Kyrdan languages

Kyrdan
Created by	–
Geographic distribution	Mu (Archaean Earth)
Linguistic classification	One of the primary language families
Proto-language	Proto-Kyrdan
Subdivisions	Kirtumur Cirdamur Kērsalur Sērsal Ilusal Ruosal Kired gōsalkanu Old Ķyrdum

The Kyrdan languages (known natively as Ķyrdesalka) are the ancient language family, distantly related to other Aiwanic languages. They do not form any larger subgroup with other languages of the Aiwanic macrofamily and are considered to be their own separate group, that, however, shares many features with other ancient Aiwanic languages. The family consists of three well recorded languages with various transitional dialects between them as well as some languages that left little to no written records. Of the three major Kyrdan languages, a variety, known as Kērsalur is the closest to the proto-language, and the most divergent being the southern dialects of Cirdamur (called Sersal, which used to refer to a dead language spoken in the same area). However, all Kyrdan languages are closer to each other than to their proto-language, having about 70 to 80% lexical overlap depending on a dialect.

At their highest peak there were more than 60 million native speakers of Kyrdan languages throughout the continent, mostly in the southern region of Pilmu and the Kappālu plains. The Cirdamur language has always been the most widespread of all varieties, spoken across the whole continent and becoming a lingua franca after the decline of Kērsalur.

Name

The term Ķyrdesalka comes from the name of the Old Ķyrdum language. The word ķyrdum itself is much older and is likely derived from the word ķiur "proper (speech)"; this word did not survive in its original meaning anywhere, but can be found in a few compounds, for instance, in the expression kirea, "alright" (and kērea in Kērsalur), or nucirēya "do it right". This old root probably entered Kērsalur becoming the noun with the meaning "language" before disappearing completely, but surviving as the name of the family.

Classification

The classification of the Kyrdan languages is difficult, because most of the linguistic area is a dialect continuum, and in some cases it is difficult to tell which dialect belongs to which language. They all form a single language family, while their external connections with other Aiwanic branches are weak. The Kyrdan languages show more similarities to ancient Aiwanic languages than to the modern ones, mostly because they retain various features or vocabulary, lost in other more innovative branches. But this fact does not make them close to the ancient languages of the previous Era before the Unknown Event, they are not mutually intelligible.

Within the family the most prominent division is between Western vs Eastern groups along the Urugumis line ( after the Urugumis Mountains, which divide the continent into its western and eastern parts. Linguistically the line demarkates a number of important isoglosses that distinguish Kyrdan languages west and east from it, such as development of tense and lax plosives and *ķ, and morphological features, like the formation of plurals). Eastern group thus includes Kirtumur and Kērsalur as well as some transitional dialects, while Western group contains only Cirdamur and its dialects. Old languages are not included into any of these two groups, since they became extinct before this division formed.

Another division is made based on the most usual outcomes of Proto-Kyrdan vowels (disregarding vowel harmony in Kirtumur, Ruosal and Sērsal), although this division is less precise, it sets clearer boundaries among the six main varieties:

Proto-Kyrdan	Sērsal	Cirdamur	Kirtumur	Kērsal	Ilusal	Ruosal
*u	/u/	/u/	/u/	/u/	/u/	/u/
*a	/a/	/a/	/ɑ/	/ɑ/	/a/	/ɑ/
*å	/o/
*i	/i/	/i/	/i/	/i/	/i/	/i/
*e	/e/	/ə/	/ɛ/	/ɛ/		/e/
*ė	/a/
*ē	/ɛː/ (stressed)	/eː/	/eː/	/eː/	/ie/	/ie/
	/e/ (unstressed)
*ei	/eː/		/eɪ/	/eɪ/	/ie/ (initial)	/ie/ (initial)
					/i/ (elsewhere)	/i/ (elsewhere)
*ai	/eː/ (stressed)	/aɪ/		/aɪ/	/eː/	/eː/
	/i/ (unstressed)
*y	/oː/ (stressed)	/i/	/i/	/eː/	/uo/	/uo/
	/u/ (unstressed)
*ō	/ɔː/ (stressed)	/oː/	/oː/	/oː/	/oː/
	/o/ (unstressed)
*au	/aː/		/aʉ/	/ɑʊ/
*ā	/ɛː/ (stressed)	/aː/	/oː/	/aː/		/oː/
	/a/ (unstressed)

Other characteristics, that differentiate Western and Eastern languages, are:

• Phonemic voicing of lax plosives, which happens in the west but not in the east.
• Depalatalisation of the phoneme *ķ to the east, but to the west it became an affricate instead.
• Merging of all affricates to /t͡s/ (lax) and /t͡sʰ/ (tense) in the east, but fricativisation of lax affricates in the west.
• The western fricative chain shift: *z>s>š>x that completely eliminated "z" /θ/ did not occur in the east.
• Use of regular plurals in -ka in the west vs. irregular plurals with vowel harmony in the suffix -k or -an in the east.
• The copula clitic in the form of -š in the west, but -x or -ax in the east (but Kērsalur yis "this is" with "-s" as a relic).
• Development of the cluster/kt/, which develops to /xt/ > /it/ in the west (progressing further to /tʃ/ in the southwest) but /tt/ or /kt/ in the east.
• Development of *f: disappeared in the west, but became /h/ in the east.
• Development of *w: merged with *j in the west but preserved unchanged in the east.
• Development of *q: became /ʔ/ or /h/ in the west, but became /h/ only word-initially in the east.

Several features divide the Western branch more, into Northwestern and Southwestern:

• Degemination of geminate stops, which happens to the southwest but not to the northwest.
• Deletion of initial unstressed front vowels, again in the southwest but not the northwest.
• The palatalisation of the phoneme *ķ goes further in the southwest, where it becomes /s/.
• Merging of tense affricates to /t͡s/ in the northwest vs. /t͡ʃ/ in the southwest. In Old Sērsal the merger did not occur.