User:Waahlis/Proto-Jivan
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Based on the works and the field studies of the linguists John G. Crossing and James Mitchell, there have been many attempts to reconstruct the hypothesised Proto-Jivan language, the supposed ancestor of the Ris and Kiwi languages.
Phonology
Vowels
The Proto-Jivan phonology has turned out to be fairly straight-forward, and its vowels were the first to be deciphered.
| Proto-Jivan | Ris | Kiwi | Niki |
|---|---|---|---|
| *a | a | a | |
| *a: | ā | ā | |
| *ay | |||
| *e | a, ∅ | a, e | |
| *e: | ā | i | |
| *ey | |||
| *ə | a, ∅ | a, o | |
| *ə: | e | e | |
| *əy | |||
| *i | i | i | |
| *i: | ī, i | ī | |
| *iy | |||
| *u | u | u | |
| *u: | ū | ū | |
| *uy |
Consonants
The Proto-Jivan consonants are much more of an ordeal to reconstruct. Both Ris and Kiwi turned out to massacre the consonants, whilst the Niki language seems to have retained more of the consonants than the vowels.
| Proto-Jivan | Ris | Kiwi | Niki |
|---|---|---|---|
| *m | |||
| *n | |||
| *ŋ | |||
| *b | |||
| *bʰ | |||
| *tʰ | |||
| *t | |||
| *tʷ | |||
| *tʰ | |||
| *d | |||
| *dʷ | |||
| *dʰ | |||
| *k | |||
| *kʷ | |||
| *kʰ | |||
| *g | |||
| *gʷ | |||
| *gʰ | |||
| *r |
Ris
Sound changes
The following sound changes are hypothesised to have occured in the Ris language.
- C[+plos +asp -lab] > C[+plos +asp -lab] /_
- C[+plos -asp -lab] > C[+plos -asp -lab] /#_
- V > V: /_V(V[+lost])
- a(:) > a(:) /_
- h > ḥ /_
- ə > a /_
- əy > ə /C[+lab]_C
- C[-plos]əC[+plos] > C[+plos]əC[-plos] /_C
- ə > ∅ /C_C[+trill]
- kʷ > v /#_
- (kʷ > kv > hv > v)
- kʷ > w /V_V
- wV > w /V_C
- tʷ > ṛ /V_V
- i: > i /_
- C[+plos -asp -lab] > t /V_i
- e: > a: /C[+lab]_