Proto-Antarctican: Difference between revisions

==Phonology==

===Consonants===

The consonant inventory is broadly similar to that of Antarctican. The most striking difference is the lack of lateral obstruents, and with a set of palatalised alveolar consonants instead (which indeed did become lateral consonants later). There are no velar and palatal nasals at all, however the pre-stopped nasals are in existence. There are also no ejectives.

===Vowels===

Proto-Antarctican has a simpler inventory of vowels than Antarctican. It is worth noting here that, as yet, the language has no phonation distinctions on vowels.

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====Diphthongs====

Proto-Antarctican also had 8 short diphthongs /ei ai oi ui iu eu au ou/ and 6 long diphthongs /eːi aːi oːi eːu aːu oː/.

====Nasal Vowels====

All monophthongs and diphthongs in Proto-Antarctican had an phonemic contrast between oral vowels and nasal vowels.

===Phonotactics===

In contrast to the smaller amount of phonemes of Proto-Antarctican compared to Antarctican, Proto-Antarctican permitted a much larger array of syllable structures.

===Consonant Gemination===

There was a phonemic gemination contrast in obstruents. This could occur regardless of whether they were voiced or voiceless. However, there were a few restrictions on where such geminated consonants could occur:

===Stress===

Stress in Proto-Antarctican was predictable, falling on the first heavy syllable of a word (one followed by a geminated consonant or a pre-stopped nasal, or one containing a long vowel, a diphthong, a nasal vowel or a coda consonant). If a word contained no heavy syllables, then stress would fall on the second syllable.

==Adaptations of Words from Present-Day Languages==

Proto-Antarctican vocabulary is descended from a variety of present day languages. However, many words have undergone sound changes to fit Proto-Antarctican phonology.

===English===

A very large proportion of Proto-Antarctican vocabulary can be traced back to present day English (mainly Australian English, with some influence from New Zealand and South African English). However, they are sometimes not recognisable as such because, apart from other things, many consonant clusters have been broken up by inserting /u/ (/i/ if after a palatalised consonant, /o/ if after /t/ or /d/).

====Vowels====

*The diphthong in English "FEAR" has monophthongised, becoming a long vowel /iː/.

*The monophthong in English "SEA" has diphthongised, becoming /ei/.

====Consonants====

*English clusters of fricative + nasal have become prestopped nasals, at the point of articulation of the nasal e.g. English "smart" -> P.A. /pmːt/.

*English nasals at the end of syllables have usually disappeared, nasalising the preceding vowel. Sometimes /m/ has survived by acquiring an epenthetic /u/ after it, becoming /mu/. And sometimes /ŋ/ became /gu/ with nasalisation on the preceding vowel.

===Japanese===

Quite a lot of Proto-Antarctican vocabulary also comes from Japanese. In general, these words did not need to undergo many sound changes to be compatible with Proto-Antarctican phonology, since Japanese phonology is very restrictive. However, there were a few that need mentioning:

*Japanese devoiced vowels were deleted.

===Burmese===

Another language which had heavy influence on Japanese was Burmese. Below are the sound changes of note that happened to Burmese loanwords in the language:

*Vowels and diphthongs with low (modal) tone became lengthened word finally, and are short otherwise e.g. Burmese taungban - wing -> P.A. /tãubãː/.

===Thai===

A considerable number of Thai words were also borrowed into Antarctican. They were "Antarcticanised" by the following processes:

===Indonesian/Malay/Tagalog===

Given the restrictive nature of the phonology of these languages, words borrowed from these languages did not need to go undergo many sound changes in order to become Antacticanised. The most significant changes were the fricativisation of /r/ to /z/, the insertion of /j/ and palatalisation of consonants before /i/, the loss of /j/ and depalatalisation of consonants before /e/, and the loss of syllable final /n/ and /ŋ/, with nasalisation on the preceding vowel.

===Vietnamese===

Apart from general "Antarctification" of loanwords e.g. palatalisation before /i/, turning aspirate stops into clusters with a fricative, the change of /h/ into /x/ etc., there are a few changes that applied especially to Vietnamese words.

===Taiwanese===