š, etc.
mp --> mb after a voiceless conso (e.g. pampa>pamba), except if another voiceless conso followed
Initial ps pš --> ph --> p, also sometimes if overlaying two unaccented silabs just as pl bl had. (Thus pampsa > pampa, not pamba).

ž>j problems??

Thus standard Ižda Mir, if labialized consonants are included as phonemes, had the consonants w p pʷ b bʷ m mʷ f fʷ v vʷ t tʷ n nʷ s sʷ l lʷ r rʷ š šʷ ž žʷ k kʷ g gʷ and the vowels a e i o u y, the last of which was a schwa. At the beginning of a syllable, all of the consonants as well as the clusters pl pr bl br tš dž were allowed. At the end of a syllable, all consonants were allowed, but were restricted based on the consonant that followed. At the end of a word, p m s l b pʷ bʷ mʷ fʷ vʷ tʷ nʷ sʷ lʷ rʷ šʷ žʷ kʷ gʷ were allowed.

H </pd></pr></pbody></pable>

Bābākiam to Old Pabappa (~6500) ... too early?

Alternate names: Pespimbesa

Debra shift I. (But rV and wV didnt compress) ("ae" and "al" remained distinct here). If the deleted vowel was y, o or u, the preceding consonant became a labial. If a consonant was already labialized or palatalizzed, it did not contract. l r > u (later to disappear)
fʲ --> f
ŋ was denasalized to g in all positions, except certain clusters such as ŋr.
tš dž (mostly in compounds because the normal k->tš shift didnt happen here) --> kʲ gʲ
Diphthongs of all types were resolved in favor of the first vowel. (including things like nʲa and tʲa to ni and ti, and mwa to mu.) Be careful to remember that tʲ and fʲ did not merge here, and in fact have different out comes even for the vowels that followed them. Likewise, kʷ and all other labialized consonants turned their next vowel into /u/.
Stops occurring before a nasal assimilated fully.
The cluster žž simplified to j.
Clusters of two fricatives of differing points of articulation were assimilated in favor of the second consonant.
The cluster žbž simplified to žž. Other clusters, such as sps (in pospsar "urine"), simplified similarly.
Clusters of fricatives and stops of dissimilar voicing were resolved in favor of the second consonant. For example žp became šp.
The clusters gv kf became bv pf. (Thus Paleo-Pabappa kagyvi "poison" became Proto-Pabappa kabvi.)
The fricative š changed to h in initial position and s elsewhere. NOTE: currently the wordlist assumes that initial pš- > /h/ as well, even though the sound change of /ps/ > /s/ is unrelated to this one and occurs much later. One or the other of these will need to be fixed.
The fricative ž came to be pronounced z.
The cluster rr was reduced to r. This is considered to be the stage of proto-Pabappa.

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Old Pabappa (6500?) to Pabappa (8700)

Pabappa evolved from a dialect of Bloppabop that lacked the vowel m in place of the former and k g in place of the latter in all words. However, these sounds were pronounced as /tš dž/ before all front vowels, including /a/. Thus the proto-Pabappa dialect of Bloppabop had the consonants p b m w f v t n s l r h z k g and the vowels a e i o u y, the last of which was a schwa. At the beginning of a syllable, all of the consonants as well as the clusters pl pr pw ps pš bl br bw kw gw were allowed. At the end of a syllable, all consonants were allowed, but were restricted based on the consonant that followed. At the end of a word, p m s l r f v z b were allowed. Then the following changes occurred:

Double nasals were reduced to singles.
The vowel ə either disappeared or became i or o (governed by the surrounding vowels' HEIGHT (not backness)). If it disappeared, it also labialized the new final consonant.
The fricative z disappeared in all positions, except in a few words where it remained as d. Meanwhile the fricative v changed to d in all positions, except in a few words where it disappeared. These irregularities are explained by an early irregular stage of the sound change where z and v changed places in a few words.
Unstressed cliticized prefixes were dropped from the language or phonologically incorporated into the following word by dropping the vowel, even when this created a previously forbidden consonant cluster.
The velar stops k g changed to the fricatives š ž in all positions. Before back vowels, they were usually pronounced as velar fricatives.
The labialized consonants sʷ šʷ both became f (only to change to s later).
The cluster sš (usually from /sk/) became šš.
The fricative f changed to p in initial position and s elsewhere. This stage, reached around 7000 (?), is considered to be the classical stage of Old Pabappa, also called Pespimbesa.
The labiovelar stops kw and gw changed to the bilabial stops p and b in all positions. fw -> f, sw -> w, tw -> pw, vw -> w, žw -> w.
The single bilabial stop p became the geminate pp when following a voiceless consonant plus a vowel.
The postalveolar fricatives ž and š became the labiodental fricatives v and f in all positions.
Unstressed initial pu- changed to purp- before a vowel, where -rp- is a hypercorrection of the epenthetic r that had appeared near the earliest stages of the language. pu-p- and pu-w- became w-. pu-b- became pu-br-. pu-t- became pu-d-.
In initial position, the clusters sp st ps coalesced as s. sl survived, but only in one native word; the others were all either loans or proper names.
The voiced stops b and d became the voiceless stops p and t in all positions. Fricatives did not devoice, but clusters such as bv became pf.
Non-labial final consonants were replaced with labials in most words (except -l and -r). s->f->0. Final b became p.
Final e disappeared, even after consonant clusters, except in monosyllabic words and some suffixes. This created new consonant clusters in agglutinative forms of words and in compounds. Sporadically, monosyllabic words that had ended in e got a new -s or -ssi suffix which caused the original e to be retained; this happened to other monosyllabic vowel-final words too.
Before a nasal, p s t n assimilated completely.
Clusters of a nonlabial stop followed by a labial stop were resolved in favor of the nonlabial one.
Final o was were lowered to a except if the accented vowel was mid-height (e or o). Final e (in the case that it survived the previous sound change) was raised to i in the same environment. This is considered to be the classical stage of Middle Pabappa.
Thus the phonology of Middle Pabappa was /p m w f v t n s l r h/ for consonants and /a e i o u/ for vowels.
The sequence aw changed to o before any nonrounded vowel. ow and uw became o and u.
The clusters tl and ttl both changed to ll. (was rpl)
The sequence sr became spr. lr became rr. Any other nonlabial consonant before r became labial. Then mr changed to mpr.
Clusters of a nasal followed by any other consonant of differing point of articulation were assimilated in favor of the point of articulation of the second consonant.
ml became mpl. (7414 war occurs here?)
The voiceless labiodental fricative f changed to w in initial position.
h changed to 0 in all positions. (maybe h > f > w internally before u?)
Initial pw became w.
Unstressed syllables of the form CVCC where the two latter C's were a geminate or one of a few other types of consonants changed the vowel to a very short schwa ə.
Intervocalic voiceless stops became voiced. (Possibly omit this shift if a geminate voiceless is nearby.) The cluster pl became bl in all positions; pr became b in word-initial position, and br elsewhere. (maybe just -b- everywhere since it would be the only b in the language after clusters and thus not contrast with anything.)
The geminate stops pp and tt became p and t in all positions. Meanwhile ss became s. (Possibly omit this shift if another geminate is changing)
The cluster sp became ss. Most suffixes that had formerly begun with p were now considered to begin with b, but this b was realized as b only after a vowel or a bilabial consonant; elsewhere the consonant disappeared or, in the case of t and d, doubled the preceding consonant. After p, which would normally be omitted, the suffix came to begin with p. (ANDANESE PABAPPA SPLITS OFF HERE)
Initial v became f.
The labiodental fricatives f and v became the bilabial stops p and b in all positions.
The marginal schwa phoneme disappeared, creating some new clusters and geminates. (Debra shift II.) Thus words like popa "oak tree/rabbit" (a homophone pair) became -ppa when they were the second element of a compound. If the new cluster was "impossible", it retained a vowel (either /i/ or /u/) instead. However, outside of place names and personal names, these new affixes did not actually survive very often, as they were a unique word form in the language, and in most cases the new words were restored to compounds (since they had been almost all compounds anyway).
The bilabial stop b, between two identical unaccented vowels (e.g. -aba, -obo), turned to m sporadically as the result of analogy from various noun declensions.
The clusters tr dr, which only occurred in loans and a few compounds, became k g.

Thus the final phonology of Pabappa was /p b m w t d n l s r/ for consonants and /a e i o u/ for vowels. The phonemes /k/ and /h/ were common in borrowings, but many speakers pronounced these as /ʔ/ or /0/. A few speakers, however, did pronounce [k] and [h], because [k] appeared as an allophone of /t/ before /r/ (even though this sequence itself was also found only in loans), and [h] appeared as an allophone of /r/ in initial position. In the so-called "Post-Pabappa" language, when the speakers of Pabappa were crushed by invading armies into living along the south coast, true phonemic /k/ and /x~h/ became more common.

Western (Andanese) dialect: ar er ir or ur > au eu iu oa ua; al el il ol ul > al el il oi ui. (i.e. clear L survives, dark L dies.) v f > b p (without the change of v > f > P initially; thus pipi "wall" is bipi).

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Proto-Moonshine to Late Moonshine (6800)

Alternat enames: Classical Moonshine

Clusters of any consonant plus a nasal simplified to single consonants: n disappeared and lengthened the previous vowel; s made the nasal voiceless, disappeared and lengthened the previous vowel; ʔ disappeared and raised the tone of the previous vowel.
Syllable-final ʔ n s were grammatically analogized to the consonants k ŋ h between two of the same vowel, which then became ʔ n s and deleted the final vowel.
A schwa following another vowel disappeared and made that vowel a long vowel.
Unaccented short schwas were lost. Because the language had a very active compounding system, this shift led to a steep increase in the number of types of allowable consonant clusters, as well as new consonants allowed in final position.
Syllable-final s after a vowel disappeared and made the preceding consonant voiceless and aspirated.
Syllable-final s after a consonant disappeared and made that consonant into an alveolar.
Unaccented e and o became a, often spelled as schwa or as ʕ, the vowel separator. If high tone, this was replaced by ʔ, the glottal stop. However, in neither case was this sound actually pronounced; it merely affected surrounding consonants for a short period of time after the shift.
Unaccented i and u came to spelled as palatalized/labialized consonants followed by a schwa, which had merged in with these. Thus the old glyphs for coarticulated consonants were revived, and stress was no longer fixed on the first syllable of the word even when the first vowel in the word wasn't a schwa. There was now only one orthographic unaccented vowel in the language: the schwa, which was now often unwritten. Unaccented i and u were written as part of the preceding consonant (the syllable was always open). Consonant clusters simplified according to the following rules:
Labialized consonants (kʷ ŋʷ hʷ) in final position (or at the beginning of a cluster) became plain and added a w glide to the preceding vowel.
Palatalized consonants (pʲ mʲ tʲ nʲ sʲ č ñ š ž) in final position or at the beginning of a cluster became plain and added a j glide to the preceding vowel.
Doubled consonants simplified to singles and caused the tone of the preceding vowel to become high.
Any consonant before a nasal disappeared and lengthened the preceding vowel. If the sound had been voiceless, it caused the tone of the preceding vowel to become high. If it had been voiced, it caused the tone of the preceding vowel to become low.
Any remaining ʷ trapped between consonants became u.
Any remaining ʲ trapped between consonants became i.
φ and β changed to w.
Aspirated consonants became voiceless.
In unaccented syllables, all vowels became short.
Nonpalatalized alveolar consonants became velarized (not shown in the orthography).
The Moonshine language at this point had the consonants
<pable> <pbody><pr><pd width="50"> </pd><pd width="50"> </pd><pd width="50"> </pd><pd width="50"> </pd><pd width="50"> </pd><pd width="50"> </pd><pd width="50"> </pd><pd width="50"> </pd></pr> <pr><pd> p </pd><pd> b </pd><pd> f </pd><pd> </pd><pd> m </pd><pd> mʰ </pd><pd> w </pd><pd> </pd></pr> <pr><pd> pʲ </pd><pd> </pd><pd> </pd><pd> </pd><pd> mʲ </pd><pd> mʲʰ </pd><pd> </pd><pd> </pd></pr> <pr><pd> t </pd><pd> d </pd><pd> s </pd><pd> z </pd><pd> n </pd><pd> nʰ </pd><pd> </pd><pd> </pd></pr> <pr><pd> tʲ </pd><pd> </pd><pd> sʲ </pd><pd> </pd><pd> nʲ </pd><pd> nʲʰ </pd><pd> </pd><pd> </pd></pr> <pr><pd> č </pd><pd> </pd><pd> š </pd><pd> ž </pd><pd> ñ </pd><pd> ñʰ </pd><pd> j </pd><pd> </pd></pr> <pr><pd> k </pd><pd> </pd><pd> h </pd><pd> ɣ </pd><pd> ŋ </pd><pd> ŋʰ </pd><pd> </pd><pd> </pd></pr> <pr><pd> ʔ </pd><pd> </pd><pd> </pd><pd> </pd><pd> </pd><pd> </pd><pd> </pd><pd> </pd></pr> </pbody></pable>
and the vowels /a ā e ē i ī o ō u ū ə/.
An old method of deriving verbs from nouns by truncating the word after the first vowel, and lengthening that vowel if there was any missing info began to take over now. Although this was not a true sound change, it affected the general language more than any of the sound changes on the list.
o ò changed to schwa in unaccented position and a in accented position.
ō ó changed to o ò.
The vowel sequences aj ej ij oj uj became ē i ī i ī respectively.
The vowel sequences aw ew iw ow uw became ō u ū u ū respectively.
The consonant cluster řp became lp in all positions.
Following an accented syllable in a word of three or more syllables, all vowels became schwa.
Following an accented syllable in a word of two syllables or less, the consonant sequences ts ns ss changed to `ts z s respectively.
Following an accented syllable in word-final position, the syllables ka ke ki ko ku became ʔ ʔč ʔč ʔt ʔt. Before another consonant, they all became ʔ.
All consonant clusters except those beginning with s became homorganic; the s- clusters did not retain any distinction based on point of articulation but instead shifted the s- to š except before another s.
The cluster sw (spelled sbʷ) became a bilabial v in all positions.
sb shifted to žb.
Before front vowels, k g ŋ shifted to č ǯ ñ.
Between two unstressed vowels, all labial consonants except rounded bilabials disappeared unless a string of three vowels would be created.
Before a vowel, unaccented ə changed to u, which then shifted to the labial glide w in syllable-initial position and otherwise created a labialized consonant. (year 5800; same as 26 in Izda Mir)
Before a vowel, unaccented a changed to i ("the karaoke shift"), which then shifted to the palatal glide j in syllable-initial position and otherwise created a palatalized consonant. Like the new labialized consonants, palatalized consonants could occur only before a vowel, but in orthography they could occur before other consonants because they were used to denote whole unstressed syllables. However, the only vowel allowed in these unstressed syllables was the epenthetic schwa, and during the following sound changes this schwa often disappeared.
The labials pʲ bʲ mʲ became the labiodentals ṗ ḅ ṃ in all positions.
The dentals fʲ vʲ changed to f v before vowels, but to fĭ vĭ elsewhere.
The alveolars tʲ dʲ sʲ zʲ nʲ became the dentals ṭ ḍ ṣ ẓ ṇ in all positions. lʲ became j and řʲ became ř.
The dorsals kʲ hʲ rʲ became the palatals č š j in all positions.
The labialized postalveolar consonants čʷ ǯʷ šʷ žʷ ñʷ became delabialized.
The palatal consonants č ǯ š ž ñ became c ʒ s z n in all positions.
The rounded labials pʷ bʷ mʷ fʷ vʷ became the plain labials pŭ bŭ mŭ fŭ vŭ before a consonant.
The labialized alveolars tʷ dʷ sʷ zʷ nʷ řʷ became plain alveolars t d s z n ř in all positions.
Before a vowel, lʷ became w, but elsewhere it changed to lŭ.
The dorsals kʷ hʷ rʷ became w before a consonant, while also lengthening the preceding vowel.
The labiodentals ṗ ḅ ṃʰ ṃ and the dentals ṭ ḍ ṇʰ ṇ became c ʒ ns nz in word-final position.
The dentals ṗ ḅ ṃʰ ṃ ṭ ḍ ṇʰ ṇ became the affricates pf bv mf mv tṣ dẓ nṣ nẓ, but there was no change in spelling.
The affricates pf bv mf mv tṣ dẓ nṣ nẓ became f v f v ṣ ẓ ṣ ẓ in initial position and after a consonant.
Epenthetic schwas after previously labialized and palatalized consonants disappeared.
Nasals disappeared before a fricative.
The affricates mbʷ mb mḅ nḍ nd nǯ ŋg shifted to bʷ b ḅ ẓ ʒ ǯ g in all positions. If the preceding vowel had been long, it became short.
The affricates mpʷ mp mṗ nṭ nt nč ŋk shifted to pʷ p ṗ ẓ ʒ ǯ g in all positions. If the preceding vowel had been long, it became short.
Unstressed ər shifted to o.
š before a nasal changed to ž and the nasal changed into a voiced stop.
The velar stops k g were fronted to č ǯ unless they occurred in a cluster after another consonant and before a o u.
Labialization was lost on all consonants.
The clusters šb and bš were devoiced to šp and pš respectively.
The clusters žp and pž became žb and bž respectively.
Velar stops in accented syllables before another syllable beginning in a velar were fronted to postalveolar affricates before front vowels, and otherwise to alveolar stops.
Alveolar stops in accented syllables before another syllable beginning in an alveolar became postalveolar affricates.
A bilabial sound in an accented syllable before a syllable beginning in a labiodental sound became labiodental. A labiodental sound in an accented syllable before a syllable beginning in a bilabial became bilabial.
Sonority hierarchy shifts: #hp ---> #kf̥ etc
After a vowel, the consonant clusters ṿt ṿd merged as d. If after /u/ or /o/, that vowel became long.
After a vowel, the consonant clusters gč gǯ (g is ɣ) changed to ġ (a voiced velar stop).

    </pd><pd width="50">     </pd><pd width="50">    </pd></pr>

</pbody></pable>

and the vowels /a ā e ē i ī o ō u ū ə/.

The alphabet now consisted of the consonants /p b ṗ ḅ f v m mʰ w t ṭ d ḍ s z ṣ ẓ n nʰ š ž k g ŋ ŋʰ h x l ř j r/ and the vowels /a e i o u ə ā ē ī ō ū ə̄ à è ì ò ù ə̀ á é í ó ú ə́/.

This is considered to be the state of classical Moonshine, also known as Rúló.

Rúló to Xykhasl (year 12850 AD)

Intervocalically, the dental consonants ṗ ḅ ṭ ḍ came to be written as pf bv tṣ dẓ, and to be treated as consonant clusters.
In word-initial position and after another consonant they became the plain fricatives f v ṣ ẓ.
The vowel /u/ came to be spelled /ū/; this was a spelling change rather than a phonetic one.
In bisyllabic roots, if the vowel in the second syllable was rounded, the vowels in the first syllable changed from /a e i o ū ə/ to /â ū y ô y u/, where â spells the SAMPA sound Q, ū spells u:, ô spells u:, and y spells y.
If the vowel in the second syllable was /i/, then /o ū/ in the first syllable changed to /oj ūj/.
High tone vowels came to be distinguished primarily by being lax rather than by being of high pitch. Allophonic pitch distinctions began to arise, and soon tone had been completely replaced by laxness.
Consonant clusters and final consonants, aside from c ʒ č ǯ were simplified: any /p/ or /š/ at the end of a syllable disappeared and made the preceding vowel into a lax vowel.
(although in the case of žb and šp, the ž and š survived and the labials didn't). Double consonants and affricates simplified to singles and also laxed the preceding vowel. Final /m/ disappeared with no effect, although it began to spread as an allophone to places in which it had never been before. Voiceless nasals also laxed the preceding vowel.
The dental fricatives f v changed to ṣ ẓ at the beginning of a word and between vowels.
The postalveolar affricates č ǯ became the fricatives š ž in all positions.
The alveolar stops t d and the affricates c ʒ merged as č ǯ before front vowels. In other positions they remained the same.
In clusters the dental fricatives ṣ ẓ became the alveolar stops t d.
All unstressed short vowels were reduced to the set /ă ĭ u ə/. If they had been lax, they also laxed the preceding vowel.
After a vowel, wĭ changed to j,
sĭ changed to š,
and kĭ and tĭ coalesced as tš.
Unaccented long vowels and diphthongs were reduced to the monophthongs a e i o u y.
The remaining long vowels ā ē ī ō ū ȳ ə̄ changed to a aj i aw ū y ə. The letter ū was not a true long vowel any longer, but only a higher and clearer version of u.
All final vowels in bisyllabic roots were deleted. If the vowel deleted was ĭ, the vowels in the first syllable changed from /a à è ì ə/ to /aj àj e i ĭ/. In compound words and certain inflected forms, the second vowel in the word was deleted if the resulting consonant cluster was acceppable ("the Debra shift"). If the second vowel occurred between two labial consonants, the first labial consonant was deleted and the second was metathesized so that it took the place of the first. Then the place of articulation of that consonant changed to match the vowel it occurred next to, as the vowel was deleted.
u ù became fronted to mid vowels but there was no change in spelling. All roots that came from Rúló had been either one or two syllables. With this sound shift they nearly all came to be one syllable, although due to changes in grammar they were almost always used with a suffix containing a vowel and thus adding a syllable. That is to say, the suffixes from the old monosyllables were applied to these new monosyllables, making the old suffixes and infixes for bisyllables obsolete.
The dental fricatives ṣ ẓ changed back to f v in all positions.
The labiodental fricatives f v became h x in word-initial position before a back vowel and between a back vowel and another vowel of any type;
In clusters the labiodental fricatives f v became p b.
Before the front vowels e è i ì û ú, the velar stops k and g were fronted to the postalveolar affricates č and ǯ, which were considered single phonemes rather than clusters.
At the end of a closed syllable the bilabial stop b came to be pronounced as /ə/, with a common allophone of [w]; however there was no change in the native spelling.
At the end of a closed syllable the bilabial stop p came to be pronounced as [ʔ], however there was no change in the native spelling. That is, the ligatures of vowel + p, which are transliterated with grave accents, continued to be used.
The labiodental fricatives f v became the bilabial stops p b in all positions, although at the end of a few words they disappeared completely. They were spelled with the letters for the "hard" p b because in some writings the letters for the ordinary p b were used for /? ə/.
Voiced stops became prenasalized after a tense vowel; lax vowels before voiced stops became allophonically tense but did not gain prenasalization.
The lax/tense distinction in vowels disappeared, leaving vowel quality alone to distinguish them and meaning that glottal stops after certain vowels were no longer pronounced. However, the changes that the earlier system had inflicted on the consonants still remained.
A chain shift occurred: the old vowel ì came to be pronounced as e, meaning that the old vowel e came to be pronounced as ɛ, which caused the old vowel è to become pronounced as a, which caused the old vowel a to become pronounced as a back ɑ. Meanwhile a similar shift occurred in the back vowels: o became ɔ, which caused ò to become a low back ɒ. Now, only roundedness and frontness distinguished the two forms of o and a; the heights were the same.

Classical-Era Changes:
In some idiolects, a religious taboo forbade the pronunciation of the phonemes k g except when used for the names of the forces of good and evil; in other contexts they shifted to /q G/.
Most speakers began to merge the new q G phonemes with h x.
Roundedness disappeared on o ò, thus leaving only frontness to distinguish them from a à.
Unstressed u became a true schwa. The script was now written with u as the inherent vowel (previously it was schwa).
o ò merged with a à.
The low vowel a rounded and moved to the back position and à became low to replace it.

The alphabet now consisted of the consonants /p b š ž m w t d s z n j c ʒ č ǯ k g h x ŋ r l ř/ and the vowels /@ i e E a A O o u y/.
The spelling of the vowels was as such:

<pable class="body"> <pbody><pr><pd>ə</pd><pd>i</pd><pd>e</pd><pd>ɛ</pd><pd>a</pd><pd>ɑ</pd><pd>ɔ</pd><pd>o</pd><pd>u</pd><pd>y</pd><pd> </pd></pr> <pr><pd>u</pd><pd>i</pd><pd>ì</pd><pd>e</pd><pd>è</pd><pd>o</pd><pd>a</pd><pd>â</pd><pd>ô</pd><pd>û</pd><pd> </pd></pr> </pbody></pable> o could also be spelled à, and a could also be spelled ò. This is considered to be the state of classical Laveti Moonshine.

Post-Classical Changes:
Letters with inherent vowels sometimes appeared as the onset of a stressed syllable (mostly in Bloppabop loans, but in a few native words also). Previously the u ones were pronounced with /w/, but that disappeared, and as it did so the ones with a became velarised and in some cases (especially velars) also labialized.

</pd></pr></pbody></pable>

Tapilula to Late Andanese (4178)

Tapilula (0) to Old Andanese (1900)

The accent pattern involved in certain infixes with accented schwa switched to favor the following vowel. e.g. ăpo "field", apə̀ho "field (possessive) became ăpo apəhò.
The "labial" vowel ə (like /u/ but with flat lips) disappeared, syllabified nearby consonants or turned to i if the nearby consonants were not possible to become syllabic.
Often, this sound change created new clusters whose second element was /h/. Since all voiceless stops were inherently aspirated (that is, /ph/ was equivalent to /p/, and so on), this change effectively removed /h/ after a voiceless stop. However, voiced stops were devoiced by the shift. Other consonants simply retained the cluster for the time being; so that, for example, /mh/ was allowed. No daughter languages retained these clusters as such, but they resolved them in different ways in each branch.
The labial stops p b both changed to w except if they were: 1) After an accented or high-tone vowel (but not before); 2) In a consonant cluster of any kind; or 3) In a monosyllabic word.
See below ... it's possible that this change could have been [ph] > [px] > [xʷ] > [gʷ], which would make it identical with the pretonic allophone of /w/, or it could be simply [p] > [b] > [w] unrelated to the change involving /t/.
The velar nasal ŋ changed to n in all positions. (this was originally 3 steps lower but is irrelevant for the end result)
The alveolar voiceless stop t became k except if it was: 1) After an accented or high-tone vowel (but not before); 2) In a consonant cluster of any kind; or 3) In a monosyllabic word.
Since all voiceless stops were inherently aspirated all along, a likely path for this change would be [th] > [tx] > [kx] > [kh], which would make it identical with /k/.
tʷ dʷ nʷ > kʷ ġʷ ŋʷ.
The labialized sounds kʷ ġʷ hʷ w changed to k ġ h g when they preceded a vowel followed by a labial consonant (including /w/), and changed the pitch of the following vowel to high (3). (this was originaly near FAHAH but was moved up to match Ukieipi's version). POSSIBLY SCRUB THE TONE CHANGE
ŋʷ> ŋ'.
The glottalized stop k̩ changed to a uvular q in all positions.
The voiced stops b d ġ ġʷ became voiceless p t k kʷ, but /p t/ remained voiced allophonically between vowels.

NOTE ON POLITICS: This was the stage of Old Andanese (year 1900), the same date as Gold.

Old Andanese (1900) to Late Andanese (4178)

Note that all of the tone changes below are entirely rirrelevant, because Late Andanese ends up losing its tones, and so does Babakiam, which was the only language that took any significant number of loans from Late Andanese.

Labialized stops pʷ tʷ kʷ all changed to p.

Like-vowel sequences pulled up again, so e.g. /tuhu/ > /tu/, but /tohu/ remains and later becomes /tuhu/.

/hi ki ti/ > /s/ before a vowel

.

The labial fricative f changed to h in all positions, and changed the pitch of the following vowel to high (3). This is sometimes spelled h́.

All remaining occurrences of the labial approximant w changed to l. (CHANGE ID FAHAH)

The uvular stop q changed to the glottal stop ʔ unconditionally.

The mid vowels e o changed to i u in all positions.

Nasalized vowels changed fricatives on either side of them into nasals.

Nasalized vowels changed stops after them (but not before) into nasals. Thus tãpa "vineyard" > tama.

Nasalization disappeared everywhere.

Tones were eliminated except in syllables with no consonants.

Tones were eliminated. Andanese now had only 9 consonants, 3 vowels, and no tones, and was entirely CV, thus making it the most phonologically simple language in the world.

Pre-Proto-Tapilula to POP3 (4000 BC)

Original phonology:

Pre-Proto-Tapilula, also known as Paleo-Southeast Laban, had 18 consonants ( p b m w ṭ ḍ ṇ ḷ t d n l r j k ġ ŋ h ) and 4 vowels, a i u ə (schwa is spelled {y}).

V was really a spread-labial w, not actually /v/. Nor was it wʲ or jʷ. ɰ is silent, but separates vowels so that they arent dip[hthongs, and does have a sound between 2 identical vowels.

The voiced velar sounds g ġ changed to ž before /i/, v before /u/, and disappeared otherwise.
The voiceless sound h changed to š before /i/, f before /u/, and disappeared otherwise.
Are the above f/v distinct from rounded labials?? Or labiodentals?
f > v?
The labiodental fricatives f v changed to p b.
hʷ became h. (???)
The dental sounds ṭ ṇ ḷ ḍ all coalesced as v (true v this time).
All stops became voiceless.
The dental fricative v turned into a voiced bilabial stop b. This was thus the only voiced stop in the language.

</pd></pr></pbody></pable>

</pd>

</pr></pbody></pable>

Silatibarra to Proto-Outer Poswob (1583 (wrong date???))

Original phonology:

pʷ mʷ w bʷ ...... hʷ ..... m: ṇ: n: ŋ: ..... voiceless nasals????
pʲ mʲ v bʲ
ṭ ṇ ḷ ḍ
t n l d s r
tl nl dl sl
k ŋ ɰ ġ h

V was really a spread-labial w, not actually /v/. Nor was it wʲ or jʷ. ɰ is silent, but separates vowels so that they arent dip[hthongs, and does have a sound between 2 identical vowels.

Tones became raised before voiceless consonants: ă --> à; à --> á. Note that the symbols are used slightly differently here from their usage in other lanmguages. In the future, â is low tone (but usually unmarked); ă or à is medium tone; á is high tone.
All prefixes came to have low tone, regardless of what consonant was before them.
The vowels a e i became e i i whenever not held down by other vowels, or by labialization.
~~The spread-labial sounds pʲ mʲ v bʲ all coalesced as v (true v this time).~~
The glottal fricative h became š when touching a front vowel (/e i/).
Rounded labials became plain labials in all words. hʷ became h.
The schwa vowel disappeared in all possible syllables, unless accented.
The dental sounds ṭ ṇ ḷ ḍ all coalesced as v (true v this time).
Any remaining schwa became a.
All stops became voiceless.
The dental fricative v turned into a voiced bilabial stop b. This was thus the only voiced stop in the language.
The laterals tl nl became plain t n. (This was near the end of the time spent near Tapilula).
"Suppressed" tones were released.
Stops became allophonically voiced after a low tone. Thus the distinction between /b/ and voiced /p/ was muddled.
Stops became allophonically geminated after a high tone. (????)

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Notes

Languages of Teppala

Contents

Historical distribution of Teppalan languages

Traits common to all Teppalan languages

Phonology

Grammar

Traits common to most Teppalan languages

Phonology

Grammar

Gender

Structure of words

Parts of speech

List of sound changes

Proto-Greater-Laban (18343 BC) to Mapi (year 14000 BC)

Mapi (14000 BC) to Southeast Laban (8000 BC)

Southeast Laban (8000 BC) to Pre-Proto-Tapilula (3770 BC)

Pre-Proto-Tapilula (3770 BC) to Tapilula (500 AD)

Tapilula to Gold (year 1900)

Gold (1900) to Khulls (4700)

Bābākiam (4100) to Poswa (8700)

Bābākiam to Old Pabappa (~6500) ... too early?

Old Pabappa (6500?) to Pabappa (8700)

Proto-Moonshine to Late Moonshine (6800)

Rúló to Xykhasl (year 12850 AD)

Tapilula to Late Andanese (4178)

Tapilula (0) to Old Andanese (1900)

Old Andanese (1900) to Late Andanese (4178)

Pre-Proto-Tapilula to POP3 (4000 BC)

Silatibarra to Proto-Outer Poswob (1583 (wrong date???))

See also

Notes

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