Towards Proto-Atlantovasconic
Posted: Sun May 06, 2018 8:42 pm
I'm doing some conworlding related to Atlantis, and have decided that, for my purposes, Atlantean civlization flourished on Earth until about 1600 BCE when their entire landmass was suddenly and violently transported to another world. Their languages represent other branches of the Atlantovasconic vamily, a primary language family that includes the Atlantean languages and Basque.
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:
The phoneme /z/ is a retroflex unvoiced sibilant and /tz/ a retroflex affricate. The phonemes /N L R/ are sustained or trilled versions of /n l r/. The phonotactics are very constrained:
Where /p' t' k'/ are aspirated stops. The status of aspiration in PV seems extremely murky, so I am taking some liberties with it. A syllable in P2V always begins with a consonant and optionally ends with one of the phonemes /z s n l r/. This develops into PV through the following sound changes:
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.
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:
Code: Select all
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/
Code: Select all
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.