Vadi: Difference between revisions

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The excellent condition of the texts from the Scriptum were a veritable gold mine for understanding Vadi phonology and phonotactics and quickly dispelled earlier views that Vadi phonotactics were simple.  Rather, Vadi phonotactics were far more complex than earlier thought.  Moreover, the phonemic inventory was underestimated.
The excellent condition of the texts from the Scriptum were a veritable gold mine for understanding Vadi phonology and phonotactics and quickly dispelled earlier views that Vadi phonotactics were simple.  Rather, Vadi phonotactics were far more complex than earlier thought.  Moreover, the phonemic inventory was underestimated.


Tashunka, who was working on Minhast dialectology at the time of the discovery of the Scriptum, was among the first scholars to examine the texts.  He immediately realized the spelling anomalies and other unorthodox usage of the ''Širkattarnaft'' characters conveyed a more complex picture than that of previous work.  He posited that either the phoneme /β/ or /v/ was part of the phonemic inventory of Vadi, based on the digraph <bi><f> found in the Scriptum's texts, which coincided with the alternation of <ba> and <wa> in the Aħħur texts.  So while the Aħħur texts' spelling for "Vadi" alternated erratically between <ba><di> or <wa><di>, the texts from the Scriptum consistently spelled "Vadi" as <bi><f><'a><di>.  Tashunka had to return to his work on Minhast dialectology, so work on Vadi phonotactics did not proceed much further until Iyyaħmi took up where Tashunka left off.
Tashunka, who was working on Minhast dialectology at the time of the discovery of the Scriptum, was among the first scholars to examine the texts.  He immediately realized the spelling anomalies and other unorthodox usage of the ''Širkattarnaft'' characters conveyed a more complex picture than that of previous work.  He posited that either the phoneme /β/ or /v/ was part of the phonemic inventory of Vadi, based on the digraph <bi><f> found in the Scriptum's texts, which coincided with the alternation of <ba> and <wa> in the Aħħur texts.  So while the Aħħur texts' spelling for "Vadi" alternated erratically between <ba><di> or <wa><di>, the texts from the Scriptum consistently spelled "Vadi" as <bi><f><'a><di>.  Similar correlations of the anomalies the Scriptum with the Aħħur materials led him to conclude there was also a /ð/, and another albeit indeterminate sibilant, perhaps /ɕ/.  Several years after Tashunka returned to his work on Minhast dialectology, Iyyaħmi took up where Tashunka left off and determined that the sibilant was actually the lateral fricative /ɫ/.


Iyyaħmi's discovery of consonantal mutations reminiscent of the Celtic languages created much controversy in the Vadist community.  In time, after presenting statistical frequency distributions of the occurrence of certain spelling patterns throughout the Scriptum's corpora, his views gained credence.  Today, the consensus of Vadists is that mutations and other complex sandhi processes were an important feature of the language.
Additional work by Iyyaħmi led to the discovery of consonantal mutations reminiscent of the Celtic languages, which  created much controversy in the Vadist community.  In time, after presenting statistical frequency distributions of the occurrence of certain spelling patterns throughout the Scriptum's corpora, his views gained credence.  Today, the consensus of Vadists is that mutations and other complex sandhi processes were an important feature of the language.


====Mutations====
====Mutations====
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