Verse:Mwail/Ker

Proto-Trans-Sarnathian, a descendant of Proto-Akya-Woms, was spoken 3000 years BP.

Fortunately for Angaian historical linguists, extremely conservative relatives of Zzean within the Trans-Sarnathian branch are spoken in highly mountainous areas. They allow much of Proto-Trans-Sarnathian to be reconstructed.

(Proto-languages are reconstructed in-universe, but this article takes the Word of God point of view unless specified otherwise. In particular, only in-universe reconstructions are indicated with an asterisk.)

Tree

• Proto-Trans-Sarnathian
  • Dylathic
    • Dylathian
  • Old Zzean
    • Min analogue (Monosyllabic highly tonal Navajo gib)
    • Middle Zzean
      • Modern Zzean (Loosely mono-Gwich'in)

Proto-Trans-Sarnathian phonology

Vowels

i ɨ u ə e o a (all with length)

əi əɨ əu aj aɨ au

Consonants

• /m n l r/
• /p t c k kʷ/
• /bʰ dʰ ɟʰ gʰ gʷʰ/
• /pʼ tʼ cʼ kʼ kʷʼ/
• /ç s̠ x ʔ/
• /j w/

Stress

Word-final

Release

Certain (non-resonant) final consonants and clusters have audible release, whereas others are unreleased.

Released

All obst-obst clusters

All ejectives (but safe to assume single ejectives can become unreleased)

Unreleased

All single non-ejective final stops

Grammar

Nouns

Most nouns had an unmarked form and a marked form (called the singulative for sake of convenience) that was only used for indefinite singular nouns.

For the definite article, the appropriate classifier was used, except for inalienably possessed nouns; the number was marked on the classifier.

Verbs

Proto-Trans-Sarnathian switched to using Colloquial Welsh-like constructions using inherited verbal nouns. Old finite verb forms were lost by the Proto-Trans-Sarnathian stage aside from a handful.

Lexicon

• xjeʔ ‘1SG’ (From PAW disjunctive 1SG *h₂yeh₁)
• PAW sleh₃s → PTS s-lō-s
• h₂aw-bʰorḱ 'enclosure' → Proto-Trans-Sarnathian obʰroc
• ḱobreb
• roy ‘in’ → PTS s-roj
• bʰetr → PTS bʰēr 'in"