Play substratum languages
This family could be called Paleo-Pabappa but I may want to repurpose that name since Pabappa is so far in the future from when this family dies out that it may imply a connection that is actually not there.
The Play substratum languages are a branch of the Lenian languages, also known as the Dreamlandic languages, spoken by people who sailed in the opposite direction and ended up with a smaller but more bountiful piece of land to live on as compared to the Dreamers who won control of a large span of land that had abundant seacoast and good fishing but was mostly too dry for agriculture.
It is possible that the "PDP" languages will be added somewhere in here, as their sound changes are no longer appropriate for their location in Dreamland now that the history of Dreamlandic has been shifted back 800 years. PDP could even be the new Thaoa.
They can be called the Pàndu languages, but this is simply a mnemonic term of convenience that happens to begin with the same letter as Play and Pabappa. The native cognate of this name is fianku and neither this name nor their full name begins with or contains the letter p.
Early evolution
Shape of the proto-language
The phonology could be analyzed as
CONSONANTS VOWELS
Rounded bilabials: pʷ mʷ w a i u ə Plain bilabials: p m f (Ø) a i u Spread bilabials: pʲ mʲ fʲ y a i ə Alveolars: t n s l r a i u (/ta ci cu/) Postalveolars: č ň š *l *r a i ə (/ča či čə/) (Palatals: ć ń ś ) a i ə Velars: k ŋ h a i u Labiovelars: kʷ ŋʷ hʷ a i u ə
Though it is possible that PSL had followed Nuclear Dreamlandic in shifting the schwa vowel /ə/ to merge with /a/. The list up above showing it occurring after labialized consonants is probably a mistake, and in fact it only occurs after palatalized consonants. (If it is not a mistake, it is talking about the extremely rare /ʷe/ of the proto-language.)
A minimal phonology, and the one used by the Dreamers in their script, is
p m f t n s k ŋ h r Ø l a i u
Possible paths
Contact with Andanese
The PSL speakers lived with the Andanese people, who were a minority except in the far west where they became a majority early on. (Though these people were descended mostly from aboriginals who adopted an early branch of the Andanese language family.) The Andanic languages at this time were Lava Bed languages and thus quite difficult to learn; it may be that few PSL speakers ever learned to speak any Andanic languages and that influence in both directions was minimal.
Proto-PSL (500 AD) to Shining Wave (1900 AD)
This is the dialect of the capital city. It is monolithic and with little dialectal variation for at least the first 1,400 years of its existence because the central government is very strong. After 1,400 years, the central government is the first to switch to speaking Gold, thereby freeing the outlying areas to develop dialects. But most of these areas soon also switch to Gold and therefore the language becomes the substratum of the developing Play language.
- The voiceless non-sibilant fricatives f fʲ h hʷ shifted to Ø Ø Ø w. Even this /w/ disappears later on.
- The palatalized labials pʲ mʲ shifted to p m.
- Before any of /a ə u/, the sequences ky ŋy ly shifted to ṭ ṇ ḷ. (That is, every vowel but /i/.) It also happened, even before /i/, when an [u] (including /au/) preceded.
- NOTE that the shift is given differently in Slime Forest for the sake of convenience; Slime Forest had dentals too, but they unconditionally shifted later on to alveolars whereas in this language there was a conditional shift.
- When padded in both directions by at least two voiced sounds, the singleton voiceless sounds p ṭ t s k shifted to b ḍ d z ġ. This includes coarticulates.
- Also, prenasals like mp shifted to mb and the like even when there was no second voiced consonant.
- Prenasals in absolute word-initial position wore down to plain voiced stops.
- All geminate stops (but not nasals) became singletons.
- The dentals ṭ ṇ ḍ ḷ shifted to t m b b when not facing another labial, and otherwise to t n d l. Labiovelars did not count as labials for the purpose of this shift.
- The sequences kyi ŋyi ġyi shifted to tyi nyi dyi.
- The affricates c cc merged as ss, which in initial position or after a closed syllable shifted to s.
- The affricates č čč merged into šš, patterning as above. Then ǯ shifted to ž (it was never doubled to begin with, so no geminate is needed).
- Before any "hard" consonant, the syllables pu bu mu shifted to t t n, which assimilated to the following consonant. Then, voiced geminates like bb dd ġġ became voiceless.
- The sequences kw ŋw ġw w shifted to p m b Ø.
- λ > y.
- ə > u.
- iw uw > ū; iy uy > ī.
- Long vowels before hiatus became short.
At this point, reached around 1900 AD, AlphaLeap invaded and introduced the Gold language, which began to drive out Shining Wave since Gold was the language of the sea.
The vowels were /a i u/. The consonants were
Bilabials: p m b Alveolars: t n d l r s Palataloids: n̆ y ř š ž Velars: k ŋ ġ
All syllables could end in a vowel, /t/, or /n/, and that vowel could be long even if there was a coda. There may need to be a separate /w/, just like /y/, because vowel sequences like /ia ua/ can occur. It may also be necessary to distinguish /ii/ from /ī/ and so on, but it is unlikely that /aa/ and /ā/ are distinct.
Unlike most languages, /b d ġ/ are true voiced stops, and this trait also appeared in very early Play.
A syllable table, if needed, can be seen at ?diff=150380 .
Proto-PSL (500 AD) to Slime Forest (~2500)
This is the replacement language for Thaoa. There will be one standard language and a crop of dialects spoken further north and east. The maturation date here is a guess based on the fact that this list was originally about the same length as one that ended around 2500 AD.
- The voiceless non-sibilant fricatives f fʲ h hʷ shifted to Ø Ø Ø w.
- The palatalized labials pʲ mʲ shifted to p m.
- Before any of /a ə u/, the sequences ky ŋy ly shifted to t n l. (That is, every vowel but /i/.) It also happened, even before /i/, when an [u] (including /au/) preceded.
- Any remaining ky ŋy ly then shifted to č n̆ l.
- cu > tu.
- kw ŋw w > p m Ø .
- ř š > r s. A bare /y/ probably still existed but could be analyzed as an allophone of /i/.
- ku ŋu > Ø (or maybe /t n/), but sometimes turns the following consonant into a dorsal.
- Long vowels before hiatus became short. This likely requires phonemicization of /y w/ as in Shining Wave.
Vowels are /a i u ə/ and consonants are
Bilabials: p m Alveolars: t n s l r Postalveolars: č n̆ y Velars: k ŋ
Proto-PSL (633 AD) to Proto-Western PSL
This branch is more diverse than the others, fracturing early. It can be compared to Slavic languages if Capital PSL is Russian and Eastern PSL is Siberian.
Contact languages
The Gold language pushed out both PSL and the Fern languages. See also Tarwas and Tropical Rim.
Nik
The Nik language is a rare and perhaps unique instance of migrants not coming from the "Mumba" area of the larger island. These people may thus have been linguistically separated from the rest for 50,000 years or longer. Their language therefore may be effectively unrelated to all others. But it is possible that they learned a new language as they migrated, or that the migrants belonged to a class who had already learned to speak MRCA before they left their island.
Rasula
There were also dark-skinned settlers in Rasula. They may even have been there before the Lenians were, though this is perhaps unlikely, as it would be odd for them to bypass the much better land around the aboriginals' main settlements to fish along the coast. If they did arrive early, they could have a third branch of MRCA/DRM all to themselves. Otherwise, they will either be part of the Lava Bed clade, thus being Tropical Rim (but not within any other branch), or else early colonists who left AlphaLeap, which under the new writeup was an original settlement and not founded only in 1088. The latter plan would make their language part of the Tropical Rim/Extension.
