Lahob languages
| Lahob | |
|---|---|
| Lahobic | |
| Created by | – |
| Geographic distribution | planet of Calémere: northern Evandor and most of Mārsūtram |
| Linguistic classification | One of the world's primary language families
|
| Proto-language | Proto-Lahob |
| Subdivisions |
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The Lahob languages (also Lahobic) are a language family on the planet of Calémere; its Urheimat is in the far northern part of Evandor, where the greatest diversity among them is still found; the most spoken language of the family is however Chlouvānem, spoken (along with its daughter languages) across large areas of Greater Evandor (in the continent of Márusúturon or Mārsūtram), with its own heartland more than 10,000 km away.
The family takes its name from Łaȟoḇszer, language of the Łaȟoḇ people, the largest and first studied in the Lahob heartlands.
Lahob languages nowadays are divided into five or six branches, four of which only spoken in a small area along the Orcish Straits and the tundra/taiga border:
- Pwaɬasd-Ngos languages, including Tundra Pwaɬasd, Forest Pwaɬasd (sometimes included in a Macro-Pwaɬasd language), Zerfek, Nehsy, and Ngos;
- Central Lahobic languages, including Łaȟoḇszer (the language that gave its name to the family), Łokow, Yełeshian Lawo, and Shershan Lawo;
- Tlengastic languages, including Coastal Tlengast, Hilly Tlengast, and Bänme;
- Woŋom-Baan languages (sometimes considered as a sub-group of the Tlengastic branch), including Woŋom, Baan, and Selmeš.
These four languages are part of the so-called Subpolar Evandor Sprachbund, sharing features among them and with a few neighboring Kordegic languages and the easternmost rural dialects of Gathura.
The other two branches are spoken by groups that migrated southwards in prehistoric times:
- Šlokhowdeš is an isolate among the larger Lahob family, spoken in a hilly area in the Baran river basin in north-central Greater Evandor. Probably it is the only surviving language of a formerly larger branch.
- Chlouvānem languages include Chlouvānem and all its descendants. Despite being by far the most spoken of the whole family and having the longest documented history, it took a long time to recognize the Lahob origin of Chlouvānem, due to many factors (including the long distance (some 10,000 km) from the Lahob homeland, the enormous lexical influence of other languages, the genetic difference between the Chlouvānem and other Lahob speakers (though mainly due to interbreeding with other peoples) and the fact all other Lahob languages have a very different morphology, changed in more than 5000 years; Chlouvānem is morphologically extremely close to Proto-Lahob).
Proto-Lahob is the reconstructed common ancestor of all Lahob languages on the planet of Calémere. It was spoken about 5000 years before the present in the northern part of Evandor, along the coasts of the Orcish Straits - which today divide the "human" part of the continent from Gurdugal, the "orcish" part.
Among Calémerian linguists, Proto-Lahob morphology is very difficult to reconstruct, as all branches apart from Chlouvānem have only been studied in the last century and have morphological traits very different from Chlouvānem, and have all undergone radical changes in nominal and verbal morphology (it is however interesting to note that some Chlouvānem daughter languages have progressed independently in a similar way); vocabulary and especially phonology are however much better understood.
The name of the language family - properly spelled Łaȟoḇ in Łaȟoḇszer, and pronounced [ɬaˈχɔβ] is a reflex of the Proto-Lahob word *ɬakʰober, meaning "people", which it is one of two roots normally used in forming ethnonyms - the other being *wānəme "tribe, group, horde". These two roots are reflexed in almost all languages, and in many ethnonyms:
- *ɬakʰober as ethnonym for e.g. the Łaȟoḇ (Łaȟoḇszer means "Łaȟoḇ language"), Łokow, Lawo, Šlokhow; also reflexed as e.g. tlekweˤ in Coastal Tlengast, tlokweʁ in Hilly Tlengast (both "family"), chlåkhmeh (tribe) in Chlouvānem;
- *wānəme as ethnonym for e.g. the Bänme, Woŋom, Baan, and the -vānem part in Chlouvānem; also as e.g. onom (group) in Łaȟoḇszer and womme (village) in Šlokhowdeš.
Names for the proto-language and for the language family in Lahob languages are almost non-existant apart from Chlouvānem, as most of them are native languages of traditional populations (a substantial number being hunter-gatherers), and calques from Western languages (mainly Gathura) are used; in Chlouvānem the family is called Lahūbumi dældai and Proto-Lahob is Olahūbumi dældā — the term Lahūbai for the Lahob people being a borrowing from Cerian Lahóbe.
Common characteristics
Due to the presence of Chlouvānem languages and, to a lesser extent, Šlokhowdeš, all highly divergent, it is difficult to point out features common to all Lahob languages. Some notable ones are:
- Proto-Lahob had a complex morphosyntactic alignment based on triggers, and this situation is exactly as in classical Chlouvānem and - with a few less voices - in its daughter languages, as well as in the Pwaɬasd-Ngos branch. Other Lahob languages have evolved this system into a typical ergative/absolutive alignment, though many languages maintain various "locative verbs" derived from the old locative-trigger voice.
- Unmarked SOV word order (with S meaning what concords with the verb, at least where verbs conjugate for person) is common to all Lahob languages except Šlokhowdeš and the Woŋom-Baan branch (all predominantly SVO).
- Location is expressed in all Lahob languages by means of numerous verbs with prefixes changing to convey the sense of different English prepositions.
- Most Lahob languages treat verbs as a mostly closed verb class, with only a few basic verbs (usually from 10 to 30) used as compounds with other verbs or nominal roots; in languages where derivation is possible, verbs can usually only be derived from other verbs, and the only possible derived forms are usually causatives or applicatives. Chlouvānem is the main exception, though this use is common in many of its daughter languages and sometimes spreads back into colloquial Chlouvānem (e.g. pāṭṭaruke (to study) vs. pāṭṭaru-dṛke (lit. "study-do")).
- Except for the Chlouvānem branch, Lahob languages all have very small case systems (absolutive and ergative, rarely dative) if they exist at all; they rely on a large number of adpositions instead. This is a major contrast to Proto-Lahob, which is reconstructed with eleven cases (just like classical Chlouvānem).
Numeral system
All Lahob languages have a purely duodecimal number system, and it is one of only a few human language families on Calémere to use that. It has been hypothesized that the duodecimal system was an influence from the Orcs, as Orcs in both hemispheres all have duodecimal number systems and all human language families with non-borrowed duodecimal systems have a current or proto-homeland near Orcish populations.
Lahob languages have also been unique in spreading duodecimal systems: in the West, northern dialects of Gathura have a system of duodecimal numerals (up to 4810 (4012)) coexisting with their native decimal ones, most probably because of early Gathurani explorers and settlers of the far northern lands adopting this in order to better trade with indigenous Lahob-speaking tribes. In the East, Brono-Fathanic, Kalurilut, and Gorjonur dialects of Skyrdagor, as well as the Bazá dialects spoken in Chlouvānem areas, all have a native decimal system and a duodecimal one borrowed from Chlouvānem. This has gone even further in regional vernaculars of the Inquisition, such as Hūnakañumi, which do not use their native (usually decimal or quinary) systems anymore, having substituted them with the duodecimal Chlouvānem system (all of these languages usually count with native numerals up to 5 or 10 and then use the Chlouvānem numerals).
Proto-Lahob
Morphology
Gender system
Proto-Lahob had probably four genders: how they were called is not known, but they mostly pattern with the ending sound: *-s nouns were the first class, *-m nouns the second, *-n nouns the third, and *-r, vowel nouns, and consonant ones (though often analyzable as *-ə) the last one. Each class had its own way of being pluralized: *-i for the s-class, *-je for the m-class, *-î for the n-class, and *-e for the r-class.
The PLB genders are easily seen in many current-day Lahob languages, despite only Chlouvānem, Tundra Pwaɬasd, and Forest Pwaɬasd retaining a decent amount of nominal inflection:
- Chlouvānem, as expected, reflects them all clearly: the PLB s-class as the dragon nouns, the m-class as lotus m-ending nouns (with -ye or -e plurals), the n-class as lotus n-ending nouns (with unmarked plurals), and vowel or h-nouns are the parrot nouns that represent the r-class (PLB *r consistently became Chl. h word-finally).
- The Pwaɬasd-Ngos languages merged the r- and s-classes as a single r-class (also including vowel nouns) and merged the m- and n- classes as a single nasal one.
- The Central Lahobic languages, as well as Šlokhowdeš, do not distinguish gender anymore, but there are many plurals that show traces of this system (even though the original m-class ending, *-je, became generalized as the main plural ending in all of these languages, e.g. Łaȟ. von, voni “hand, hands” < Proto-Central-Lahobic *ðɔn, *ðɔn-ye, but in PLB it was *dʱān-o, *dʱān-o-e — c.f. Chlouvānem dhāna, dhānai and Tundra Pwaɬasd daněr, danuy (< Proto-Pwaɬasd-Ngos *dān-ʀ, *dān-oj)), like Łaȟ. žonk, žonke “man, men” (c.f. Tundra Pw. duuógěr, duuóguy — note that Chl. changed this to an m-class noun for unknown reasons so it has dralkam, dralkye instead of the expected *dralkė, *dralkai).
- The Tlengastic languages distinguish an n-class which continues the PLB m-class, while the other three have been merged in a single class (with most words being consonant-final).
- The Woŋom-Baan languages have the same n-class derived from the PLB m-class as the Tlengastic languages, but the other one was split between vowel-final words (mostly continuing the vowel-final nouns of the PLB r-class) and consonant-final words; inflections for the consonant-final class continue the PLB s-class, those of the vowel-final class the PLB r-class.
Basic cognates
[to be expanded]
| Proto-Lahob | Chlouvānem | Proto-Central-Lahobic | Łaȟoḇszer (Central Lahobic) |
Łokow (Central Lahobic) |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| *frātos "wind" | prātas | *fɔrt | foš | fosh |
| *košərūs "nice, beautiful" | kaṣrūs | *koʃro | košor | kushor |
| *kājtros "snow (normal)" | kaiṭas "snow" | *kɛytro | čêč | shesher |
| *tarîson "stripe" | tarṣan | *tarsən | tažn | tarsen |
| *sṝvo "cloth, sheet" | sṝva "cloth, sheet; large expanse; vast territory" |
*sorov | šorḇ | shorw |
| *sōwogən "ditch, trench, moat" | sågna "underground" | *sowgən | suḇ "burrow" | sükn "burrow" |
| *kʷʰuwam "non-forested land; steppe" | phuvam "uncultivated land" | *ʍowa | huḇ | kwow |
| *fārni "side" | pāṇi | *fɔrn | fožin | fören |
| *ʕūdwen "cover" | lūdven "roof" | *áyerkin | ešin "coat, fur" | erčin "coat, fur" |
| *kʰomos "sun" | khamas "hot (to the touch)" | *xom | ȟom | kom |
| *kawŋədot "cereal" | koldas "wheat" | *kawŋgot | kaḇog "rye" | kongut "rye" |
| *ʕāj(ə)sjeg "elbow" | laišė | *ayʃeg | ešiž | eshik |
| *ʕoŋjā "night" | laliā | *aŋɔy | anô | angö |
| *ʕoŋla "next" | lalla "high, upper, next" | *antɬa | atł | natł |
| *lanisí "braid" | lañši | *ɬiʃí | łiš "sausage" | łish "chain" |
| *gegriso "lake" | gėrisa | *gegris | hetłi | kitł |
| *jegarom "stomach" | egåram | *yegor | ihor "belly" | ügür "belly" |
| *tūlum "worm" | tūlum | *toɬ | toł | toł |
| *doŋawja "flint, silex" | daloya | *doŋew | donv | tongew |
| *dərónke "man" | dralkam | *droŋk | žonk | tronk |
| *dʱāno "hand" | dhāna | *ðɔn | von | zon |
| *tsuŋjeg "hunting companion" | çuliė "(female) friend" | *tsuŋedʒ | sunž | sünch |