Pre-Owina
| Pre-Owina | |
|---|---|
| Created by | – |
Indo-European
| |
Pre-Owina was the early stage of what would evolve into the Owina branch of the Indo-European family, which is spoken by populations across East Siberia and Alaska. It was spoken around 2000 BC by populations that had migrated eastward from the Proto-Indo-European homeland. Because all of its descendants form a single branch, its phonology, grammar, and lexicon could not be reconstructed via the usual comparative method, but instead have been gleaned from toponyms, loanwords into other Siberian languages, and internal reconstruction. Its single daughter language is Proto-Owina, which was spoken more than a millennium later and eventually split into the Owina languages of today.
Pre-Owina was a nominative-accusative, fusional language with four grammatical genders. It had simplified some aspects of Proto-Indo-European grammar, such as the number system and verb conjugation, while making other aspects more complicated, such as the grammatical gender and case systems. It had more vowels than Proto-Indo-European as well as more consonants, but its syllable structure was more restricted.
History
- See also: Proto-Indo-European
Pre-Owina evolved from the Proto-Indo-European language spoken somewhere in the Eurasian steppes. The following are among the notable changes that occurred as the Pre-Owina culture made its way into east Siberia:
- Voiced aspirated consonants became devoiced (but kept their aspiration).
- Short /e/ and /o/ were raised to /i/ and /u/ to make maximal use of the vowel space.
- Afterward, vowel length was lost, so /eː/ and /oː/ became simply /e/ and /o/.
- Labialized consonants delabialized when preceding /u/ and /o/, and palatalized consonants depalatalized when preceding /i/.
- The consonants /j/ and /w/ shifted to /ʒ/ and /v/. Unlike most Indo-European languages where syllabic /j/ and /w/ became vocalic /i/ and /u/, here they remained consonantal.
- When adjacent to a voiceless consonant, /ʒ/ and /v/ became /ʃ/ and /f/.
- Syllabic consonants became disallowed:
- Syllabic /n/ and /r/ fronted to /e/, while syllabic /l/ vocalized to /o/.
- The other syllabic consonants (/j/, /w/, and /m/) took on an epenthetic /a/ to separate them from other consonants. /ʃ/ and /f/ kept their voicelessness when pulled out of consonant clusters, thus cementing them as new phonemes.
- The dual number completely disappeared.
- Thematic inflection paradigms for nouns of the three original grammatical genders (masculine, neuter, and feminine) merged, creating a fourth "thematic" gender.
- This gender adopted /qin/, a simplification of the Proto-Indo-European word for "other", as its pronoun.
- Unlike most Indo-European languages, which simplified the robust case system of Proto-Indo-European, Pre-Owina innovated two new cases under influence from nearby Siberian languages:
- A comitative, from the postposition /kum/ ("with") suffixed to the accusative.
- An illative, from the postposition /xin/ ("in") suffixed to the dative.
Phonology
Consonants
Pre-Owina possessed the following consonants:
| Labial | Alveolar | Palatal- alveolar |
Palatal | Velar | Uvular | |||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Palatalized | Plain | Labialized | Plain | Labialized | ||||||
| Nasal | *m /m/ | *n /n/ | ||||||||
| Plosive | Voiceless | *p /p/ | *t /t/ | *ky /kʲ/ | *k /k/ | *kw /kʷ/ | ||||
| Voiced | *d /d/ | *gy /gʲ/ | *g /g/ | *gw /gʷ/ | ||||||
| Aspirated | *ph /pʰ/ | *th /tʰ/ | *kyh /kʲʰ/ | *kh /kʰ/ | *kwh /kʷʰ/ | |||||
| Fricative | Voiceless | *f /f/ | *s /s/ | *sh /ʃ/ | *x /x/ | *q /χ/ | *qw /χʷ/ | |||
| Voiced | *v /v/ | *j /ʒ/ | ||||||||
| Affricate | *ch /t͡ʃ/ | |||||||||
| Approximant | *l /l/ | |||||||||
| Flap/Trill | *r /r/ | |||||||||
Vowels
The following vowel phonemes are used:
| Front | Central | Back | |
|---|---|---|---|
| High | *i /i/ | *u /u/ | |
| Mid | *e /e/ | *o /o/ | |
| Low | *a /a/ |
Phonotactics
Syllables could be maximally SPAVAPS, where:
- S stands for any sibilant
- P stands for any plosive or fricative
- A stands for any approximant, flap/trill, or nasal
- V stands for any vowel
Pre-Owina inherited the phonemic stress system of Proto-Indo-European. No syllable in a word had to be stressed, and sometimes more than one were. Here, stress is indicated with an acute accent, written thus:
- á é í ó ú
Grammar
Pronouns
The following pronouns were used:
| 1st | 2nd | 3rd | ||||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Sing. | Pl. | Sing. | Pl. | Sing. | Pl. | |||||||
| Masc. | Neut. | Fem. | Them. | Masc. | Neut. | Fem. | Them. | |||||
| Nominative | *xig | *ev | *fax | *ja | *su | *tud | *siq | *qis | *tuj | *tuq | *tiqaj | *qini |
| Accusative | *amí | *esmí | *fí | *vos | *tum | *tiq | *qim | *tuns | *tiqes | *qines | ||
| Genitive | *míni | *esu | *tívi | *shafsu | *safó | *isiq | *qinchu | *tisum | *tiqum | *qinum | ||
| Dative | *míshu | *esmij | *pháju | *fasmij | *smój | *qij | *qinij | *tujmaf | *tiqmaf | *qimus | ||
| Ablative | *míd | *esmid | *fíd | *fasmid | *smód | *qind | *tujus | *tuqus | ||||
| Locative | *muáj | *esmaj | *tuáj | *fasmaj | *smaj | *qaj | *qinch | *chaf | *tiqshaf | *qinchaf | ||
| Instrumental | *esmáj | *fasmu | *tuj | *qinax | *tushphaj | *tiqphaj | *qinash | |||||
| Comitative | *amík | *esmík | *fíkum | *voskum | *tiqum | *tudum | *tuqum | *qimum | *tunsum | *tuqum | *tiqem | *qiskum |
| Illative | *míshuq | *esmin | *phájux | *fasmin | *smósh | *shin | *qinchax | *tujman | *tuqun | *qinchin | ||
Case declension
Nouns and adjectives were declined for case, number, and gender. The cases were identical for both the nouns and the adjectives.
| Singular | Plural | |||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Masc. | Neut. | Fem. | Them. | Masc. | Neut. | Fem. | Them. | |
| Nominative | *-(a)m | *-∅/-e | *-(a)s | *-(a)sh | *-i | *-(a)x | *-ish | *-i |
| Vocative | *-∅/-e | |||||||
| Accusative | *-(a)m | *-es | *-es | |||||
| Genitive | *-(a)s | *-shu | *-um | |||||
| Dative | *-ij | *-mus | ||||||
| Ablative | *-(a)d | *-(a)s | *-(a)d | |||||
| Locative | *-ij | *-(a)j | *-sav | *-shaf | ||||
| Instrumental | *-(a)x | *-phaj | *-(a)sh | |||||
| Comitative | *-mum | *-kum | *-shum | *-mum | *-skum | *-xum | *-shum | *-skum |
| Illative | *-shax | *-shin | *-shax | *-shin | ||||
Verb phrases
Person/number conjugation
| Athematic | Thematic | |||||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1st | 2nd | 3rd | 1st | 2nd | 3rd | |||||||
| Sing. | Pl. | Sing. | Pl. | Sing. | Pl. | Sing. | Pl. | Sing. | Pl. | Sing. | Pl. | |
| Past | *-am | *-amí | *-as | *-ití | *-at | *-and | *-um | *-umi | *-is | *-iti | *-id | *-und |
| Present | *-ma | *-mus | *-sa | *-ti | *-ta | *-anch | *-u | *-um | *-ash | *-it | *-umu | *-unch |
Sample text
From Schleicher's fable:
- PIE: h₂áu̯ei̯ h₁i̯osméi̯ h₂u̯l̥h₁náh₂ né h₁ést, só h₁éḱu̯oms derḱt. só gʷr̥hₓúm u̯óǵʰom u̯eǵʰed; só méǵh₂m̥ bʰórom; só dʰǵʰémonm̥ h₂ṓḱu bʰered.
- Pre-Owina: Qívas xashusij qafoxniqash ní xísat, sú xíkshafes dirkid; sú qinum víkhyam sú mígyaqam phírat, sú thakhyímunam qókyav phírat.
- Gloss: sheep-F.SG.NOM REL-F.SG.DAT wool-THEM.SG.NOM not be-3SG.PST, and horse-THEM.PL.ACC see-3SG.PST.THEM. and 3PL.THEM.GEN wagon-NEUT.SG.ACC pull-3SG.PST; and load-NEUT.SG.ACC carry-3SG.PST; and person-M.ACC quick-ADV carry-3SG.PST.
- English: A sheep that had no wool saw horses, one of them pulling a heavy wagon, one carrying a big load, and one carrying a man quickly.