Right now, I'm just looking for thoughts, comments or feelings about the premise in general, the phonology I've devised and the sound changes that led to it.
Consonants
Out-of-conworld notes: Such an extensive retroflex series may seem a little bit odd for a Romance language, but I took Sardinian /ɖɖ/ and analogized the changes to create an entire, fully phonemic series of them.
Plosives: /p b t d ts (dz) tɕ (dʑ) ʈ ɖ k ɡ/ - p b t d c z č ž ṭ ḍ k g
Nasals: /m mː n nː ɳ ɲ ɲː/ - m mm n nn ṇ ñ ññ
Fricatives: /f v β θ ð s z ʂ ʐ ɕ ʑ x ɣ ħ/ - f v ḇ ṯ ḏ s z ṣ ẓ š ž x γ ħ
Rhotics: /r/ - r
Laterals: /l ɭ ʎ/ - l ḷ ľ
Approximants: /w j/ - w y
Vowels
Monophthongs: /i ɛ a ɔ u/ (tonic), /i a u/ (atonic)
Diphthongs: not really. Maybe from new hiatuses where -d- and -g- used to separate vowels (something like saita from sagittam), but maybe I'll just monophthongize those too.
Random Notes
- - Much as the Italian postalveolar and palatal consonants /ɲ ʃ ʎ/ are always geminated between vowels, the retroflex series is also always geminated between vowels. This is because all the retroflex consonants originate in some permutation of /l/ or /r/ plus a coronal consonant. All other consonants besides the nasals are never geminated between vowels. The length distinction on the nasals is truly phonemic; respectively, /mː nː ɲː/ come from the assimilation of earlier /mb nd ɲdʒ ŋɡ/.
- Just like in Sardinian, /k/ and /ɡ/ do not palatalize before /i e ɛ/ as in the other Romance languages. The phonemes /tʃ/ and /dʒ/ come from other sources.
- The pairs /b β/, /d ð/ and /g ɣ/ are only very marginally contrastive. The phonemes /β ð ɣ/ never occur initially, and intervocalic /b d ɡ/ comes from -bb-, -dd- and -gg-, which was rare in Latin (mostly, I'd surmise that the vast majority of instances of these come from the assimilation of the prefix ad- to the following consonant).
- I decided that it's okay to have /v/ (from V. Latin [β]) and /β/ (from V. Latin [p] between vowels) distinct because, apparently, Sardinian does it.
- Sharshali was coaxed into evolving the Semiticky/Berbery consonants /θ x ħ/ under the influence of Punic, the Berber languages and Arabic.
- I don't like retroflex consonants very much, so I'm thinking about shifting them all forward to create a dental-alveolar distinction, or just merging them completely with the dentalveolar consonants. Good/interesting idea?
I'm just covering the important ones. They might be a little bit out of order; the Master List is in an ugly and unhelpful SCA format.
Late V. Latin Changes
C → 0 / _# (except for s, n)
s → z / V_V
ss → s
d, g → 0 / V_V
i, ɪ, (y, ʏ) → i
e, ɛ → e̞
o, ɔ → o̞
u, ʊ → u
i, e → j / _V
o, u → w / _V
kʷ → p
e → j / VC_#
u → 0 / VC_# (important to note that this occurs before p, t, k lenite)
Anaptyxis
sC → isC
Palatalization
mj → mɲ
nj, ŋn → ɲ
lj → ʎ
kj, kl → tʃ
#j, jj, dj, gj, gl → dʒ
tj, dj → ts, dz
t, d → ts, dz / _i
sj, skj → ʃ
sk → ʃ / _i, e
zj → ʒ
Intervocalic Plosive Chain Lenition
pp, tt, kk → p, t, k → b, d, g ( > β, ð, ɣ)
bb, dd, gg → b, d, g
Retroflex-ization
ll, rl, ld → ɭɭ
str → ʂʈ → ʂʂ
tr, tl, dr, rj→ ʈ, ʈ, ɖ, ʐ / #_
lt, tl, tr, dr, rj, rn, ln → ʈʈ, ʈʈ, ʈʈ, ɖɖ, ʐʐ, ɳɳ, ɳɳ / V_V
Nasal Assimilation Chain Shift
mp, nt, ɲtʃ, ŋk → mb, nd, ɲdʒ, ŋg → mm, nn, ɲɲ, ŋŋ (> ɲɲ)
Syncope
V → 0 / _CV[+stress] (where V1 ≠ a)
Final Devoicing
β, ð, ɣ → ɸ, θ, x~χ
r → r̥ → ʂ
l, ʎ → ɬ, ʎ̥ (maybe)
Random
rr → ʀ → ʁ → χ (in some dialects), ħ (in other dialects)
ts(j) → θ
#fr, ɸ → fx → ħ or χ
β, v → w / V[+back]_
s → z / _C[+voice]
ʂ ʐ → ʃ ʒ / _#
other retroflex → dentalveolar / _#
ʃ ʒ → ɕ ʑ
tʃ → tɕ
dz dʑ → z ʑ
θ, x, s → 0 / V[+high]_#
Hiatus Resolution
VV → V / if V=V
ai, ae, ei → e
ao, au, ou → o
iV, eV → ijjV, ejjV
uV, oV → uwwV, owwV
Random Vowel Changes
e, o → ɛ, ɔ / _[+stress]
e, o → i, u / _[-stress]
a → ɛ / C[+palatal]_[+stress]
a → ɐ / _[-stress]
Numbers (sample)
Fun fact: Sharshali mimics Semitic gender polarity in numerals 2 and up by analogizing new feminine (or rather, masculine) forms where Latin has none.
un, una
dus, duwwa
ṭes, ṭeza
paṭu, paṭa
pimbi, pimba
šeš, šeša (first š from Phoenician/Punic š-š)
seti, seta
otu, ota
noħ, nowwa
deč, deγa
~~
So, what do you guys think?