Far East Semitic
Inspiration: Old Chinese, Heleasic, Akkadian, Amharic
Far East Semitic is one of the major branches of Semitic. Proto-Far East Semitic was a prestige language of Verse:Irta's Southeast Asia. It's in a clade with Akkadian. It was first observed to be related to other Semitic languages by the linguist TeanF-GaL FénH, himself a native speaker of both Cuam and Far East Semitic.
Loans from Old Chinese and Sino-IE in addition to the usual SEA families (except Austronesian)
Todo
Verner's law in random words? plax "to open" <- *pdax <- *phthax
lhor "king", mëlkh "prince"?
(ğurayb >) qraib "crow, raven" > qhaiv in Hmooblang
hlān 'language'
nəps "soul" -> npos in Hmooblang
nəphle "to fall" -> nplhe in Hmooblang?
bəihl "egg"
qe "egg" in Hmooblang (from a substrate)
Hmooblang should have two "fangyans", one tonal with Hmong tone values and another "literally read" (inspiration: Lhasa vs Amdo Tibetan)
Lots of dvandvas
Final tav likes to become -h/breathy voice
Family tree
- Proto-Far East Semitic (~ 500 AD)
- literally read Hmoob gib, possibly with tones? (greeting: Schlaub lag!)
- hyperconservative Far East Semitic
Far East Semitic is phonologically one of the more conservative branches of Semitic, with different reflexes for almost all the consonants of Proto-Semitic. Morphologically, though, it is the exact opposite -- it is a rather typical Southeast Asian sprachbund language even in the proto-stage.
Phonology
Consonants:
- p b t ṭ d k q g ħ ʕ -> ph b th t d kh k g x ɣ~ɢ
- m n l r w y -> m n l ɹ w j
- θ θ̣ ð s ṣ z ś ṣ́ š x ɣ h -> θ θ ð s ts z~dz l̥ l̥~ts (from koineization) š qʰ q h
Vowels: i ɨ u e ə o a ā
p shows up in loanwords from Indo-European and Sino-Tibetan languages.
ɣašt, θian, l̥āθ, ɚbaɣ, qhamš, šɨš, šbaɣ, šmān, dɨšq, l̥əl
11: l̥əl had, 12: l̥əl θian, etc.
θina, l̥əθa, ɚbɣa, qhəmša, šɨša, šbəɣa, šməna, dɨšqa, mə'a əlp 100,000: ləkš 100,00,000: kot
-> aws, xiam, hlaus, plaub, qhaab, sws, pha, hmaum, dwg, hloj
Orthography
Far East Semitic is written with an abugida inspired aesthetically by Tai Lue.
Grammar
Far East Semitic is only vestigially triconsonantal.
Nouns
Far East Semitic has noun classifiers but no grammatical gender. Noun classifiers are also used as definite articles.
ah - classifier for people, from the feminine form of numbers in PSem
bih - classifier for places
Animate plurals are marked with postposed wɨl (which is more of an associative marker).
Derivation
Singulatives are formed with bɨn-.
kʰətʰāb: agentive
Verbs
As in English, Far East Semitic verbs are analytic with some vestigial ablaut; participial (with m-) and verbnoun (with t- and other grammaticalized noun derivations) forms are common, as in modern Aramaic dialects. It's relatively unpredictable which Semitic verb root was assigned to which pattern.
Derivation
Derivations that correspond to binyanim in other Semitic languages are more concatenative:
- G-stem: xtab, xtob, xtib
- D-stem: kʰətʰVb
- N-stem: nə·xtVb
- S-stem: šə·xtVb
- t-stems: tə·xtVb
the pa'al / pi'el distinction surfaces as initial clusters vs minor syllables
mə- prefix for derived nouns -> prenasalization in the quasi-Hmoob language
Some former VN patterns (also noun patterns)
- kʰətʰıb
- xteb, xtib
- xtub for adjectives
- tə·xtVb
- kʰətʰib, kʰətʰub, kʰətʰāb
Inflection
particles for aspects like Wdm (mɨn for perfect tense etc)
bə xtib nākʰ = I write
min xtib nākʰ = I wrote
l̥aʔ xtib nākʰ = I will write
Pronouns
- 1sg nā~nākʰ~ni (Hmooblang nau)
- 2sg əntu~kʰmu (Hmooblang hmu)
Plural pronouns were formed with the associative marker wɨl (< *wa-illu 'and these') or kʰol (from *kullu 'all'):
- 1pl: nākʰ wɨl~nākʰol
- 2pl kʰmu wɨl~kʰmu kʰol~kʰmɨl
Largely replaced with rank pronouns in descendants in non-intimate speech except in the hyperconservative FES language, where directional adverbs are sometimes used instead of pronouns
Derivation
Syntax
Proto-Far East Semitic syntax is close to Tagalog. It's a VSO language. Modern Far East Semitic languages though have a much more similar syntax to Thai, Vietnamese, Modern Hebrew or Arabic.