Minor Lenian languages
North Dreamlandic languages
These are ordered roughly east-to-west.
Cappini languages
Proto-Cappini was identical with Baywatch, but was grouped with the others for political reasons.
CONSONANTS:
Bilabials: p m b Alveolars: t n s l r
And the vowels were /a e i o u/ in both short and long forms. The geminates /pp ss tt/ occurred, and there were sound gaps of */te so bo lo ro/, except in a few rare words where contraction of long vowels before geminates had created new short vowels there.
Cappini to Wineapple
This was the language spoken in Olansele.
- The alveolars t n shifted to k ŋ before any of /o u/.
Cappini to Poise
This was the language spoken in Poise.
- The alveolars t n shifted to k ŋ before any of /o u/.
- This shift was added in the assumption that the language would be taking in many loans from Oyster languages, but if this is not the case, this shift does not create any new phonemes and can be ignored.
- Any singleton s disappeared to Ø.
- The geminates pp ss tt kk shifted to p s t k.
Other languages
The states of Ládara, Etatăni, Halaspa, Pumpkin, and Pointer did not have their own languages.
East Dreamlandic languages
These are the languages of Sepesi on the south coast of Dreamland. The speakers here are in intimate contact with those of Baeba Swamp and parts of Kuhilani.
It may possible to simply group these languages with South Dreamlandic.
This branch might keep or even elaborate on the classifier prefix system, but probably still does not reach the levels of the Andanese or Subumpamese inventories.
Proto-Dreamlandic (1495) to Suds (~3550)
- Labialization was defeated, leaving no effects on the vowels.
- The sequence ya shifted to ye.
- The sequence mp shifted to mm.
- Any singleton p shifted to Ø. (This includes /pu pi/ > /w y/.) Any preceding vowels became long. (But note that īy ūw were equivalent to ī ū.)
- The geminates pp čč kk shifted to p č k.
- Before a vowel, the sequences ki ti pi hi fi merged as s. Then tu shifted to su. (This also implies /č/ > /š/ > /s/, as in Sessi.)
- Any remaining ki ti pi merged as the consonant geminator ʔ, which shifted to /Ø/ in absolute final position; any remaining hi fi lengthened the preceding vowel (ː) and then disappeared to Ø.
- Long vowels before a geminate consonant became short.
- The sequences ll rr shifted to l r.
- The sequences mi ni ŋi li ri shifted to n n n i i. Sequences like /miwa/ > /nwa/ came to be spelled /nua/, etc. This shift did not affect the long ī, which was equivalent to /iy/.
- A yer-like process must appear here to prevent the syllables from bunching up on each other. Since ī was rarely word-final, it is likely that word final -i will survive here and that therefore /mimi/ > /mmi/, etc. Word-initial geminates had already existed in the parent language.
- The sequences lu ru shifted to u.
- The sequences nfa nfu nha nhu changed to mpa mpu na nu.
- The sequences fa fu shifted to ha hu.
- The sequences kī tī pī merged as si. Then mī nī ŋī merged as ni. Bare ī shifted to i.
- The sequences ui ūi merged as i.
- This means old kui, pui, kūi, etc all become consonant + /i/.
- The sequences ūa ūu became ua uu . This also caused /uwa/ > /ua/.
- Note that nearly all /ū/ had been before another vowel even in proto-Dreamlandic.
- The sequences yi wu shifted to i u. (The surface realization of the two merged, and either can be thought of as the basic form.)
Baeba Swamp crushed PDP territory here and the population switched to speaking Middlesex.
At this point the alphabet consisted of a very small number of glyphs:
a i u wa pa (pi) pu ma (mi) mu ta na ni nu ne sa si su se la ra ya ye ka (ki) ku ŋa (ŋi) ŋu ha hi hu
However, unlike neighboring languages, syllables could end in /n t/, which assimilated Palli-style to a following consonant. Note that this is due to phonetic analysis, and there was never a stage in which clusters like /tk/ appeared at the surface. Thus, this cannot be used to trigger a sound change such as /tk/ > /t/ that would fill in the syllabary.
Common vowel nuclei were /a i u ā ai au āi āu ua uu ia ii iu/. There were also /e ei eu/, but these could only appear after /n s y/ and never in bare form. Also, there was no */ea/.
The sequences /ia ua/ can be considered equivalent to the bare syllables /ya wa/ because /ya wa/ never occurred after consonants.
The alveolars /t l r/ only occurred before /a/, but this /a/ could precede /i/ or /u/, and also could be long, so a five-way contrast of /a ai au āi āu/ was maintained.
Possible sound changes if this branch survive include vowel shifts to fill in the near-gaps of /pi ki/ and /t s l r/ before other vowels. possibly /ai au āi āu i u/ > /i u e o Ø Ø/ at least conditionally. Or the high vowels might be retained.
Alternatively, there could be shifts like /tapu taku/ > /tō/ > /to/. But note that this is asymmetric ... there is no crop of /pi ki/ that could provide new /e/'s.
Syllable rows like /na ni nu ne/ could be reanalyzed as /na nʲi ni nʲa/.
Distribution
This was the language of the Soap party, also known as Suds. They were pacifists who lost a war against the Crystals and therefore their language became a substratum of the Crystal language. The Crystals opposed slavery, and therefore the Suds were allowed to move out, but many stayed and resigned themselves to living as an underclass in Baeba Swamp. This was because, as pacifists, they opposed both sides of the war that had cost them their homeland, and thus considered themselves equally at home among their enemies as among their former allies.
Because the language lost most /p/ early on and also lost some /m/, it does not have the same character as the northern languages, DPR and Baywatch. But the restricted distribution of the coronals /t l r/ made the language stand out from all of its neighbors even so, and when the Crystals took control of the Soapies' homeland, the Soap language rapidly evolved a more phonologically stable inventory.
Proto-Dreamlandic (1495) to Sesesi (~2700)
The end date might be earlier, because this originally contained additional sound changes under influence from Baeba Swamp.
- Labialization was defeated, leaving no effects on the vowels.
- The sequence ya shifted to ye.
- Before a vowel, the voiceless sequences pu p pi shifted to w Ø y. (This includes mp > mm > m). Any preceding vowels became long. (But note that īy ūw were equivalent to ī ū.)
- The geminates pp čč kk shifted to p č k.
- The sequences hi fi ti tu shifted to si si si su. Then all č became š.
- Any remaining t shifted to r.
- The fricatives f š shifted to h s.
- Before a vowel, the sequences pi mi ni li ri (including from earlier /mbi/) shifted to s n n l r .
- added /ni/ because there was no /ñ/ in the target phonology.
- The prenasalized sequences nr ns ŋk shifted to n s k. Adds vowel length?
- The sequences aw ew iw uw shifted to ō ō ū ū. Thus a new vowel, /ō/, was created; however there was no short counterpart. This shift also included tautosyllabic /au/, /eu/, etc.
- The sequences ay ey iy uy shifted to ē ē ī ī.
- The double vowel sequence aa shifted to ā.
- Long vowels followed by another vowel became short. Thus the new sequences like /ōa/ became /oa/, and the reflexes of earlier /ipia/ merged with /ipa/, and so on.
Thus the alphabet consisted of 39 syllables:
a i u wa wu pa pi pu ma mi mu na ni nu ne sa si su se la li lu le ra ri ru re ya yi ye ka ki ku ŋa ŋi ŋu ha hi hu
The short vowels were /a e i u/ and the long vowels were /ā ē ī ō ū/.
This branch divides less rapidly than the others. There will be /s h/ > /0/, and may be /uk ku/ > /up pu/ and /ik ki/ > /it ti/ (through k > ć > ṭ), but only if these consonants can be separated from this context by later vowel shifts.
Sesesi to Valley of the Minds
This language is spoken in the northern part of Dreamland, by people who made it to the north before the speakers of North Dreamlandic did. It may have survived in a valley with one major city. Also, these sound changes might apply to other languages of the family as well, since VoM did not break off from near the root.
- When not before a vowel, the sequences se ne le re shifted to the consonants s n l r. Thus closed syllables were created.
- The long vowels ē ō decomposed to ay aw.
South Dreamlandic languages
These are ordered east-to-west.
These lists assume that all three languages are from the same branch of the family as Dolphin Rider (DPR), rather than being related to Wildfire, PDP, or independent.
Senampattore language
Pupa language
Lohi language
- The mid vowel e, which occurred almost entirely after palatalized consonants, shifted to a. Thus, the vowel inventory was reduced to /a i u/, with frequent sequences of /ya wa yi wu/ but no others.
- The true palatals ć ń ś shifted to č ň š .
- NOTE ON POLITICS: The main DPR list begins here.
- The labiovelars kʷ ŋʷ hʷ shifted to pʷ mʷ fʷ unconditionally.
- The sequences ya wa shifted to ye o.
- In a closed syllable, the vowels i u lowered to e o. Long vowels did not shift.
- The sequence āi shifted to ē.
- Between vowels, the sequence ta shifted to ra.
- The prenasals mp nt nč ŋk shifted to voiced stops b r r g.
- The voiceless coronals t č š shifted to s . Meanwhile ň shifted to n.
- The palatalized labials pʲ mʲ fʲ bʲ became f m f b. Thus palatalization was defeated.
- It appears that lʲ rʲ also shifted to l r.
- The sequences hi hu shifted to si fu. Then ŋi shifted to ni.
- NOTE ON POLITICS: DPR breaks away at this point.
Western languages
The western branch broke off around 1300 AD, and then lost contact with the others. There could be as many as five languages by 3370 AD, but the growth of the other branches would have prevented these daughter languages from splitting into further branches.
Changes unique to Western Fojy
- The voiceless non-sibilant fricatives f fʲ h hʷ shifted to Ø Ø Ø w.
- The palatalized labials pʲ mʲ shifted to p m.
- The bare vowel u shifted to ʉ. Then wa shifted to wo. Neither of these shifts were phonemic.
The language at this stage had exactly 100 syllables, if the clusters pp kk mp nt nk are counted as single onsets. This makes WF one of two related languages to evolve a 100-character syllabary early in their history, the other being the very early stages of the Gold language.
However, the 100 syllable analysis ignores the rare independent final nasal /n/. There were many vowel sequences, such as /ie/, as well as inherited long vowels which were now written as doubles.
The syllabary consisted of signs for
a i ʉ ya wo yi wu ye pa pi pʉ __ pwo __ pwu pe ma mi mʉ mwo mwu me ta (ci cʉ) tya tyi tye na ni nʉ nya nyi nye sa si sʉ sya syi sye la li lʉ lya lyi lye ra ri rʉ rya ryi rye ka ki kʉ kya kwo kyi kwu kye ŋa ŋi ŋʉ ŋya ŋwo ŋyi ŋwu ŋye ppa ppi ppʉ ppwo ppwu ppe kka kki kkʉ kkya kkwo kkyi kkwu kkye mpa mpi mpʉ mpwo mpwu mpe nta (nci ncʉ) ntya ntyi ntye ŋka ŋki ŋkʉ ŋkya ŋkwo ŋkyi ŋkwu ŋkye
In the year 3958, one of the languages of Western Fojy (here "WF", or Wildfire) took over all of Dreamland, only to be swept out by the Dolphin Rider language in 4108.
Proto-Western Fojy (1900) to Wildfire I (3958)
This language loses its /ʉ/, creating an unbalanced setup where most of the consonants cannot occur before a back vowel.
- The weak vowel ʉ disappeared to Ø, creating closed syllables.
- Triple consonant sequences became double.
Culture
The western tribes were well-known for their military ineptitude, but still were able to win wars when other Dreamer tribes were on their side.
Para-Birch languages
Bilabials: p m f w Alveolars: t n s l Postalveolars: š y Velars: k ŋ h g
There were four vowels, and the diphthongs /ai əi au əu/. The tone system was à/ă/ā and the schwa only occurred on the low tone.