Naeng/Classical

Old Windermere
Created by	IlL, Praimhín
Setting	Verse:Tricin
Language family	Lakovic Ashanic Old Windermere

Old Windermere is the oldest attested form of Windermere, contemporaneous with Thensarian and Tigol.

Phonology

Vowels

Old Windermere had breathy voiced vowels ah eh ih oh uh üh /aʱ eʱ iʱ oʱ uʱ yʱ/ which became ä ea ie oa ua üe in Classical Winderemre.

Old Windermere had more vowel contrasts in preinitial syllables: most notably, it had ă /ə/ and i /ɪ~ɨ/ as reduced vowels which merged to ă in Classical Windermere. This contrast is retained in Pradiul as palatalization.

Morphology

Sandhi

Old Windermere had a complex sandhi system (somewhere between Biblical Hebrew and Sanskrit) which was no longer productive in Classical Windermere; most notably it affected plurals and verb forms, making them less predictable.

• th + fric -> fric + t
  • ths -> st, as in sehf (go) -> *thsehf -> stehf (to drive) (Modern binsteaf (energy), sămteaf (to energize))
  • thf -> ft, e.g. tăfi (laugh) -> *tithfi -> tifti (mock) (Classical and Modern Wdm. tăfi, tifti)
• rC, lC > Cr, Cl
• ps pt pn png > sp pr fn fng
• tp tsp kp > tw tsw cw; Proto-Windermere breathy vowel + tp tsp kp > thw tsw chw
• tsc cts tsp pts sts ts > sc sc sp sp st st

Grassmann's law was productive in Old Windermere: when there were two spirant consonants before a stressed vowel in a word, the first was despirantized. e.g. *chăfol > căfol

Nouns

Old Windermere had many irregular plurals due to sandhi.

Verbs

Trigger infixes, which became derivational in Classical Windermere, still functioned as voice markers.

Pronouns

Pronouns were similar to later Windermere, but with feminine plural pronouns.

• 1sg: rih
• 2sg: łen (m), łes (f)
• 3sg: in (m), is (f)
• 1pl exclusive: tsa
• 1pl inclusive: ăbang
• 2pl: łinam (m), łisam (f)
• 3pl: inam (m), isam (f)

Derivation

(Anything else?)

• *th- (causative; denominal verbs)
• pi- (agentive; triggers voicing of following voiceless stops p t c to b d g)
  • da (know) -> pida 'sage' (Classical păda, Modern pda)
  • tüth (to grasp) -> pidüth 'meaning, intention'
• ha- (passive)

Old Windermere also used breathy voice ablaut to denote tools: snar (capture) -> snahr (trap, snare) which survives in Modern Windermere as snär.