Conlang relay [relocated] (aka "The Cursed Relay")

[the duke of nuke]

Hey all!
I've been enjoying watching the continued development of Akana - especially Tuysáfa - and tinkering with my Western side-project, Ayčasamo. Now it's time to post my work on an Akanaran language whose existence has been known from the very beginning but about which little has been written - Meshi.

I worked out the sound changes about a year ago, with help from Dunomapuka and others. Since then I've had some thoughts on the grammar and lexicon, and even put a very tentative sample together.

Zaryuzwar pishi in awpi za chik us za pad umwu Kaswun.
Wu chik gwun az nyad, wu nyad Dak za Kasad, am wu pwun ji lud achis achis.
Nak nak zan wu chik zasa za Meshi.
Zaryuzwar commissioned this monument in honour of her father Kaswun.
He was fierce in battle, he fought the Ndak in Kasadgad, and he captured many slaves from them.
The gods will judge him worthy of the Meshi.

Code: Select all

Zaryuzwar pishi      in   awpi     za  chik us     za  pad    umwu    Kaswun.
Zaryuzwar shape-CAUS this monument DAT make honour DAT father 3SG.GEN Kaswun
Wu      chik gwun   az  nyad, wu      nyad  Dak  za  Kasad, am  wu      pwun ji   lud     achis achis.
3SG.DIR make fierce DAT fight 3SG.DIR fight Ndak DAT Kasca  and 3SG.DIR take from 3PL.DIR slave REDUP
Nak nak   zan    wu      chik zasa   za  Meshi.
god REDUP decide 3SG.DIR make worthy DAT Meshi

The wordlist I have is poor in verbs and especially prepositions, so I've improvised... To write anything resembling a grammar I'll need to work out how a lot of grammatical functions (subordination, for instance!) actually operate.

What Meshi is like:

• Fusional (infixing or ablauting) verbal morphology, worn down by two rounds of apocope. Verbs have just one inflected form, the atelic, derived from the j-grade, supplemented by a set of derivational suffixes derived from the stem vowel (like Ngauro); so ays "talk to" has an atelic ayis "call on", and derivatives ayshi "advise", aysu "speak", ayse "answer", aysachi "conversation", aysuchi "language"...
• Isolating morphology for everything else. Nouns don't inflect at all - although they reduplicate for number (again, with parallels in Ngauro, e.g. kasd-kasd) and there are some case particles that behave a bit like prefixes. Pronouns have direct, dative, and ablative-genitive cases.
• SVO, mostly head-first, word order. PEV word-order has been largely retained, and head-first-ness was probably reinforced by contact with several Macro-Talo-Edastean languages.
• Moderately simple phonology. Syllables are (C)(j/w)V(C), with the phoneme inventory below; ch j sh zh are post-alveolar; f v are only marginally phonemic.

Code: Select all

i   u
ay aw
 e
  a

  m    n
 p b  t d  ch j   k g
 f v  s z  sh zh
  w   r l    y

In order to derive some useable vocabulary, I've done a few things:

• Derived from PEI and PEV. This has in some cases made me have to choose between possibilities where a reconstruction has been ambiguous.
• Reconstructing PEV roots from Miwan and deriving from those. The same caveat applies.
• Borrowed from Ndak Ta, PTE and PX. Pretty straightforward.
• Borrowed from Antagg. Working from Salmoneus' very partial draft of Royig, I've worked out the sound changes from PTE and used them to derive a wordlist; if this doesn't match up with Sal's work, I will cheerfully claim that it's a different dialect.

Of course, this is all very tentative. Because of the wide (if brief) influence of the Meshi on Akanaran history and linguistics, I don't want to write up anything that will contradict earlier work - but by the same token, it feels to me like there should be something substantive in place to describe these people and their language.

[Arzena]

Cool stuff Duke of Nuke! You're inspiring me to get back to working on Shtasa and Empotle7a and fleshing them out

[Cedh]

Very cool indeed!

In order to derive some useable vocabulary, I've done a few things:

You know you're also allowed to make up new PEI roots, don't you? Especially since you're working forward, which hasn't been done much in the Eigə-Isthmus family...

You're inspiring me to get back to working on Shtasa and Empotle7a and fleshing them out

Go ahead!
(I've also been playing around a bit in the Western family recently, (a) elaborating on some of the additional PW roots I introduced for Tmaśareʔ and wondering about the shape of their possible cognates in other Western languages including Empotle7a, (b) playing with an idea for a new language that shares the first couple of sound changes with Çetázó but then moves in a phonologically very different direction, and (c) trying to do something with Gezoro. Seeing Meshi fleshed out inpires me to get on with some of these ideas too, especially with the Gezoro one. It would be nice to coordinate our thoughts here a bit, and maybe even do some slightly deeper collaboration...)

[the duke of nuke]

Thanks for the positive feedback! I'll put it on the wiki tomorrow so you can take a proper look at it and make suggestions. (I'm especially happy with the verbal morphology - most of my Akanaran conlangs just pile on suffixes, so having a nice succinct system of ablaut and infixes appeals to my Germanic sensibilities.)

You know you're also allowed to make up new PEI roots, don't you? Especially since you're working forward, which hasn't been done much in the Eigə-Isthmus family...

I plan to do so (there's not much alternative for creating a workable lexicon), but working from existing roots has let me get a feel for the language.

You're inspiring me to get back to working on Shtasa and Empotle7a and fleshing them out

I've also been playing around a bit in the Western family recently, (a) elaborating on some of the additional PW roots I introduced for Tmaśareʔ and wondering about the shape of their possible cognates in other Western languages including Empotle7a, (b) playing with an idea for a new language that shares the first couple of sound changes with Çetázó but then moves in a phonologically very different direction, and (c) trying to do something with Gezoro. Seeing Meshi fleshed out inpires me to get on with some of these ideas too, especially with the Gezoro one. It would be nice to coordinate our thoughts here a bit, and maybe even do some slightly deeper collaboration...

That all sounds excellent to me!
I have a soft spot for nomad empires (and playing a lot of Magic: the Gathering lately has helped) and it'd be great to see more development of the Tjakori plateau / Coastal Corridor region. If you'd like to coordinate things, I'm reachable here and on the Akana forum, and I'm usually signed into IRC weekday evenings although this week is pretty busy.

[Corumayas]

I like what you've done too! I have some notes about PEV that I should share; though they're nothing earth-shattering, some of the details might affect your design for Meshi a little. I'll try to post them later today.

I also have a much-less-than-half-baked idea about sound changes for a Western daughter, based on trying to come up with an etymology for the name Zmůwø that Dewrad gave to the mountains near the Proto-Western homeland (i.e. those between the "Coastal Corridor" and the Tjakori region). It's easily summed up:

zmůwø < PW *dzama-γʷeye-(k) ‘red hill(s)’

Something like: *dzama-γʷeye > dzamaweye > zamaweye > zamowøye > zamowøe > zmowøe > zmowø > zmůwø

Perhaps the <ů> here represents /u/ while the normal realization of <u> is unrounded /ɯ/ (as in Empotle7á). The development *dzama- > zma- occurs in Radius' Mountain Western, while rounding adjacent to /w/ is an Empotle7á feature... so perhaps this language would be sort of intermediate between those two.

The environment, and the name "Red Hills", makes me think the region west of the Tjakori river might look similar to the US Southwest...

[the duke of nuke]

Fascinating! And I'd love to see what you've got on PEV, though no rush - Meshi is at an early stage and I don't mind changing things around to fit.

[Cedh]

I also have a much-less-than-half-baked idea about sound changes for a Western daughter, based on trying to come up with an etymology for the name Zmůwø that Dewrad gave to the mountains near the Proto-Western homeland (i.e. those between the "Coastal Corridor" and the Tjakori region). It's easily summed up:

zmůwø < PW *dzama-γʷeye-(k) ‘red hill(s)’

Something like: *dzama-γʷeye > dzamaweye > zamaweye > zamowøye > zamowøe > zmowøe > zmowø > zmůwø

Perhaps the <ů> here represents /u/ while the normal realization of <u> is unrounded /ɯ/ (as in Empotle7á). The development *dzama- > zma- occurs in Radius' Mountain Western, while rounding adjacent to /w/ is an Empotle7á feature... so perhaps this language would be sort of intermediate between those two.

FWIW, in early Gezoro that word would come out as something like /zɔmuˈɡiː/ with stress on the third syllable, and something like /ˈzmɔɡeː/ with stress on the second syllable. Not too far away, I'd say, so maybe you could build on the initial changes for Gezoro so that your language can be identified with Tjakori? (Which would require, however, that you can also derive /tjakori/ or similar from *takadłe 'grassland'...)

[Cedh]

I think I have mostly finished fleshing out the sound changes for the major dialects of Gezoro now. (That is, I'm done with them unless I come across any phonologically illegal sequences when I have a closer look at the morphology.) They build upon Kodé's changes on the wiki page, add a bit more detail to the Early Gezoro stage, and make sure that all of those Gezoro loanwords in Edastean languages that Kodé or myself could find a fitting PW etymology for have a suitable source form for borrowing in at least one of the dialects.

I'm positing four different dialects of Late Gezoro. Grammatically, all of them will be fairly similar, and I think I'll describe only one of them in detail (probably the southern one). Phonologically, many Proto-Western words come out the same, but others are fairly distinct. Here's an overview about phonological characteristics of the dialects:

• Western Rathedān Gezoro (spoken in the valleys of Hiphago and Zophīs), which is characterised by a relatively large vowel system with two heights of mid vowels but no diphthongs, by fronting of Early Gezoro /a aː ɔ ɔː/ to /ɛ ɛː a aː/ in most environments, by retention of Early Gezoro's nasalised vowels /ɜ̃ ɜ̃ː/, by nasal mutation of approximants when preceded by one of these nasalised vowels, by having /ɲ h/ instead of /ŋ x/, and by epenthesis of echo vowels after word-final resonants.
• Southern Rathedān Gezoro (spoken in the valley of Radias, Mezaras and Nitazē), which is characterised by a smaller vowel system with no nasalised vowels and only one height for mid vowels, but with frequent diphthongs /au ai oi/ (/au/ is the default reflex of Early Gezoro /ɔ ɔː/ adjacent to voiced consonants, and /oi/ is the default reflex of Early Gezoro /ɜ̃ː/), by vocalisation of coda liquids, and by lenition of the unaspirated plosive series to voiced plosives in many unstressed positions.
• Central Rathedān Gezoro (spoken in the region around Athalē and Thāras), which tends to be quite similar to the southern dialect, but does not have voicing of unaspirated plosives and is additionally characterised by apocope of many word-final vowels and by deaffrication of Early Gezoro /ts/ to /tʰ/.
• Kasadgad Gezoro (spoken by the descendants of those Gezoro who were deported to Kasadgad as slaves by Tsinakan), which has undergone some phonological influence from Ndak Ta and is characterized by deaspiration of all aspirated plosives, by a shift of /x/ to /ɡ/ and of word-final /l/ to /r/, and by a loss of the vowel length distinction in all unstressed syllables.

Some sample words:

PW *ʔṹtaʔału 'smell with tooth' > Early Gezoro [ˈɜ̃tɔːr] 'cook' > Western [ɔnˈtʰaːr], Southern [ˈentʰur], Central [ˈentʰor], Kasadgad [ˈẽtor]
PW *kʰãʔákʰeyákwi 'black sand' > EG [kɔˈkʰeɔk] 'ore' > W [kaˈkʰɛːk], S [ɡeˈkʰoiɡ], C [kaˈkʰaːk], K [koˈkejok]
PW *łã́šičéka 'sit on a horse' > EG [ˈrɜ̃lɛk] 'ride' > W [ˈrɔːnɛk], S [ˈroilek], C [ˈraːlak], K [ˈrẽːlak]
PW *yáma 'sun' > EG [jɔm] > W [ˈjama], S [jaum], C [jaum], K [jom]
PW *túca 'house' > EG [tuts] > W [tuts], S [tuts], C [tutʰ], K [tuts]
PW *dzáldayã 'bird' > EG [ˈzɔrdeɜ̃] > W [zarˈdɜ̃ː], S [ˈzuːdoi], C [ˈzordoi], K [ˈzorden]
PW *γã́dželáwe 'big people' > EG [ˈgɜ̃zrɔu] 'Gezoro' > W [ɡɜ̃zoˈrɔː], S [ɡezoˈroː], C [ˈɡezoro], K [ˈɡẽzarau]

[dunomapuka]

Hey all!
I've been enjoying watching the continued development of Akana - especially Tuysáfa - and tinkering with my Western side-project, Ayčasamo. Now it's time to post my work on an Akanaran language whose existence has been known from the very beginning but about which little has been written - Meshi.

I worked out the sound changes about a year ago, with help from Dunomapuka and others. Since then I've had some thoughts on the grammar and lexicon, and even put a very tentative sample together.

Zaryuzwar pishi in awpi za chik us za pad umwu Kaswun.
Wu chik gwun az nyad, wu nyad Dak za Kasad, am wu pwun ji lud achis achis.
Nak nak zan wu chik zasa za Meshi.
Zaryuzwar commissioned this monument in honour of her father Kaswun.
He was fierce in battle, he fought the Ndak in Kasadgad, and he captured many slaves from them.
The gods will judge him worthy of the Meshi.

Code: Select all

Zaryuzwar pishi      in   awpi     za  chik us     za  pad    umwu    Kaswun.
Zaryuzwar shape-CAUS this monument DAT make honour DAT father 3SG.GEN Kaswun
Wu      chik gwun   az  nyad, wu      nyad  Dak  za  Kasad, am  wu      pwun ji   lud     achis achis.
3SG.DIR make fierce DAT fight 3SG.DIR fight Ndak DAT Kasca  and 3SG.DIR take from 3PL.DIR slave REDUP
Nak nak   zan    wu      chik zasa   za  Meshi.
god REDUP decide 3SG.DIR make worthy DAT Meshi

The wordlist I have is poor in verbs and especially prepositions, so I've improvised... To write anything resembling a grammar I'll need to work out how a lot of grammatical functions (subordination, for instance!) actually operate.

Hey Duke! I emerge from the dark silence of the caverns where I reside to congratulate you on this. You have given Meshi exactly the feeling it seems like it deserves, and built upon the vibe I was trying to suggest with my few example words so effectively I'm just floored.

One suggestion I have - feel free to disregard - is to spice up the plural situation by making the plurals more complicated. Using full reduplication for every single word strikes me as slightly off the mark. Most languages that use reduplication abbreviate or alter one of the elements, at least some of the time. The WALS page might be a source of inspiration: http://wals.info/chapter/27

Another suggestion is to not worry about contradicting earlier work....as long as you can account for the loans into other languages, of which not many have been named, we're good.

This makes me wonder what Ngauro is like. I have the sense that the two languages are really similar, like Sanskrit and Avestan, but Ngauro is more conservative esp. with the morphology. Also the semantic "space" of Ngauro would be quite different as it is the language of an urbanized agricultural society whereas the Meshi are barbarians.

I think I have mostly finished fleshing out the sound changes for the major dialects of Gezoro now. (That is, I'm done with them unless I come across any phonologically illegal sequences when I have a closer look at the morphology.) They build upon Kodé's changes on the wiki page, add a bit more detail to the Early Gezoro stage, and make sure that all of those Gezoro loanwords in Edastean languages that Kodé or myself could find a fitting PW etymology for have a suitable source form for borrowing in at least one of the dialects.

Cedh! This is cool! One question on my mind is, how late do you suppose that these Gezoro dialects continue to be spoken in the Edastean lands? It seems that maybe it could continue to be spoken in many small pockets almost indefinitely. (with maturity, I understand more and more that the linguistic map of most places looks like confetti, the exceptions being cases of massive recent re-settlement and to some extent the influence of strong centralized states.)

[Cedh]

One question on my mind is, how late do you suppose that these Gezoro dialects continue to be spoken in the Edastean lands? It seems that maybe it could continue to be spoken in many small pockets almost indefinitely. (with maturity, I understand more and more that the linguistic map of most places looks like confetti, the exceptions being cases of massive recent re-settlement and to some extent the influence of strong centralized states.)

I'm envisioning these dialects to be spoken sometime around -1750 YP, just a few centuries after Early Gezoro. But you're definitely right about that confetti pattern. Let's see... we used to say that "the slaves in Kasadgad held on to their language much longer than the Gezoro remaining at home, who in time became absorbed into the Ndak world", but I doubt the socio-political and geographic situation in the heartland of the Ndak empire would allow those slaves to remain a coherent subculture with their own language for much more than a couple of generations, although I like that idea. Conditions in the Rathedān, however, should actually be quite favorable. If Gezoro survives until the Ndak empire loses control over the Rathedān, the dialects could easily persist for quite a while longer in some places given the mountaineous terrain and the traditional disunity of the Dāiadak city states. Especially the western dialect should have rather good chances for long-term survival as it's spoken off the main trade routes anyway. I don't think it would be a stretch to have some descendant(s) of Gezoro still be spoken as late as 200 YP. Only with the Empire of Athalē and its centralist single-language policy (which we have been assuming to kill off even Ndok Aisô, at least in those regions under the empire's control!) does the situation become significantly different, but even then the language(s) might still take refuge in a few remote mountain villages.

[the duke of nuke]

Hey Duke! I emerge from the dark silence of the caverns where I reside to congratulate you on this. You have given Meshi exactly the feeling it seems like it deserves, and built upon the vibe I was trying to suggest with my few example words so effectively I'm just floored.

Heee! Thanks - I'm very flattered by the compliment

One suggestion I have - feel free to disregard - is to spice up the plural situation by making the plurals more complicated. Using full reduplication for every single word strikes me as slightly off the mark. Most languages that use reduplication abbreviate or alter one of the elements, at least some of the time. The WALS page might be a source of inspiration: http://wals.info/chapter/27
Another suggestion is to not worry about contradicting earlier work....as long as you can account for the loans into other languages, of which not many have been named, we're good.

Thanks. Making plurals a bit less regular is more interesting and no doubt more naturalistic. I'll also not worry too much about contradiction; on the other hand, I find myself more productive and creative when I have certain constraints, rather than totally free rein.

This makes me wonder what Ngauro is like. I have the sense that the two languages are really similar, like Sanskrit and Avestan, but Ngauro is more conservative esp. with the morphology. Also the semantic "space" of Ngauro would be quite different as it is the language of an urbanized agricultural society whereas the Meshi are barbarians.

I like that idea - it both makes sense in-world and appeals to me as an engaging parallel.
I think we still have a bit of latitude with the Ngauro sound changes, too. The big differences will be the two rounds of apocope and simplification of clusters in Meshi, but there are some compelling similarities already: the vowel systems are very close, for instance, and I've liked the Ngauro verb-derivation pattern so much that I've stolen it wholesale for Meshi.

I think I have mostly finished fleshing out the sound changes for the major dialects of Gezoro now. (That is, I'm done with them unless I come across any phonologically illegal sequences when I have a closer look at the morphology.) They build upon Kodé's changes on the wiki page, add a bit more detail to the Early Gezoro stage, and make sure that all of those Gezoro loanwords in Edastean languages that Kodé or myself could find a fitting PW etymology for have a suitable source form for borrowing in at least one of the dialects.

This looks great!
I agree with Dunomapuka that they might persist in pockets long after the Ndak conquest, and maybe that's a seed for further exploration of Athaleran history. (Maybe it was the reason for the imperial policy of promoting Adāta over other languages...)

It seems like the Dark Ages are getting some illumination at last.

[Arzena]

I think I have mostly finished fleshing out the sound changes for the major dialects of Gezoro now. (That is, I'm done with them unless I come across any phonologically illegal sequences when I have a closer look at the morphology.) They build upon Kodé's changes on the wiki page, add a bit more detail to the Early Gezoro stage, and make sure that all of those Gezoro loanwords in Edastean languages that Kodé or myself could find a fitting PW etymology for have a suitable source form for borrowing in at least one of the dialects.

This has got me quite excited! I remember when I was making Shtasa that I wanted some Gezoro loan words / grammatical features. It'll be really cool to see the final products!

[Cedh]

Great to see you're all curious! Here's the first part of my grammatical sketch of Gezoro: Nominal morphology - with no cases anymore, but possessive prefixes, classifiers, and lots of pronoun paradigms. And numerals for Janko, of course...

[the duke of nuke]

That's looking great!

Aysuchi um Meshi is now taking shape on the wiki, though it's still quite untidy. I'll probably take some time to work out more vocabulary now the basic morphology is in place, since it's hard to give examples of syntax otherwise. Function words will be an interesting exercise...

[Corumayas]

Nice stuff, guys!

I've started putting up some notes on Proto-Eigə Valley. Some things to notice about the phonology:

- the vowels I once called e o are now analyzed as aj aw (though they do get monophthongized on the way to both Miwan and Meshi)

- PEV has a tone/phonation system (details still to be worked out)

- the PEI preposition ʔum becomes a syllabic nasal prefix m- (which then assimilates to the POA of a following stop), creating word-initial syllabic nasals much like those in Ndak Ta. In Miwan and Meshi these later absorb the following stop, so we have PEI ʔum pews > PEV m-biws > Miwan miw, Meshi meshi. I think the Ngauro cognate is mbes.

More to come...

[Cedh]

Cool!

- the PEI preposition ʔum becomes a syllabic nasal prefix m- (which then assimilates to the POA of a following stop), creating word-initial syllabic nasals much like those in Ndak Ta. In Miwan and Meshi these later absorb the following stop, so we have PEI ʔum pews > PEV m-biws > Miwan miw, Meshi meshi. I think the Ngauro cognate is mbes.

Just a quick remark: Judging from the prenasalised onsets of the Buruya Nzaysa words mvintu 'shoulder', nzugi 'eat, devour; use up', and nzukatu 'tomato', it might be possible that some variant of Old Eastern Miwan could have retained word-initial syllabic nasals in some way. Of course, a different explanation would be that these onsets are an adaptation process within B.Nz., which does not have non-prenasalised voiced fricatives in word-initial position in native words. At least, that's what I've assumed so far, citing the OEMiw sources of the relevant words as *vīntū, *zugīr, and *zukatun respectively (the latter word was originally coined by Radius btw).

[the duke of nuke]

Really interesting!
The things that really have me thinking are (1) the syllabic /m/; (2) reflexes of /tl dl/; and (3) the register/tone system. All of these have implications for Meshi, of course. I don't think Meshi retains register per se, or /Cl/ clusters, but I'd like to hear any suggestions on how they might be reflected - consonants being affected by register, maybe? - a fortis/lenis distinction rather than an unvoiced/voiced one in stops?

I'm also thinking about Meshi culture. I'd like to build on the idea that their religious rites "shocked even the Ndak", and that the second element of the name means something like "holy" - they should be tough, ambitious, and above all zealous as a culture. Perhaps they were driven to conquer for partly religious reasons, not unlike the Kennan. (Perhaps they even informed the Destroyer myth that featured in Anheshnalåks culture.)
I want to play around with ideas of ceremonial purity as well as the more common honour society - there are ideas in the Albanian Kanun that interest me, such as the practice of sworn virginity. Perhaps a tendency toward blood feuds was a factor in the rapid dissolution of the Meshi empire...
There are lots of possibilities to explore - we may not have tigon-riders any more, but I reckon there's still plenty of room in Akana for larger-than-life barbarian conquerors.

[Cedh]

The things that really have me thinking are (1) the syllabic /m/; (2) reflexes of /tl dl/; and (3) the register/tone system. All of these have implications for Meshi, of course. I don't think Meshi retains register per se, or /Cl/ clusters, but I'd like to hear any suggestions on how they might be reflected - consonants being affected by register, maybe? - a fortis/lenis distinction rather than an unvoiced/voiced one in stops?

(1) PEI *ʔum > PEV syllabic *m- seems to imply that at least the forms of the genitive pronouns might change somehow. It's also a possibility that some nouns would retain a distinct genitive case form, or else some earlier genitive case forms of nouns might get fossilized as adjectives and/or derived "having some kind of relation to the base" nouns. Maybe nasal mutation of the initial consonant would even stay productive as a derivational method.

(2) Maybe PEI */tl dl/ could be reflected in PEV as */ts dz/ in #_, _#, C_, and _C positions, and as */l/ (or maybe staying distinct as */l r/?) intervocalically? For Meshi, this would probably mean that some instances of /t d tʃ dʒ/ would alternate with /l/ in nominal plural reduplication and when a verbal stem vowel is added, and maybe that some instances of stem-final /l/ (from pre-PEV *-tla *-tle *-tlo *-dla *-dle *-dlo) might shift to one of /t d/ with the addition of a derivational suffix that begins with a consonant.

(3) For register, I'm not sure. Maybe breathy or creaky voice could affect adjacent obstruents in some way (breathy > voicing, creaky > glottalization > ejectives > voiceless ???). Or else, it could affect the quality of the vowel, cf. the Austro-Asiatic sound change where Old Khmer *kaː *ɡaː > Middle Khmer *kaː *ɡe̤a̯ > Modern Khmer [kaː kiə̯]. AFAIK, breathy voice tends to induce raising and/or fronting as in the Khmer example, whereas creaky voice tends to induce lowering and/or backing. I think I'd personally use something like this to create a few instances of non-palatalising /i/, and a few other vowel irregularities too which could surface in certain derivational contexts.

[Arzena]

Perhaps they were driven to conquer for partly religious reasons, not unlike the Kennan. (Perhaps they even informed the Destroyer myth that featured in Anheshnalåks culture.)
There are lots of possibilities to explore - we may not have tigon-riders any more, but I reckon there's still plenty of room in Akana for larger-than-life barbarian conquerors.

Are the Meshi that far west at the time? I was under the impression that they were on the eastern coast of Peilash. The Destroyer myth, as I originally thought of it, came from pre-existing Xshali ascetics and mystics.

[the duke of nuke]

The Meshi live in the upper-middle Aiwa valley and the Meshi valley itself (west of the Bwimbai) - see here. Diffusion via the Gezoro and Tjakori cultures would be the likely route for the story to take, but the connection is still pretty distant. It probably does make more sense for the Destroyer to be a native Xšali myth.

One thing I have noticed - what little information we have on Xšali indicates that it lost /t/ early on in its development from Proto-!Ho, so Tetsikå should either be from another !Ho language or from an adaptation to Shtåså of something like /tɬetsikɔ/.

And Cedh, thank you for your suggestions. In order...

1 - Because the sound changes make homophones much more likely (and there's not much inflectional morphology to resolve ambiguity), I think the effect of the change will be limited - nasal mutation would lead to a great many words with identical genitives. The pronouns will certainly change, though, and I really like the idea of some genitives being lexicalised. I'm going to have the syllabic /m/ return to an independent existence as a preposition /am/.

2 - I really like this one, and I'll have /tl dl/ become /l/ intervocalically.

3 - The best source I could find online for the effect of register on vowel quality is this one (PDF), which cites Khmer-style vowel breaking as an effect of breathy voice, but also notes that creaky voice causes fronting, lowering, and the appearance of offglides. Creaky voice might cause vowel breaking in Meshi, depending on the environments in which it appears in PEV, which should generate some more instances of /aj aw/.

[Corumayas]

1 - Because the sound changes make homophones much more likely (and there's not much inflectional morphology to resolve ambiguity), I think the effect of the change will be limited - nasal mutation would lead to a great many words with identical genitives. The pronouns will certainly change, though, and I really like the idea of some genitives being lexicalised. I'm going to have the syllabic /m/ return to an independent existence as a preposition /am/.

I think it might be more realistic to have Meshi innovate a new genitive preposition, rather than de-grammaticalize the m-; you should feel free to invent words (even grammatical ones)! Another option might be to use one of the other case prefixes; I've just added some notes on nominal morphology to the wiki article.

2 - I really like this one, and I'll have /tl dl/ become /l/ intervocalically.

I like this too. Perhaps it should happen in PEV, actually?

3 - The best source I could find online for the effect of register on vowel quality is this one (PDF), which cites Khmer-style vowel breaking as an effect of breathy voice, but also notes that creaky voice causes fronting, lowering, and the appearance of offglides. Creaky voice might cause vowel breaking in Meshi, depending on the environments in which it appears in PEV, which should generate some more instances of /aj aw/.

That's a nice article, thanks for posting it! I notice that it suggests that vowel breaking occurs only in long vowels, where the phonation contrast affects one mora of the vowel but not both; so this particular mechanism might not apply to Meshi... or perhaps it would affect PEV diphthongs but not monophthongal /a i u/? (The Miwan languages do have a vowel length contrast, but I think the Miwan long vowels are mostly descended from PEV breathy-voiced ones.)

One thing I have noticed - what little information we have on Xšali indicates that it lost /t/ early on in its development from Proto-!Ho, so Tetsikå should either be from another !Ho language or from an adaptation to Shtåså of something like /tɬetsikɔ/.

Could the /t/ maybe reflect a click? (Alternatively, Tetsikå could come from some entirely other language—the regions around Xšalad could be pretty linguistically diverse I think.)

[the duke of nuke]

I think it might be more realistic to have Meshi innovate a new genitive preposition, rather than de-grammaticalize the m-; you should feel free to invent words (even grammatical ones)! Another option might be to use one of the other case prefixes; I've just added some notes on nominal morphology to the wiki article.

Looks good!
How realistic would it be for *a̰s- to be reanalysed as *a̰ s- (distinct preposition and consonant mutation) and for the mutation to then be lost? If the answer is "not very", I will go ahead and make up some more words. (My cautious tendencies do get the better of me sometimes - Meshi will need a lot of new stuff whatever I choose!)

I like this too. Perhaps it should happen in PEV, actually?

Sounds reasonable to me, though I'd also suggest leaving *tl *dl in PEV so that the descendants can have distinct reflexes.

That's a nice article, thanks for posting it! I notice that it suggests that vowel breaking occurs only in long vowels, where the phonation contrast affects one mora of the vowel but not both; so this particular mechanism might not apply to Meshi... or perhaps it would affect PEV diphthongs but not monophthongal /a i u/? (The Miwan languages do have a vowel length contrast, but I think the Miwan long vowels are mostly descended from PEV breathy-voiced ones.)

A very good point... and that last idea could allow for more fun alternations between aj aw ~ i u in Meshi.

Could the /t/ maybe reflect a click? (Alternatively, Tetsikå could come from some entirely other language—the regions around Xšalad could be pretty linguistically diverse I think.)

Both very likely, yeah. (I should know better than to try pinning down specifics on Xšalad right now )

[dunomapuka]

For some reason the Ndok word dôxeu "wild boar" just popped into my head. No etymology is provided but I was thinking this should be another Meshi word, specifically an early Meshi *døra, later reflected as dera.

Also, what if a couple more traces of the old phonation contrast remained in the sound changes? They remind me of the laryngeals in PIE.

[Corumayas]

How realistic would it be for *a̰s- to be reanalysed as *a̰ s- (distinct preposition and consonant mutation) and for the mutation to then be lost? If the answer is "not very", I will go ahead and make up some more words. (My cautious tendencies do get the better of me sometimes - Meshi will need a lot of new stuff whatever I choose!)

Hmm… this inspired me to read up a little on degrammaticalization (this paper was my starting point, followed by some others by the same author that I found here). It turns out that there is at least one example of a case affix “debonding” and becoming an adposition (Northern Saami haga ‘without’), so it’s possible although rare. But then, we could just as easily describe a̰s za as prepositions rather than prefixes in PEV, and then have them remain prepositions in Meshi. (I don't think this works with m-, since it's so phonologically reduced/bonded to words.) If you don’t want to invent a new genitive marker that might be the way to go.

(Obviously I have cautious tendencies too: since the start of the Eigə-Isthmus project—in November 2007!—I don’t think I’ve invented any new roots from scratch, only “found” them in existing material. )

Sounds reasonable to me, though I'd also suggest leaving *tl *dl in PEV so that the descendants can have distinct reflexes.

It just depends how closely we want the EV languages to be related I guess. I’ve been aiming for a pretty close relationship; I imagine early Ngauro could almost be considered a dialect of PEV, and Radius used to describe Miwan and Meshi as parts of a single dialect continuum. Still, different reflexes of *tl *dl could be a fairly small but interesting difference.

For some reason the Ndok word dôxeu "wild boar" just popped into my head. No etymology is provided but I was thinking this should be another Meshi word, specifically an early Meshi *døra, later reflected as dera.

This might work, but it would depend on the timing of the loan and the relevant sound changes in both languages: when N.A. is borrowing from Meshi, does Meshi still have /ø/ while N.A. has already developed /ɞ/? And if so, shouldn’t Meshi loans in N.A. have /ɞ/ instead of /e/ across the board?

Also, what if a couple more traces of the old phonation contrast remained in the sound changes? They remind me of the laryngeals in PIE.

Heh, they are partly derived from “laryngeals” (*ʔ *h), in fact! I agree, some more traces of them in Meshi would be nice. (For what it’s worth, they will probably be preserved in Ngauro, and of course they give rise to tone in Miwan.)


Meanwhile, I’ve been sort of dithering over the verbal morphology of PEV for the past few weeks. I’ll try to post something soon, even if it’s incomplete.

[Cedh]

I have just uploaded an Early Gezoro version of "The horse and the sheep" to the wiki. Kind of weird to write a text in a Western language which has shifted to SVO with NOM-ACC alignment, but it seems to work out fine.

(And I think I've found a way to motivate the strange obligatory affirmative particle in Adāta as a contact phenomenon - for Gezoro, having a preverbal adverb in almost every sentence [often semantically vague, like kut < *kut ‘really, indeed’ which basically only states that the speaker is telling a story - but there are still many different adverbs in this position at the time of Early Gezoro] is quite a natural syntactic development from the PW second-position discourse particles.)