Literature talk:Schleicher's fable

Proto-Wakanic is the ancestor of Verapamil, Diltiazem and Wakanese. It's part of the "CW complex" spoken in eastern Cuadhlabh.

Phonology

Proto-Wakanic is reconstructed with the following consonants:

• The voiceless stops *p (labial), *t (dental), *c (palatal), *k (velar) and *kʷ (labialized velar). The Verapamil reflexes of these sounds are the fricatives f, s, hy, h and hw respectively. In Diltiazem, these sounds surface as voiceless aspirated stops, except for *c which becomes t̂ /θ/.
• The voiced stops *b (labial), *d (dental), *j́ (palatal), *g (velar) and *gʷ (labialized velar), which become the stops p, t, ty, c and qu respectively in Verapamil. In Diltiazem, these sounds surface as voiced stops, except for *j́ which becomes ĥ /x/.
• The nasals *m and *n, and the approximants *j, *l and *r, which are retained in Verapamil and Diltiazem, except for *j which becomes s in Diltiazem.
• *w and *ŋ, which become v and w in Verapamil respectively (but /ŋ/ is retained before *k and *g in Verapamil)

These sounds aren't as certainly known:

• *ń, which becomes ny in Verapamil and z in Diltiazem.
• *ź, which becomes zh in Verapamil and ŝ /ʃ/ in Diltiazem.

Proto-Wakanic, like most modern Wakanic languages, had five vowels: *a, *e, *i, *o, *u; which can be short or long. Long vowels are written with a macron. There were also two diphthongs: *ai and *au. The Verapamil reflex of *au is ai and the Diltiazem reflex is aŭ /aw/.

Grammar

Proto-Wakanic morphosyntax was somewhat unusual by CW standards:

• unmarked OVS word order (not attested in any modern CW language),
• topic-comment syntax (as in Proctorian),
• no pro-drop,
• generally isolating (modern CW languages are either agglutinating, like Verapamil, or fusional, like Clofabosin).

However, Proto-Wakanic also had some grammatical features common in CW languages such as:

• head-final syntax,
• tense agreement, and
• four tenses: present, past, timeless and future, with progressive and perfect aspects.