Play substratum languages

See User:Soap/history.

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. Likewise while the people may have used the name Puňanupi for themselves, this is not a tribal name and is here only because it's reminiscent of the sound of the Play language which they eventually ended up speaking.

Although Late Andanese speakers lived only where Play speakers lived, and although they were a minority who were eventually absorbed, the Players always considered them to be equals, and not as a substrate to stand on.

Early evolution

Shape of the proto-language

The phonology could be analyzed as

                       CONSONANTS                 VOWELS

Rounded bilabials:     pʷ  mʷ      w              a   u  
Plain bilabials:       p   m      (Ø)             a i u              
Alveolars:             t   n   s   l   r          a i u               (/ta ci cu/)
Postalveolars:         č   ň   š   λ   ř          a i   ə             (/ča či čə/)
(Palatals:             ć   ń   ś   y)             a i   ə
Velars:                k   ŋ   h                  a i u
Labiovelars:           kʷ  ŋʷ  hʷ                 a   u  

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 incorporating the early loss of /f h/ is

p  m   
t  n  s
k  ŋ   
r     l

a  i  u  ə

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 Slime Forest (~2500)

Alternate names: New Thaoa 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.

1. The voiceless non-sibilant fricatives f fʲ h hʷ shifted to Ø Ø Ø w.
2. The palatalized labials pʲ mʲ shifted to p m.
3. 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.
4. Any remaining ky ŋy ly then shifted to č n̆ l.
5. cu > tu.
6. kw ŋw w > p m Ø .
7. ř š > r s. A bare /y/ probably still existed but could be analyzed as an allophone of /i/.
8. ku ŋu > Ø (or maybe /t n/), but sometimes turns the following consonant into a dorsal.
9. Long vowels before hiatus became short. This likely requires phonemicization of /y w/ as in Shining Wave.
10. ču ňu > ku ŋu.

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

Slime Forest (2500) to Andano-Thaoa (4185)

Alternate names: New Palli

This branch is extremely conservative. The maturation date is accurate even if the start date is moved back by a few hundred years. See below for an alternative; it is unlikely that both languages exist.

1. The voiceless fricative s shifted to h unconditionally. There was no /f/, so there was no staircase shift.
2. Geminates became simple. Sequences of nasal + stop became simple stops as well, except that a preceding w r y h shifted to m n n ŋ. (Note: Andanese did NOT do this the same way.) It may have also lengthened the preceding vowel, but vowel length soon disappeared anyway except possibly for /aa/.
3. The postalveolars č n̆ y shifted to s n Ø unconditionally. ("The snow shift.")
4. The flap r shifted to l.
5. The schwa vowel ə shifted to i.
6. The vowels i u before a hiatus shifted to y v, but this was no longer phonemic.

This language thus shared its phonology with Late Andanese. Its grammar, which had originally been like that of Dreamlandic, also evolved towards the Late Andanese model, and though they did not borrow particles directly, the overall layout of the grammar was similar enough that speakers of both languages considered New Palli to be essentially Andanese with a different vocabulary.

Slime Forest (2500) to Play-Thaoa (4185)

Alternate names: New Palli

This is the same as the above, but the language evolves to the phonology of Play instead of Late Andanese. This is perhaps more likely than the above; it is unlikely that both languages exist.

1. The clusters mp nt ňč ŋk shifted to b d ǯ ġ at the beginning of a word and to mb nd ňǯ ŋġ word-internally. This is the same shift that Shining Wave had earlier done, and this may have been due to Shining Wave influence, but that language was rapidly being pushed out by Play.
2. The voiced stops d ǯ ġ disappeared between vowels. This may have only come up in loanwords, and by this time the language was already being influenced by Play instead of Shining Wave. The voiced stop b remained.

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.

1. The voiceless non-sibilant fricatives f fʲ h hʷ shifted to Ø Ø Ø w. Even this /w/ disappears later on.
2. The palatalized labials pʲ mʲ shifted to p m.
3. 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.

4. 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.
5. Also, prenasals like mp shifted to mb and the like even when there was no second voiced consonant.
6. Prenasals in absolute word-initial position wore down to plain voiced stops.
7. All geminate stops (but not nasals) became singletons.
8. 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.
9. The sequences kyi ŋyi ġyi shifted to tyi nyi dyi.
10. The affricates c cc merged as ss, which in initial position or after a closed syllable shifted to s.
11. 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).
12. 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.
13. The sequences kw ŋw ġw w shifted to p m b Ø.
14. λ > y.
15. ə > u.
16. iw uw > ū; iy uy > ī.
17. 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. (NOTE: AlphaLeap was at this time cooperating with Nama, and Nama was probably the stronger power at the time. AlphaLeap was not really empowered to do land invasions, and so they may have merely patrolled the sea, while perhaps Nama sent some soldiers in to occupy the land. Nama had agreed, in any case, to use AlphaLeap's trade language, which was Gold.)

The vowels were /a i u/. The consonants were

 Bilabials:      p   m   b    
 Alveolars:      t   n   d   l   r   s
 Palataloids:        ň       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, but like Play with its sole voiced stop /b/, these voiced stops pattern like approximants (or fricatives), and therefore /ž/ could be placed in the same column for the sake of tidiness.

The sound changes suggest that there should be a phonemic z as well. In most languages, this would quickly shift to r or d, but this language exists in a time and place in which true voiced stops were common (not just approximants with stop allophones), and because /ř/ contrasts with /ž/, it could be that /r/ also contrasted with /z/.

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.

Actually there might be just three languages, only diverging around 1700 AD, which would mean that this branch is much like the Shining Wave branch.

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.

1. The aspirated velar stop k became č before the vowel /i/. If another vowel followed, the /i/ disappeared. This happened even if the /i/ was accented.
2. When a "velaroid" consonant (/k ḳ ŋ h g l/) followed an accented high tone vowel, the vowel metathesized, leaving a closed syllable. Thus, for example, /àli/ > /ail/. These closed syllables were all high-toned, and are thus written without tone marks.
3. A schwa before another vowel in any syllable disappeared. Thus əa əe əi əo əu əə shifted to a e i o u ə. This happened in both open and closed syllables.
4. The double-vowel sequences aa ee ii oo uu əə shifted to the single vowels a e i o u ə in closed syllables only.
5. Andanese influence could shift tʷ dʷ nʷ > k ġ ŋ, and perhaps also ḳ > q. Thus the language sounds quite guttural, and the Play substratum speakers dislike the sound while the Rasulans think of the pre-Play population as babyish.
6. An early shift of ki > č(i), shared with Gold, might in this language also be followed by more palatalizations, but the ejective was immune as were all labialized consonants (this is why they became plain velars later).
7. i ə > ʲi i.
8. e o > ʲɜ ɜ.
9. stressed ɜ > a if another /a/ is in the word.
10. pʲ bʲ mʲ > f v m. /f v/ probably shift to /s d/ later on, as in Gold, implying they might have retained a palatal articulation.

History and cultural conflicts

See User:Soap/history.