To flesh out this family, I am starting with the reconstructions of Pre-Basque, as described in the Etymological Dictionary of Basque. Disclaimer: I'm neither a Basque speaker nor trained in Vasconic linguistics, so its very likely I've misunderstood my source material. That reconstruction seems to be confident about the state of the language back to ~0 CE, but unclear beforehand. My goal is to create a set of consistent, motivated sound changes that produce the situation reconstructed for Pre-Basque, to arrive at the situation 1500-2000 years previously, when Pre-Pre-Pre-Basque (P3V) would have diverged from Proto-Atlantovasconic (PAV).
Right now, I feel that the sound changes that I have turn the clock back ~800-1200 years. They only address the consonants, however, and I think that I would like to do some significant vowel shifts but I'm unsure of how to do so at the moment.
The reconstruction for Pre-Basque (PV, the end state of any sound changes I write) has sixteen consonants:
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p t k tz ts N L R
b d g z s n l r
- Only the consonants /b g z s n l/ can appear word-initially.
- Only the consonants /tz ts R N Z/ can appear word-finally.
- The only allowable intervocalic syllable clusters are /s/ or /z/ followed by a voiceless stop or /n/, /l/ or /r/ followed by any one of /p t k d g z s tz ts/
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p' b p
t' d t
k' g k
z s n l r
- Aspirated stops in clusters weaken or mutate:
- p' -> b/C_
- t' -> ts/C_
- k' -> tz/C_
- /z s/ are lost before a sonorant, which become lengthened/trilled. For example, the clusters /nn sn zn/ all become /N/.
- Initial stops are weakened and final consonants are weakened.
- p' -> b, b -> p, p -> 0 word initially.
- t' -> d, d -> t, t -> 0 word initially.
- k' -> g, g -> k, k -> 0 word initially.
- z -> tz, s -> ts, n -> N, l -> L, r -> R word finally.
- /d/ is deleted word-initially.
- PV "ability, power" *anaL < P2V **nanal
- "apple" *sagaR < **sagar
- "arm" *beso < **p'eso
- "atmosphere" *giro < **k'iro
- "aunt" *izeba < **tizeba
- "back (anatomy)" *bizkar < **p'izkar
- "badger" *azkone < **t'azkone
- "bear (animal)" *artz < **tárk'a
- "beard" *bizaR < **p'izar
- "bee" *erle < **derle
- "birch" *burki < **p'urki
A main goal in writing this post was to force myself to write my thoughts down coherently somewhere, but of course I'd welcome feedback.