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Meskangela: Difference between revisions
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The name of the language was coined during the classical period from the word སྐཾང་ ''skaŋ'' “mountain” and means “pertaining to the mountains”, since the land where it was traditionally spoken is mountainous. Other groups used different terms to refer to themselves and their languages: མྸཾཨྃལཿ ''mágailā'' “Southern”, སྱ྅རེལཿ ''syörilā'' “Western”, ཀལོནེལཿ ''këlónelā'' “Plain dialect”, ཁམེལཿ ''khëmelā'' “Coastal dialect”. | The name of the language was coined during the classical period from the word སྐཾང་ ''skaŋ'' “mountain” and means “pertaining to the mountains”, since the land where it was traditionally spoken is mountainous. Other groups used different terms to refer to themselves and their languages: མྸཾཨྃལཿ ''mágailā'' “Southern”, སྱ྅རེལཿ ''syörilā'' “Western”, ཀལོནེལཿ ''këlónelā'' “Plain dialect”, ཁམེལཿ ''khëmelā'' “Coastal dialect”. | ||
Historically Meskangela had always been the language of the mountainous islands. Its origin, however, is obscure, as all documentations of the previous eras were lost, and local folklore only briefly mentions an ancient journey to the west, called | Historically Meskangela had always been the language of the mountainous islands. Its origin, however, is obscure, as all documentations of the previous eras were lost, and local folklore only briefly mentions an ancient journey to the west, called ཨཱགརྭཾཏ ''Āgërwat''. Little is known about the language of that period itself, its phonology is the only part that is well understood, which allows to reconstruct many Proto-Meskangela words. | ||
The period, named Old Meskangela, is marked by the reappearance of writing, although the records from that period are still rare. The earliest attestation of Old Meskangela dates back to approximately 2000 BNE and is an inscription on a temple on top of the ''Lhaidërmū'' Mountain (lit. “Pillar of the sky”). It is written in the early logosyllabic version of the Meskangel script and it reads: ''[PN] *imē-hwa wa-bu-*sVkwal, hwi-rai wa-ha-*kēn'' – “[PN] set a stream into motion, filled up a lake.” The first logogram likely represents a personal name (PN), the pronunciation of which is unknown. The syllables marked with an asterisk (*) were reconstructed. The corresponding Classical Meskangela sentence is: ''(PN)-is lwī sëkwaltekyi, eju dëgenkyi.'' | |||
By around 1300 BNE, the Meskangel people had a many chiefdoms in all of the three main islands. During that period the written language rose to prominence and was standardised for the first time (300 BNE). Later, Meskangela Proper became a prestige language after being adopted as a lingua franca between its various dialects. The dialects themselves had already developed their distinctive features by the classical period, and Meskangela Proper was not a common ancestor of those dialects, instead it was a standardised variety of the '''Central Syörilā''', which comprises Western and Eastern ''Tūŋëdēla'' (“Innersea”) group. During the New Era Meskangela is still often referred as a single language, even though by the end of the classical period it had already been a group of closely related languages. The most accurate term to describe Meskangela as a whole is a [[w:Dialect continuum|dialect continuum]]. | |||
===External relation=== | ===External relation=== | ||
The only neighbouring family to Meskangela is the Ilain languages in the southeast. There is no agreement whether the Ilain family is genetically related to Meskangela. The common reconstructed features of Proto-Meskangela and Proto-Ilai are spurious. A large amount of words that seem to be cognates are likely borrowings into Proto-Ilai or individual Ilain varieties from Meskangela, and inconsistent sound correspondences support that idea. The similarity in grammar, especially verbal morphology, is also likely due to later Meskangela influence, rather than a genetic similarity between the two branches. Some ancient morphological elements, such as the nominalising suffix ''-in'', agentive ''-uma/-upa'', optative-imperative ''p-'' prefix, the negative-prohibitive particle ''ma''; as well as some words belonging to core vocabulary: Il. ''cai'' – Cl.Mes. ''dzān'' “to eat”, Il. ''mecuki'' “full” – Cl.Mes. ''cyok'' “enough”, W.Il. ''līŋ'' “soul, heart”, E.Il ''paluŋ'' “stomach” – Cl.Mes. ''luŋ'' “heart” point out to a distant genetic relationship with a possible common ancestor breaking into the two branches no later than 8000 BNE. | The only neighbouring family to Meskangela is the Ilain languages in the southeast. There is no agreement whether the Ilain family is genetically related to Meskangela. The common reconstructed features of Proto-Meskangela and Proto-Ilai are spurious. A large amount of words that seem to be cognates are likely borrowings into Proto-Ilai or individual Ilain varieties from Meskangela, and inconsistent sound correspondences support that idea. The similarity in grammar, especially verbal morphology, is also likely due to later Meskangela influence, rather than a genetic similarity between the two branches. Some ancient morphological elements, such as the nominalising suffix ''-in'', agentive ''-uma/-upa'', optative-imperative ''p-'' prefix, the negative-prohibitive particle ''ma''; as well as some words belonging to core vocabulary: Il. ''cai'' – Cl.Mes. ''dzān'' “to eat”, Il. ''mecuki'' “full” – Cl.Mes. ''cyok'' “enough”, W.Il. ''līŋ'' “soul, heart”, E.Il ''paluŋ'' “stomach” – Cl.Mes. ''luŋ'' “heart” point out to a distant genetic relationship with a possible common ancestor breaking into the two branches no later than 8000 BNE. | ||