Azalic
Azalic (Togarmite: lysėni Azali; Proto-Azalic: Əngoilin woiq̇) is an imagined Indo-European branch, intended to serve as an alternate possible diachronics of the English language.
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, 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 dialect of Proto-Azalic, which evolved mainly into English in-universe, has lots of loans from Camalic. 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
- Riphean
- Early New English
- Khuamnisht
- something with ejectives
- Əinglisċ
Phonology
Inspirations: Vietnamese, Armenian, literally read Irish
m n bh dh gh ᵹh p t c q ph th ch qh ṗ ṫ ċ q̇ s ṡ h l r y w
/m n bʰ dʰ gʰ gʷʰ 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.
- 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.
- No accusative-infinitive
The English accusative and infinitive construction doesn't come from PAzal; it is a result of substrate influence from Mixolydian.