Azalic
Azalic (Togarmite: lysėni Azali; Proto-Azalic: Əngoilin woiq̇; Thurish: Yȧzalathār tȯvzār) is an imagined Indo-European branch by User:Praimhín, intended to serve as an alternate possible diachronics of the English language. To make it impossible for it to evolve into any Germanic language other than English, Proto-Azalic (Northern Hivantish: Yȧzalathā Sanā) uses specifically English sound changes within Germanic such as the nasal spirant law (which in Proto-Azalic is a nasal before aspirated/breathy stops law), while minimizing shared innovations with Proto-Germanic such as Grimm's law and ey > ī.
The name Azalic is derived from Åzalaa, a Hivantish cognate of Əngoil /ˈəngojl/, the legendary mother of the Azalic people (meaning "The Unploughed"; cognate of Ahalyā in Hindu mythology). Like in our timeline, English was the lingua franca of a huge part of the world (namely in the Remonitionist areas of Europe), but unlike in our timeline, this resulted in English being the most conservative language in the Azalic branch. This is due to Proto-Azalic already having undergone morphological simplifications from PIE, to the point where it's almost as analytic as English. Other descendants have changed a lot more and have various typologies, including innovated gender systems, agglutinating morphology and even predicate-first syntax.
Proto-Azalic is notable for having wide phonological and lexical variation across dialects. The central dialects evolved into English. Most other Azalic languages are from the peripheral dialects, which have some unique IE isoglosses. (read: excuse to make non-Englishy Azalic languages)
Urheimat
Another possible path to Britain -- Spain, Portugal, Morocco and the Pyrenees
Family tree
- Azalic
- Əinglisċ
- Early New English
- English
- a Danish-like VSO language spoken in Irta Canary Islands (Do we need this?)
- Polish Azalic
- Early New English
- Khuamnisht
- something with ejectives
- Əinglisċ
Phonology
Inspirations: Vietnamese, Armenian, literally read Irish
m n b d g ᵹ p t c q ph th ch qh ṗ ṫ ċ q̇ s ṡ h l r y w
/m n b d g gʷ p t k kʷ pʰ tʰ kʰ kʷʰ f θ x xw sʰ z h l r j w/
Nota Bene: The stops and vowels had a wide variety of dialectal realizations, as in Modern Armenian. Some Proto-Azalic dialects had realizations of the stops that are much closer to Proto-Italic; this is reflected in loans from those dialects in English, like dream <- *troimə (pronounced /drəɨmə/ in the dialect).
Vowels: e i o u ə é í ó ú oe əɨ eo ou ieu ia ua /e i o u ə~ʌ e: i: o: u: oe əɨ eo əu iəu iə uə/ + offglides in -i; allophonic Open Syllable Lengthening
Reflexes:
- oi > uə
- iH > i:
- ei > oe, sometimes iə
- ē > e:
- e, i > e, i
- uH > eo (u: in some words)
- u > u (needs umlaut)
- ou > əɨ
- eu > əɨ (iəu in some words)
- o > o (needs umlaut)
- oH, ô, eh2, eh3 > əu
- enC > oeC
- onC > əuC
- nC > eoC
h1oinos, dwoh1, treyes, kwetwores, penkwe, sweks, septm, oktōw, h₁néwn̥, deḱm -> xuən, təu, tʰriə~tʰre:, pʰoþur, pʰoəxw, seks, sefn, oxʰtəu, nəɨn, texn~te:n
huon, tou, thré, phoṫur, phoeq̇, secs, seṗn, ohtou, nəɨn, teċn/tén
h₃nómṇ > *nomə > L-MidE name > name
Morphology
Nouns
Proto-Azalic had a highly eroded case system. The notation (i) denotes "i-umlaut" or a j-offglide on the nucleus.
- dir. -0, (i)
- voc. (i), (i)
- obl. (i)~(i)-ə~ə, -su~-ṡu
- gen I. -is, (i)-is~-ə
- gen II. -in, (i)-in
- lat. -ther, (no pl)
| vəlqh 'wolf' | ||
|---|---|---|
| Case | Singular | Plural |
| Nominative | vəlqh | vəilqh |
| Vocative | vəilqh | vəilqh |
| Genitive | vəlqhis | vəilqhsi, vəlqhə |
| Genitive II | vəlqhin | vəilqhin |
| Oblique | vəilqhə | vəilqhsu |
| Lative | vəlqhthir | - |
| qenə 'lady; wife' | ||
|---|---|---|
| Case | Singular | Plural |
| Nominative | qenə | qenəh |
| Vocative | qenə | qenəh |
| Genitive | qenəis | qenə |
| Oblique | qenə | qenəṡu |
| Lative | qenəthir | - |
| ghous 'goose' | ||
|---|---|---|
| Case | Singular | Plural |
| Nominative | ghous | ghouis |
| Vocative | ghouis | ghouis |
| Genitive | ghousəis | ghouisi(s), ghousə |
| Oblique | ghouis | ghoussu |
| Lative | ghousthir | - |
Adjectives
Adjectives were uninflected, because they were split off from adjective-noun compounds.
Pronouns
The conjunctive pronouns were used as pronominal subjects in unmarked sentences. The disjunctive pronouns were used as direct, indirect or prepositional objects and in sentences such as:
- It est mé "It's me".
- ne jú 'not you'
- Mé, iċ oil chuamə. 'Me, I'm going home.'
| 1sg. | 2 (number neutral) | 3sg. proximal animate | 3sg. proximal inanimate | 1pl. | 3sg. distal animate; 3pl | interr. | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| neutral | rude | 'he' | 'she' | 'who' | 'what' | |||||
| Conjunctive | iċ | júh | ṫú | cheh | sí | it, 't | wia | ṫoeh | qhú | qhot |
| Disjunctive | mé | jú | ṫé | chem | chéh | it, 't | əs | ṫem | qhúm | qhot |
| Possessive | moenə | juṡə | ṫoenə | cheis | chéṡə | eis | eoṡə | ṫoeṡə | qhois | |
Verbs
-eh2ti > -ə; -yeti, -eyeti > (i)-ə
The original PIE personal affixes were lost. When the subject was nominal singular, "he", "she" or "it", the suffix -se (from PIE *swe) was required for verbal agreement. The 2sg and 3sg distal pronouns were number neutral so they didn't take -se.
The different forms were:
- Imperative (source of English imperative): non-past without any endings
- Nonpast (the source of the English present): e-grade or otherwise the unmarked form of the verb
- Past: PIE reduplicated perfect or root aorist
- Irrealis (source of the English subjunctive, including were): sigmatic future.
- Stative (the source of the English past): a tenseless form like the Akkadian stative. Originally a deverbal noun; formed with the o-grade (deriving nouns in PIE) for strongs, -ṫ from -tús (with random voicing) for weaks, (i)-ə from -ih2 for semistrongs. It was not a true finite verb form so it didn't take -se.
- Some modal verbs in English, such as can, will, shall, may, must, ought, come from statives and thus are called stative-present verbs.
- Active participle: -ənt
- -ənt-qhe became the present progressive -ing in English.
- Verbal noun: from -ntyeh2
- Passive participle (source of English past participle): zero-grade with -n from -nós, or -dh from -tós
Proto-Azalic had at least three distinct verb paradigms:
- The weak verbs became the English weaks
- The strong verbs became the non-class 7 strongs in English (e.g. bind)
- The semistrong verbs became the class 7 strongs such as fall, hold, grow, know
| Weak: luṗə 'love' | Strong: bhendh 'bind' | Semistrong: choldh 'grasp' | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Imperative | luṗə | bhendh | choldh |
| Nonpast | luṗə(-se) | bhendh(-se) | choldh(-se) |
| Past | leluṗə(-se) | bhəndh(-se) | cechəldh(-se) |
| Irrealis | luṗəṡə(-se), luṗəh(-se) | bhendhəṡə(-se), bhendhəh(-se) | choldhəṡə(-se), choldhəh(-se) |
| Stative | luṗəṫ | bhondh | choildhə |
| Active part. | luṗənt | bhəndhənt | choldhənt |
| Passive part. | luṗədh | bhəndhən | choldhən |
Syntax
Constituent order
- SVO, VSO in questions or for emphasis
- Prepositions over postpositions
- Adjectives and genitives before nouns; relative clauses after nouns.