Verse:Lõis/Indo-Iranian languages

Sanskrit

Sanskrit in Lõis, unlike in our timeline, is most often written with the Latin alphabet. Its orthography was standardized in the second century AD. Older texts (like the Vedas) use a deeper orthography for Sanskrit, including j̈ for /h/, vowel and semivowel letters used interchangeably (reflecting Sievers' law) and vowel letters <e> and <o> besides <a>. Popular Lõisian English transcriptions like <Jimoleyos> for the Himālayas reflect this more ancient Sanskrit orthography. The modern orthography is used in Sanskrit texts on astronomy like the Súryasidḋánta.

Modern India in Lõis is mostly Heleasic and Bactrian, with English, Persian and Khuamnisht spoken by small diaspora populations. A revived form of Sanskrit is used in some Hindu communities.

Vowels

ᴀ ᴀ́ i í u ú ꞃ ꞃ́ l ᴀi ᴀ́i ᴀu ᴀ́u

Consonants

p ṗ b ḃ m ꞇ ꞇ̇ d ḋ n żꞇ żꞇ̇ żd żḋ ꞃ̇n ç ç̇ j j̈ ņ c ċ ᵹ ᵹ̇ y ꞃ l v ş ꞃ̇ꞅ ꞅ h

/ʂʈ/ is written ꞃ̇ꞅꞇ or şꞇ depending on etymology.

Anusvāra and visarga are written ṁ and ꞅ̇.

The interpunct (·) is used to separate nouns in compounds.

Dialectology

Lõisians use the name "Indic" (Sáinḋavaṁ in Sanskrit) rather than "Sanskrit" to refer to the spoken language.

Lõisian scholars call Vedic Sanskrit "Old Indic" (Puráṙna·sáinḋavaṁ), and unlike in our timeline, more conservative (i.e. less Prakrit-like) dialects were spoken in the first few centuries AD as vernacular languages. The situation was a bit like Arabic dialects in our timeline, with Classical Sanskrit (identical to our timeline) serving as a bridge between the different native dialects.

Most dialects have some innovations traceable to Vedic Sanskrit, like the use of retroflex lateral flaps /ɭ ɭʰ/ for <żd żḋ> (termed "thick D" by phoneticians). Extreme northwestern Sanskrit, though, uses dental fricatives /ð ðʰ/, deriving from a Vedic dialect that used /ɭ͢d̪ ɭ͢d̪ʰ/. /r/ is pronounced as a uvular fricative or trill in some Southern dialects.

The main Prakrits in Lõis are Pali, Gandhari and a variant of Sauraseni, which gave rise to the modern Indic languages in Lõis. They are considered separate languages. In addition, there is a Sanskrit-Greek creole language spoken in Heleasia.

Sample text

From the Rgvaida (in the ancient orthography):

Agnimíżdei purouhitoṁ iojņosio deiuoṁ rtuijaṁ j̈outóroṁ rotnoḋétamoṁ

Bactrian

replace with Mixolydian?

Middle Persian

One Middle Persian dialect in Lõis has a retroflex glissando liquid /ɭ͢d̪/ from PIIr *rd, instead of /l/ as in other dialects: guḷd-i-ḷdāḷd "red rose". Naušahri descends from this dialect, and as in Northern Sanskrit, ḷd reflexes as /ð/: guđ đođ /guð ðoð/.

Late Middle Persian in Lõis has the phonological innovations associated with Modern Persian in our timeline, like some words have w -> b. (read: it's basically Modern Persian minus the Arabic vocab, and with conservative vowels/contrastive vowel length)

Persian dialects

Naušahri

The most commonly spoken descendant of Middle Persian in Lõis, Naušahri (from Naušahr meaning Newton), is part of the Levantine sprachbund. It's most commonly written in the Latin, Avestan and Hebrew alphabets.

Phonology: a ā i ī u ū ai au -> a o e i u ø əi əu

Plurals usually are formed with the ending -o (from Middle Persian -ān, from Old Persian -ānām), but loanwords as in our timeline can be pluralized as in the source languages. Archaic dialects use -on instead. The most common source of loanwords is Bactrian, followed by Avestan, Greek, Togarmite and English.

The verbal system of Naušahri is similar to our timeline's Tajik. It uses the auxiliary stodan (to stand) for the present progressive, unlike other Levantine sprachbund languages.

Naušahri is strictly SVO, unlike our timeline's Persian (but it may be OSV for emphasis), and got rid of grammatical case; the accusative case ending -ro shifted to a topicalization suffix.

The particle e is used with noun-noun compounds but not with adjectives modifying nouns: šahr buzurg (big city) but gurbe-ye dust-e man (my friend's cat).

Greco-Persian

Another commonly spoken Middle Persian descendant in Lõis is basically "Iranian Persian but with Greek instead of Arabic".