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Verse:Irta

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Verse:
Irta
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Irta (Hivantish for "Earth") is an alternate history of IE and nearby cultural regions. The premise is "different diachronic evolutions of English, Hebrew, Māori and a few other languages". Some other languages like French and Arabic are a bit more different from our timeline. Some names refer to completely different languages: for example "Yiddish" is not a Judeo-German but a Judeo-Gaelic, with native name ăn Yidiș [ən 'jɪdɪʃ] (the name we will use to avoid confusion).

The proto-branch of English in this universe is set in what would be Spain and Portugal in our timeline.

The only IE branches in Irta not directly inspired by any real life IE languages are Mixolydian, Thurish and Hivantish.

Sketchpad

Hivantish can be dominant in the British Isles and most of continental Europe while English is mostly spoken in former colonies?

South America is mainly French- and Irish-speaking?

Mexico is Spanish-speaking

Sprachbünde

Western Europe and North Africa

Large vowel systems

This sound shift/sprachbund began with the development of Proto-Azalic itself. Remarkably, Spanish was spared of the massive vowel shifts, because it lacked vowel length and had a simple 5-vowel system.

The Maghrebi sprachbund is considered the "core" of this sprachbund. Languages outside of the Maghrebi sprachbund:

  • Ăn Yidiș
  • Proto-Azalic and English
  • French
  • British Hivantish

North African

Khmerization (from RTR/emphaticness > creaky voice, ATR/nonemphatic > breathy voice), resulting in some of the largest vowel systems in Irta.

Uvular R, which vocalizes in some languages

Headedness varies but likes suffixed definite articles

Mixolydian

A satem IE isolate written in the Latin alphabet; pronunciation is quite similar to Pinyin

Inspired by Polish and Albanian (aesthetically); Greek and Latin (grammatically)

z c s zh ch sh r rr j q x = /z ts s ʐ ʈʂ ʂ ɹ/ɽ r ʑ tɕ ɕ/

dz dzh dj = voiced versions of c ch q

Stop aspiration is as in Persian (st sounds like sth etc.)

j from PIE *y, y is used for /j/ in loanwords and from vowel breaking of PIE *e, e.g. yest "is" <- Proto-Mixolydian *esti

today Mixolydian is a small minority language; Mixolydians have almost entirely shifted to local languages (English, Greek, Romance, Iranian, Indian, Chinese)

Latin and Romance

Latin is a tonal language like Greek and Sanskrit

Hyperfrench

French through Proto-Slavic -> Russian sound changes (nasal vowels get denasalized etc.)

r -> h consistently; a four way stop distinction as in Hindi

Modern Latin

A language actually named after a cognate of "Latin" spoken in Latium; it has a roughly Catalan/Romanian/Occitan aesthetic

Latzial?

Should be close to Southern Italian lects (that gave us "capeesh")?

Ladino

Should Ladino be Judeo-Latzial rather than Judeo-Spanish?

Spanish

Influences Japanese like Portuguese did in our timeline

Modern Greek

Written in a version of Linear B, roughly Syllabics + katakana inspired

a lot more ways to write /i/ depending on PIE etymon? maybe *i and *iH can use different glyphs?

Hypergreek

Some sound splits conditioned by PIE etymon which are merged in Proto-Greek but do not affect intelligibility for a Modern Greek speaker

Mitanni

Weirdest interpretation of Mitanni cuneiform

English

Main article: Azalic/English

Most in-universe English dialects don't merge some PIE sounds, like *ei and *ī, which are merged in Proto-Germanic. Otherwise they sound a lot like English accents from our timeline.

Hyperamerican

an English accent with lots of non-Germanic sound splits as well as General American sound mergers

LOT ~ THOUGHT, but PIE ey !~ PIE ī

Semitic

Hebrew

Main article: Verse:Irta/Hebrew

Paleo-Hebrew in this universe distinguishes most consonants of Proto-Semitic, unlike in our timeline. This is reflected in some in-universe Hebrew accents which preserve distinctions like צׁ (tsadi w/ right dot) /ts̠/ vs צׂ (tsadi w/ left dot) /ts/, cognate with Arabic emphatic S/Z and D.

Though in-universe Tiberian Hebrew is identical to that in our timeline, some in-universe reading traditions, such as Gaelic Hebrew, distinguish

  • cholam from Proto-Semitic *u and *aw = /o/
  • cholam from Proto-Semitic *ā = /u/ (/uə/ in some other reading traditions)
  • Proto-Semitic *ū = Swedish u (/u/ in some other reading traditions)

Some accents merge the first two vowels like our TibH and Israeli did, some merge the second two, and others, such as Ăn Yidiș Hebrew, keep all three distinct. Hyper-Israeli reflects the first (and qamatz qatan) as (Seoul) Korean eo, the second as Korean o, and the third as Korean u.

Arabic

Classical Arabic is the same as in our timeline

Egyptian

get "Noether" or "Paf-Noether" (a Padmanábha surname) from *nāťar 'god', via a divergent descendant of Old Egyptian

Māori

Proto-Austronesian in Irta has the same urheimat as in our timeline but a very different phonology and morphology; its phonology is small like Finnish and its morphology is Altaic-ish; its evolution into Māori as we know it, a VSO language, is analogous to PIE's evolution into Irish.

Celtic

No ē-ey-iH merger?

Alternate history Canadian Gaelic

Can date back to Primitive Irish times, incorporates Algonquian loanwords

or should it be a Celtic-Algonquian creole?

A priori

Some Middle Eastern lang w/ Basque sibilants

Sinitic and Sino-Xenic

Mandarin

In-universe Mandarin has two scripts: an alternate history Pinyin and a Hebraization invented by __.

East Asian languages in Irta generally use the Roman alphabet

Alternate history pinyin: uses Zhuang tone letters

b p m f, d t n l, z c s, zr cr sr r, ź ć ś (or otherwise unmarked; clear from context), g k h

a, ae, au, an, ang

y for Pinyin e

"z" by itself is used for Pinyin "zi", Pinyin "ji" is written "zi" or sometimes "gi" (this alternate history Pinyin is introduced during Early Modern Mandarin times so literate users keep older distinctions though spelling mistakes are common nowadays)

Judeo-Mandarin

A form of Zhongyuan or Southwestern Mandarin

used in the Jewish Autonomous Region of Apple PIE China

Initials

באָ פאָ מאָ ףאָ טא תא נא לא קא כא חא ק'י כּ'י שי זרי צרי שרי רי זי צי סי

Rimes

אַ א אי אָ אוֹ אוּ a e i/(i after retros and dentals) o u ü; the dot in יִ can be omitted.

אַי עי אַל' אָל' אַן אן אַנק אנק אוֹנק אר/-ר ai ei ao ou an en ang eng ong er/-r

ל'אַ אָ ל'אַי ל'עי ל'אַן ל'אן ל'אַנק ל'אנק wa o wai wei wan wen wang weng

ייאַ ייע ייאל' ייאָל' ייען ייִן ייאַנק ייִנק ייוֹנק ya ye yao you yan yin yang ying yong

אוּע אוּען אוּן yue yuan yun

ole telisha-gedola etnahta darga = Tones 1 2 3 4 (not motivated by similarity to cantillation melodies; important thing is visual distinguishability)

should use tone letters instead, Hmoob style

Sample

ר֠אן־ר֠אן ש֫ראנק א֠ר ז֧י־י֠אָל׳, ז֧אַי ז֫ל׳אן־י֠ען ח֠א ק֠׳וּען־ל֧יִ ש֧ראַנק י֫יִ־ל֧וֹ פ֠ינק־ט֑אנק. ת֫אַ־מאן ף֧וֹ־י֑אָל׳ ל֑יִ־ש֧יִנק ח֠א ל֠יאַנק־ש֫יִן, ב֧יִנק י֫יִנק י֑יִ ש֫יוֹנק־ט֧יִ ק֫ל׳אַן־ש֧יִ טא ק֫׳יִנק־ש֠ראן ח֧וֹ־ש֫יאַנק ט֧ל׳אי־ט֧אַי.

Rénrén shēng ér zìyóu, zài zūnyán hé quánlì shàng yīlù píngděng. Tāmen fùyǒu lǐxìng hé liángxīn, bìng yīng yǐ xiōngdì guānxì de jīngshén hùxiāng duìdài.

Japanese

ch, j written as slender t d/z

Subete no ningen va, umarenagara ni site ziıụ de ari, catsu, songen to cenli to ni tsuite bioηdoη de aru. Ningen va, liseη to lioηsin to o sazucerarete ori, tagai ni doηhọ no sẹsin o motte cọdọ sinacereba naranai.

R in native words, L in sino words

η for historical -ng

-ts, -c for final -tsu, -ku in sino words

ceu /kjo:/ "today" <- *kefu?

English words and wasei-eigo are written in italics; this isn't true of Romance words, e.g. pan "bread"

the word for thank you is written "obligatọ" by folk etymology

Accents

Apple PIE Japanese can distinguish slender d and slender z

Korean

모든 인간은 태어날 때부터 자유로우며 그 존엄과 권리에 있어 동등하다.

boðɨn inɡänɨn tʰæeɤnaʁ tæeβuʰtɤ d̤z̤äjuʁoumjə xɨ d̤z̤onɤmɣwä xwɤ̃ʁiɛj isə d̤oŋðɨŋäðä

Modyn inganyn tæ'enar ptæbute zaıuroumıe gy zonymgwa gwenriei isse doňdyňhada

alt-history Sinitic languages

Swedish/Icelandic inspired Sinitic

Second-largest Chinese lect in Irta

Develops its own version of erhua (transcribed -r) from Cuam influence but it means something different

  • njem 'to think' > njemr (the m is lenited) 'thoughts'

Sinospheric IE

Indosphere and Austroasiatic

Tamil can use Cyrillic

Vietnamese can use an abugida based on the Far East Semitic abugida

Religions of Irta

Europe

  • French, Modern Latin and Irish: Catholicism
  • Azalic: Azalo-Buddhism (Buddhism travels further west in Irta); Protestantism (different from our Protestantism, more like "Christianity turned Buddhist"), minority Catholicism (Azalic-speaking areas were the birthplace of the Protestant Reformation; however the King James Bible does not exist as we know it)
  • Hivantish: Hivantish paganism, Protestants are a minority
  • Greek: Greek Orthodox
  • Ăn Yidiș and Ladino: Judaism (obviously)

Africa

  • Maghreb: Buddhist, Catholic

Asia

  • Tamil, Indian Austroasiatic: druids; Catholic, Protestant, Sufi (various levels of syncretism)
  • Togarmite: Sufi, various Hellenistic
  • Far East Semitic: Sufi, druids, animist, Jewish
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