Sakhi

Sakhi is a language spoken by feminists who had formerly been part of Thaoa. They had previously been a very aggressive military empire, at times the most aggressive on the planet, but when the Thaoan women realized that the tribes their soldiers were attacking were ruled entirely by women, they blocked their army and forced the soldiers back home. The women then signed a peace treaty called the Feminist Compact with their enemies, and abolished their own military.

Thaoa (2674) to Sakhi

The inherited phonology of the crushed Thaoa state was

Labials:        pʰ   p   b   m   f   v   w
Alveolars:      tʰ   t   d   n   s   z   l
Palataloids:         č   ǯ   ň           y
Velars:         kʰ   k       ŋ   x   g
Postvelars:     qʰ   q           h

1. The vowel sequences awa aya shifted to ō ē.
2. ǯ > /j/ or /ž/.
3. f v b all merge as b .
4. mb > mp?
5. If two consos in a row were aspirated, the unaccented one loses aspiration. (GRASSMAN'S LAW)
6. ei > e; eiʔ > ei; ou > o; ouh > ou.
7. ao > ea; aoh > ao. The rare triphthong aou > ao as well.
8. Final ʕ disappeared when unstressed; otherwise, it changed to ŋ.
9. t > tš (except in certain clusters, such as kt & pt, or if aspirated)
10. s z š ž; ṣ > s <------ LIKELY BAD ... this relied on a very different fricative setup in the parent language. However, it does mesh nicely with the change of t > tš, so it could be retained as a conditional shift.
11. g > x. (If so this is where Palli does v > f). ~3100 AD.

    ei ou > ai au. (Only to be later reverted.)

12. Aspiration was lost when a consonant was preceded by a glottal stop. e.g. ʔth > ʔt.
13. d ġ > t k.
14. Remaining voiced stops became nasals.
15. If two aspirated consoants occur together, the first loses aspiration. Thus word-initial /t/ was created.
16. ala > al, etc. (but not alaʔ)
17. eu > ia.
18. ael (but not ail) > al. CONTROVERISL !!! *pymphal
19. ʕy > ž .
20. The voiceless fricative f shifted to h.
21. All stops became voiced after long vowels.
22. The aspirated voiceless stops pʰ tʰ č kʰ qʰ shifted to f s š x h.
23. All clusters became homorganic, except for those that were made up of /k/ + stop.
24. The unaspirated stops p t k q became voiced stops b d ġ ġ, except if following an aspirated stop or a fricative, or syllable-initially with an /h/ located across a vowel.
25. The voiceless fricative h disappeared.
26. The voiced stops b d ġ shifted to approximants v r g.
27. The diphthongs ei ou ea ia shifted to ē ō ē ī. Any vowel followed by a schwa became a long vowel. Then oi became ui.
28. All remaining vowel sequences became diphthongs. This included ii uu > ji wu.
29. All clusters of nasal + stop became plain voiced stops.
30. All geminate stops became single.
31. TVowel sequenves like /ea ia/ shifted to /ja/, even though they had already shifted to ē ī etc eartlier.

Phonology

Diachronics

Sakhi was a northern dialect of Thaoa which early on gained vowel length and lost distinctive aspiration. Most long vowels arose from vowels that had previously been followed by a glottal stop. Thus, the glottal stop was eliminated.

Sakhi's sound changes were complex and often polyconditional, unlike those of Palli, where the general trend was strongly in favor of a smaller phonology and more open syllables.

early changes

The phonology of classical Thaoa had been (consonants only)

l  j  h  k  kʰ ŋ  p  pʰ m  t  tʰ  n  s  x  š  b  ž  č  ň  ʔ  q  qʰ

The uvular stops /q qʰ/ were marginal phonemes found only in loans from Old Andanese. Andanese itself had lost the uvulars in the meantime, but they persisted in a small number of words that had remained in Thaoa and were passed down to Thaoa's daughter languages of Sakhi and Palli.

Unlike Palli, the dialect that became Sakhi reflected Thaoa's early /v/ phoneme as b, and it therefore was not included in the later sound change that devoiced all fricatives. Thus proto-Sakhi /b/ usually corresponded to proto-Palli /f/ (later /h/).

Next, all stops became voiced after long vowels, even if aspirated. Nasals also switched.

Then, Sakhi soon gained a new /f/ phoneme, because it changed all of its aspirated stops to fricatives. The postalveolar affricate č behaved as aspirated in this shift, and therefore merged with š.

Next another wave of voicing happened, as all unaspirated stops became voiced, except if following an aspirated stop or a fricative, or syllable-initially with an /h/ located across a vowel. Thus, voiceless stops had almost disappeared from the language. However, the voiced stops were on their way out as well, because the next sound change was to weaken the voiced stops into fricatives and approximants. /d/ became /r/, however, not /z/. Some of the above changes excluded clusters; e.g. /nd/ did not become /nr/, and what remained came to be spelled /nt/.

At this point the language had very few words beginning with stops, and stops were not particularly common elsewhere either.

The vowel system was still entirely intact, except for the introduction of long bowels.

creation of hiatus

However, some balance was regained when all /h/ disappeared from the language. /x/, the reflex of /kʰ/, soon became /h/.

The deletion of /h/ made this already rapidly changing language even more unstable, because for the first time in thousands of years vowels were allowed to touch each other. These new vowel sequences were spelled with the old letter for /h/, since the letter for /x/ was used for the proper /h/ sound. However, to prevent confusion, the hiatus separator is Romanized instead with /ʕ/. The Sakhis needed this letter because these vowel sequences still contrasted with diphthongs, which was unusual for their area.

later changes

the dorsal nasals /ŋ ñ/ changed to /ġ ǯ/ unconditionally, except in clusters or at the end of a word, where they became /n/. <--------- NOTE: this is on the list of snd changes from an earlier draft that ended in a significantrly different outcome. now, these would be the only voiced stops in the language.

all clusters became homorganic except possibly /k/+stop.

From this point on, sound changes slowed down, and became simpler and less conditional.

h > 0. This shift thus happened twice, thousands of years apart. (on the blue and red list, it is incorrectly omitted the first time, perhaps because i just confused it with deaspiration). note that this h > 0 essentially implies primordial kʰ > x > h > 0.

f>h, but not in clusters. (? sounds perverse)

possibly ž > 0. note that there was never a /z/, so there would be no new /ž/ arising from /zj/.

Final schwa died. This change was contemporary with a similar change in Poswa. Shortly afterwards, all other schwas disappeared too, becoming /a/ if they could not. [ə] came to be an allophone of /a/.<___NOTE: this was written before i had bumped Thaoa back from ~4500 to 2668 (3700 for end of classical stage), so it might not be contempotary after all.

Possible dialect splits, where poswob areas do tw>pw and khulls do tw>kw.

final phonology

Note, voiced fricatives are missing

TARGET PHONOLOGY IS

l  j  h  k  ġ  b  p  m  t  d   r  n  s  h  š  ž  ň   + PALATALS AND LABIALS.  /f/ may or may not be present.

(this letter order is not canonical)

Note that, from the previous stage of the language where stops had almost completely disappeared, the only change that created more stops was a very minor one that only worked intervocalically. instead, balance was restored by deleting vowels and fricatives, including twice /h/ > /0/. Even so, the language still has very little /p/ & /k/.

it is even possible that /t/ is more common than all five of /p b d k ġ/ combined.

Tests of words in sound changes

This list

1. Assumes no semantic change.
2. Ignores that the final syllables, especially final consonants, would mutate by analogy as in Pabappa.
3. schwa is spelled /ə/.

• hulyt ----> ult "bear:
• sahu ---> sau "eyelash"
• beanna ---> wēna "bird"
• thapakhuŋa ---> sapauga (placename)
• luʔna ---> lūra "moon"