Ancient Sohcahtoan

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Ancient Sohcahtoan
pē sō-ktã-gū
Pronunciation[ˈpeːsoːktəguː]
Created byJukethatbox
Date2023
Native toRepublic of Sohcahtoa
Altaic
  • Japonic
    • part. Ryukyuan
      • Sohcahtoic
        • Ancient Sohcahtoan
Early form
Proto-Sohcahtoic
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Ancient Sohcahtoan is a Japonic language that is the precursor of Sohcahtoan. Nowadays, it is used for solely ceremonial purposes at festivals, and no one actually uses it in everyday speech. Much of Ancient Sohcahtoan has been documented verbally, however some words have been comparatively reconstructed from modern Sohcahtoan. These comparatively reconstructed words are marked with an "*"(asterisk) at the beginning of a word.

Phonology

Orthography

Whereas modern Sohcahtoan uses the three Japanese scripts, Ancient Sohcahtoan was probably written using a rudimentary runic alphabet to represent the phonology. However, as the Japanese scripts began to heavily influence Sohcahtoan, the runes fell out of use in favour of Hiragana, Katakana and Kanji, which led to vowel and consonant change, e.g. ʂ -> ʃ and the complete dropping of [ə](ã) and [u], the former turned into [eoː] and the latter into [ɯ].

In modern times, linguists began recording Ancient Sohcahtoan with the Portuguese Latin script, which probably originates from Portuguese colonisers on the island of São Martim, where Ancient Sohcahtoan was preserved due to general Portuguese non-interference, compared to on the mainland where the language quickly began to adapt to Japanese scripts, which all but wiped out Ancient Sohcahtoan on the mainland.

Alphabet

à and ã represents the [ə] sound. Letters with "-" diactritics represent elongated vowels, e.g. <ā>, <ē>, <ū>, and <ō>.

Majuscule A Ā Ã B K D E Ē G I K M N O Ō P R S T U Ū Y Z
Minuscule a ā ã b k d e ē g i k m n o ō p r s t u ū y z

Consonants

Labial Dental/
alveolar
Post-
alveolar
/
palatal
Velar Glottal
Nasal m n
Plosive p b t d  k ɡ ʔ
Affricate t͡s
Fricative s z ʂ
Approximant j
Lateral l
Flap ɾ

Vowels

Front Central Back
Close i u
Close-mid e o
Mid ə
Open a

All vowels in Ancient Sohcahtoan(except [i] and [ə]) have elongated versions, those being ō([oː]), ā([aː]), ē([eː]) and ū([uː]).

Prosody

Stress

Ancient Sohcahtoan is a prototonic language, meaning stress is placed on the first syllable of a word. This feature has been inherited by modern Sohcahtoan.

Phonotactics

Ancient Sohcahtoan, contrary to its more widely spoken descendant, uses the structure of (C)V(C) for syllables, which is quite different from modern Sohcahtoan's (C)V syllabic structure.

Examples

Ancient Sohcahtoan *kak -> Sohcahtoan ', meaning "red".

Ancient Sohcahtoan ãko -> Sohcahtoan eōko, meaning "blue".

Ancient Sohcahtoan ūnu -> Sohcahtoan ānu, meaning "dog".

Proto-Japonic *kəkərə -> Ancient Sohcahtoan kãkãrã -> Sohcahtoan kokora, meaning "heart".

Morphophonology

Morphology

Syntax

Constituent order

Noun phrase

Verb phrase

Sentence phrase

Dependent clauses

Example texts

Other resources