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. All h disappeared to Ø.
21. The voiceless fricative f shifted to h.
22. All stops became voiced after long vowels.
23. The aspirated voiceless stops pʰ tʰ č kʰ qʰ shifted to f s š x h.
24. All clusters became homorganic, except for those that were made up of /k/ + stop.
25. 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.
26. The voiceless fricative h disappeared.
27. The voiced stops b d ġ shifted to approximants v r g.
28. 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.
29. All remaining vowel sequences became diphthongs. This included ii uu > ji wu.
30. All clusters of nasal + stop became plain voiced stops.
31. All geminate stops became single.
32. TVowel sequenves like /ea ia/ shifted to /ja/, even though they had already shifted to ē ī etc eartlier.
33. All h disappeared to Ø. (Again.)

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.

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/.

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/.

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"