Andanic languages
The Andanic languages are those descended from Old Andanese. Most are very conservative; however, the Andanese language for which the family is named is not particularly conservative at all, and its speakers numerically outweighed those of all of the other languages combined.
Tapilula (0) to Old Andanese (1900)
The Andanese/Gold dialect of Tapilula had the consonants
Rounded bilabials: hʷ w Spread bilabials: p m b f (Ø) Alveolars: t n d l Rounded alveolars: tʷ nʷ dʷ Velars: k ḳ ŋ ġ h g
- 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 disappeared, syllabified nearby consonants or turned to i if the nearby consonants were not possible to become syllabic. Note that it never occurred after labialized consonants. Sequences such as /pəh/ collapsed to form aspirated consonants, though these behaved as clusters.
- The velar nasal ŋ changed to n in all positions.
- The stops p b t became w w k (the /t/ shift was allophonically [th > tx > kx > kh]) except when occurring:
- After an accented or high-tone vowel (but not before);
- In a consonant cluster of any kind; or
- In a monosyllabic word.
- tʷ dʷ nʷ > kʷ ġʷ ŋʷ.
- The labialized sounds kʷ ġʷ hʷ f w changed to k ġ h h g when they preceded a vowel followed by a labial consonant (including /w/).
- ŋʷ> ŋ.
- Tautosyllabic vowel sequences òi ài èi converged to ē. This did not affect syllable-straddling words like /tùya/. Likewise, èu àu òu in the same environment converged to ō.
- Duplicate vowel sequences àa èe ìi òo ùu shifted to long vowels ā ē ī ō ū. But the same sequences with the opposite tone pattern did not shift.
- NOTE ON POLITICS: Olati breaks away here.
- 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 that aspiration was still contrastive, though sequences like /ph < pəh/ behaved as clusters rather than single consonants, reflecting their origin.
- Chronically unstressed syllables all became short and low tone. This even extended to shifts like ou > o that had been missed by previous shifts.
- aw,ew>ow in classifiers
- Tones were eliminated in closed syllables, but length was preserved.
By this time the Old Andanese language had the consonants
Bilabials: p m w Alveolars: t n l Velars: k ŋ g h Labiovelars: kʷ hʷ Uvulars: q Rounded uvulars: qʷ
and the vowels /a e i o u/. There were two tones, and a superficial long tone patterned after that of the Gold language to write the common sequence of a high tone followed by a low tone of the same vowel. However, this was much less common than in Gold. The rounded uvular /qʷ/ was rare and could be analyzed as a sequence of /q/ + /w/, unlike the much more common /kʷ/.
The labial glide /w/ is often spelled /gʷ/, but there is no phonemic contrast.
Allophony and sandhi
Old Andanese /p/ and /t/ are pronounced as voiced stops [b d] between vowels. Since the language is highly CV, this means that [b d] are actually more common in speech than [p t]. Note that the parent language, Tapilula, had had a distinction between voiced and voiceless stops. In early Old Andanese, the voiced stops became voiceless, and then later on they came to be voiced allophonically in intervocalic position. Thus, for the primordial voiced stops, they first became voiceless, and then changed back again, rather than remaining voiced all along.
North Andanic languages
- See Litila for the Paleo-Pabappa language often grouped with Andanic.
Old Andanese (1900) to Galà (3750 AD)
The Old Andanese language had the consonants
Bilabials: p m w f Alveolars: t n l Velars: k ŋ g h Labiovelars: kʷ Uvulars: q Rounded uvulars: qʷ
and the vowels /a e i o u/ on two tones.
- The uvular stops q qʷ shifted to k kʷ in word-initial position. Most root-initial /q/ also shifted, because most roots could appear without classifiers at least in certain contexts. But roots that were fully bound retained initial /q/.
- The sequence qi disappeared to q before a consonant or at the end of a word. The sequences qig qih simply shifted to qi.
- The voiceless stops p t shifted to b d in word-medial position. Root-initial examples followed the inverse of the pattern of the /q/>/k/ shift.
- The clusters qp qm qt qn qk qŋ qkʷ shifted to geminates pp mm tt nn kk ŋŋ kkʷ. Any cluster *ending* in /q/ shifted it to /k/.
- Note, if the geminates are assumed to be acoustically identical to high tone + singleton, this shift can be ignored because it is the same as the next one.
- All remaining q shifted to Ø and caused the preceding vowel to become high-toned.
- The clusters mh nh ŋh (common in genitives) shifted to mp nt ŋk. Then bh dh shifted to p t.
- Remaining aspirate clusters deaspirated.
- Unstressed mid vowels e o were raised to i u when adjacent to a stressed vowel in either direction.
- Through grammatical alternation, some stressed vowels may also shift. For example, Old Andanese wĕqa "fig" > Galà dă is only possible if it first shifted to /wèa/ through /q/>/`/ and then to /wiă/ through a stress shift and the above sound change.
- Before a vowel, the sequences ti hi ki all shifted to s. Likewise in the same environment gi li bi di shifted to d y. pi shifted to t. Any other palatalized consonants then depalatalized.
- The labialized consonants kʷ w f shifted to k Ø h.
- The voiced velar fricative g disappeared to Ø, and changed any preceding high tone into a long tone.
- This contrasted with primordial low tones in word pairs such as kūi "portable wall; divider" vs. kŭi "button". It also contrasted with the much rarer inherited vowel sequences that had arisen from earlier /q/, which still retained a glottal stop as part of the effect of the high tone. Thus kàa "fin", with a glottal stop between the two vowels, contrasted with kăa "safe space; refuge", and with kāa, part of the name of a flower.
- After a high tone, the voiceless fricative h shifted to q.
- Long vowels became allophonically shortened before a hiatus, thus becoming a short high tone. The three-way distinction remained because of the distinctive glottal stop after the grave tone.
Thus the final consonant inventory was
Bilabials: p b m Alveolars: t d n l s Palatals: y Velars: k ŋ h Uvulars: q
Udami
Spoken to the west of Galà.
- The uvular stop q shifted to k in all positions.
- The voiced stops b d shifted to p t.
- The voiced velar fricative g shifted to x. This contrasted with the inherited /h/.
- Possibly a Palli-like "staircase shift" to get phonemic /s/. But how? Palli's was /fa fi fu sa si su ša ši šu ha hi hu/ > /fa fi fu sa si su sa si fu fa si fu/. This shift could have been affected by front vowels on *both* sides of the consonant. For sure, /h/ is the "weakest" consonant, probably shifting away completely by changing to /s/, /x/, or /f/, depending on the surrounding consonants. Even with all of this, /s/ will still be rare unless /k/ is somehow pulled into the shift.
- Possibly /f w/ > /h 0/ later on. Under some circumstances, maybe also /p m/ > /h 0/, but the /m/ nasalizes vowels and thus causes a final -n.
Lyugi
A language that changed more than the others. Spoken in the mountains of Repilia. Possibly a "Tarise" language.
I recently (apr 2020) changed the diachronics here after letting them stand untouched for a few years, so I may have forgotten the reasoning behind my original ideas. See history for details.
- The velar stop k shifted to t before any /i/.
- Possibly expand the environment for this shift, since /q/ > /k/ unconditionally below. It could be that all /k/ becomes palatalized when bordering either of /e i/ in either direction, and then this sound shifts later to /t/. This would imply that /h/ was shifted to /s/ in at least as many environments.
- In unstressed syllables, the vowels i u shifted to ʲ ʷ, thus creating consonant clusters.
- The classifiers i- hi- gi- in most words here contract to just a /ʲ/, which crosses the syllable boundary and palatalizes the following consonant. However, they were not common enough to trigger a new grammar rule, and these words were simply padded with more classifier prefixes in most cases. Likewise, other classifier prefixes that contracted to just a single consonant were also padded with other prefixes whose vowels had not contracted.
- In unstressed syllables, the vowels e o shifted to i u.
- The uvular stops q qʲ qʷ shifted to k k kʷ unconditionally. Then hʲ shifted to s.
- Labialization was lost before a consonant or at the end of a word.
- Word-final consonants in unstressed syllables were deleted. (This only occurred when a word ended in two unstressed syllables.)
- In word-final position, the consonants pʲ bʲ mʲ shifted to t d n.
- Palatalization disappeared at the end of a word.
- It is possible that a separate /č/ might somehow pull through.
- The sequences ʷa ʷe ʷi ʷo ʷu shifted to o o u o u.
- All remaining e o shifted to ə.
- This seems unlikely. A new long /ē/ is generated below but it would be very rare.
- Between vowels, the voiced sounds b d shifted to w r , although the /r/ was merely an allophone.
- The resulting vowel sequences change to single (usually long) vowels.
- The consonants p g were both deleted to Ø unconditionally.
No ordinary sound change directly targets /p/ here, but the sound had a restricted distribution, and the language was spoken near Leaper, which did /p/ > /h/ in the positions where /p/ occurred most often here. Alternatively, though, /b/ > /p/ in final position and /p/ becomes like that of Galà.
Possibly /ja/ > /e/, but /ai/ > /ē/ (also as in Khulls).
Core Andanic
Late Andanese is the most important member of this branch.
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 qʷ all changed to p.
- The sequences aha ehe ihi oho uhu shifted to ha he hi ho hu. (These /h/'s later disappeared in almost all positions.)
- The sequences hi ki ti shifted to s before a vowel.
- The voiced velar fricative g disappeared to Ø.
- The labial fricative f changed to h in all positions.
- All remaining occurrences of the labial approximant w shifted to l.
- The uvular stop q disappeared to Ø unconditionally.
- The mid vowels e o changed to i u in all positions.
- The sequences ns ŋh shifted to n ŋ.
- The fricatives s h occurring *before* a syllable ending in a nasal coda shifted to n ŋ.
- The remaining sequences mp nt ŋk shifted to m n ŋ. (Note that most of these were from earlier /mh nh ŋh/.)
- All remaining coda consonants disappeared.
- 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.
West Andanic languages
- note, this may be incorrect, these are3 just "left over" languiages. however, west would be a good place to put them since they cannot be in the mtns. Spoken west of Nèye. No state name given on map.
East Andanic languages
In 1823, many Andanese people settled in Thaoa. At first they were welcome, but they soon became hostile. If East Andanic goes through the same sound changes that Thaoa did, it would mean very little, perhaps only performing /kʷ/ > /p/, and perhaps not even that (since the aspirate form did not shift). Note that Old Andanese had no voicing contrast, so Thaoa's shifts would only affect allophony, and could not create any new phonemes. However, another possibility is that East Andanic lost its tones by Thaoa's influence, perhaps shifting all high tones to long vowels, or only under certain conditions, so that the short vowels would still predominate.
These languages may go extinct in 2686 like Thaoa did, and be replaced much later with an unrelated strain of Andanese from the core (Late Andanese). However, if the minority dialects of Thaoa like Tuq survived, then East Andanic almost certainly would have survived also.
East Andanic may thus survive as late as 4151, when Creamland secedes from the Anchor Empire, and may even become the majority language of Creamland. However, the capital of Creamland would have been entirely Play-speaking. Further, Andanic would have survived only as the language of a minority (Andanese) within the underclass (Pabaps), as the Andanese and Pabaps were lumped together by the ruling class and partly also for their mutual protection.
- If Andanese survived in Sala, it seems likely it would survive in at least some parts of Creamland. Again, though, it is not necessarily East Andanic that survived. Core Andanic must have at least swept as far east as Thaoa proper since it is the superstratum of Palli.
Tapilula (0) to Pre-Olati (1300)
Note: these South Andanic languages broke from the main community earlier than the others, and therefore preserve voice contrasts in stops.
The Andanese/Gold dialect of Tapilula had the consonants
Rounded bilabials: hʷ w Spread bilabials: p m b f (Ø) Alveolars: t n d l Rounded alveolars: tʷ nʷ dʷ Velars: k ḳ ŋ ġ h g
- 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 disappeared, syllabified nearby consonants or turned to i if the nearby consonants were not possible to become syllabic. Note that it never occurred after labialized consonants. Sequences such as /pəh/ collapsed to form aspirated consonants, though these behaved as clusters.
- The velar nasal ŋ changed to n in all positions.
- The stops p b t became w w k (the /t/ shift was allophonically [th > tx > kx > kh]) except when occurring:
- After an accented or high-tone vowel (but not before);
- In a consonant cluster of any kind; or
- In a monosyllabic word.
- tʷ dʷ nʷ > kʷ ġʷ ŋʷ.
- The labial fricative f shifted to hʷ.
- 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/).
- ŋʷ> ŋ.
- final /b/ > /w/. must, now, add to other list!
- Tautosyllabic vowel sequences òi ài èi converged to ē. This did not affect syllable-straddling words like /tùya/. Likewise, èu àu òu in the same environment converged to ō.
- Duplicate vowel sequences àa èe ìi òo ùu shifted to long vowels ā ē ī ō ū. But the same sequences with the opposite tone pattern did not shift.
Proto-Olati (1300) to Olati-A (2672)
The Olati languages are known both as South Andanic and West Subumpamese. They are Andanic by genetics, but primarily Subumpamese (and partly Naman) by culture.
This is probably the language of Čudiabu (Yuenan), and perhaps also the language of Yuez (meaning that the language crosses state borders, unlike most others). If it is spoken in Yuez also, the name of the language should be Dukelŭta. If not (and it is likely not), then a fifth language will need to be created for Yuez.
- The labialized consonants kʷ ḳʷ ġʷ hʷ w shifted to p p b f v unconditionally.
- The aspirate clusters bh dh shift to p t.
- The velars k g ġ ŋ h shifted to č y y ň š unconditionally.
- This is the source of the hiatus in the state name.
- The sequences py by fy shift to t d s before a vowel.
- This might not be necessary, as /p/ is historically composite, and sequences like /kʷia/ and /bhia/ would likely have not existed anywhere in the entire lexicon.
- The uvular stop ḳ became k.
- The sequences lh shifted to s.
- Remaining aspirated clusters deaspirate.
- Before a vowel, the sequences ay ey oy shift to ē. iy uy shift to ī.
- Long vowels before hiatus became short, but retained their stress. (Thus, /ia/ is really /ia/, not /ja/).
Thus the consonant inventory was
Labials: p b m f v Alveolars: t d n s l Palataloids: č ǯ ň š y Velars: k
And the vowel inventory was /a e i o u/, on two tones, and a long series.
Proto-Olati (1300) to Olati-B (2672)
This may be the same as the Yoy language.... note that Yoy is said to have preserved voiced stops, like Olati, and unlike the rest of Andanic.
The consonant inventory as of 1300 AD was
Labials: p m b (Ø) Alveolars: t n d l Velars: k ḳ ŋ ġ h g Labiovelars: kʷ ḳʷ ġʷ hʷ w
There were relatively few sequences of two or more consecutive vowels.
- The clusters bh dh ġh ġʷh gh shifted to p t k kʷ h. Then mh nh ŋh became mp nt ŋk.
- The voiced sounds g ġ ġʷ b shifted to Ø Ø w w. This set up a consonant gradation in which words with hiatus in their bare form developed an oblique form with -/k/- (generalized from a choice of k~p~h).
- NOTE: the /k/ alternant was almost certainly the rarest of the three by a wide margin. It should either be /p/ or /h/. Or, it could merge with gender based consonants harmony.
- Remaining aspirates disappeared.
- The voiced stop d shifted to r. It was still [d] word-initially.
- The labialized consonants kʷ ḳʷ hʷ shifted to p p f.
- Before a vowel, the sequences aw ew ow shifted to o. Then iw uw shifted to u.
- Before a vowel, the sequences ay oy uy shifted to e. Then iy uy shifted to i.
- The vowel sequences òe òi ài èi èe ìa shifted to ē. Then èo èu àu òu òo ùa shifted to ō. Lastly, àe èa àa òa ào shifted to ā.
- Note, the name of the language is properly /jōj/, hence it comes from an earlier triple sequence.
- The vowel sequences ùe ùi ìi ìe shifted to ī. Then ìo ìu ùu ùo shifted to ū.
- Before a high-tone vowel, the sequences ti ni ri li shifted to s n y y. Then, ki ḳi ŋi hi in the same environment shifted to č č n s.
- Remaining ḳ shifted to k .
Thus the consonant inventory was
Labials: p m f w Alveolars: t n s l r Postalveolars: č y Velars: k ŋ h
Proto-Olati (1300) to Olati-C (2672)
It is possible that this is the language spoken in Vuʒi, assuming that Vuʒi's own language was lost in the wipeout.
The consonant inventory as of 1300 AD was
Labials: p m b f w Alveolars: t n d l Velars: k ḳ ŋ ġ h g Labiovelars: kʷ ḳʷ ġʷ
There were relatively few sequences of two or more consecutive vowels.
- The voiced stops ġʷ ġ shifted to w g.
- The voiceless stops p t shifted to f s . This shift included the aspirate sequences /bh dh ph th/.
- The voiced stops b d shifted to p t unconditionally.
- After a low tone or word-initially, the voiceless stops k kʷ shifted to x xʷ.
- The voiceless ejectives ḳ ḳʷ shifted to k kʷ unconditionally. The combination of the above shifts and grammatical levelling created a consonant gradation where words with /p t k kʷ/ as the last consonant in the word shifted it to /f s x xʷ/ to form the oblique. By analogy, some words in which historical /p t k kʷ/ had become /f s x xʷ/ now reverted to /p t k kʷ/ in order to use the gradations.
Proto-Olati (1300) to Dakʷòhi (2672)
This is the language spoken in Dakʷòhi, which is the state labeled as Mania on some maps.
- The voiced sounds gʷ ġʷ ġ shifted to w w g.
- The voiceless stops p t shifted to f s . This shift included the aspirate sequences /bh dh ph th/.
- The voiced sounds b d g shifted to p t x unconditionally.
- The velars k ḳ g ŋ x shifted to č č y n š unconditionally. Note that this /x/ is distinct from /h/.
- The labialized consonants kʷ ḳʷ w shifted to k k v.
Yoy language
The Yoy language was spoken in the Thunder Empire from 3844 AD to 3884 AD, during (and only during) the time when the THunder Empire was governbed by Dreamland. Yoy was confused with Dreamlandic, and the two languages had a similar sound, but they are not closely related. Rather, the anti-Thunder policies of the Dreamers allowed minority languages such as Yoy to flourish. After the overthrow of the Dreamer government, Yoy went back into suppression; however, the people who spoke Yoy were generally anti-Dreamer by this point as they had been no better treated by the Dreamers than were the majority Thunderers.
- Characteristics
- Deletion of /b d g/ after a stressed vowel; before this, /ab/ > /o/. This meant that the only stops that occurred between vowels were /t k q/.
- Probably, the loss of voicing contrasts in stops altogether, since there would be relatively few minimal pairs by this point (only /t/ vs /d/ after unstressed vowels). Possibly remaining /d/ > /r/ before this happens.
- The growth of falling diphthongs resulting from the deletion of these consonants, without the monophthongization that characterized most languages of this area. THe name Yoy would have quicvkly become *Yē in most of the neighboring langs, even those not closely related.