Meskangela: Difference between revisions

Historically Meskangela had always been the language of the mountainous islands. Its origin, however, is obscure, as all documentations of the previous eras were lost, and local folklore only briefly mentions an ancient journey to the west, called ཨཱགརྭཾཏུ ''Āgërwatu''. Little is known about the language of that period itself, its phonology is the only part that is well understood, which allows to reconstruct many Proto-Meskangela words. By around 1300 BNE, the Meskangel people had a many chiefdoms in all of the three main islands. During that period the written language rose to prominence and was standardised for the first time (300 BNE). Later, Meskangela Proper became a prestige language after being adopted as a lingua franca between its various dialects. The dialects themselves had already developed their distinctive features by the classical period, and Meskangela Proper was not a common ancestor of those dialects, instead it was a standardised variety of the '''Central Syörilā''', which comprises Western and Eastern ''Tūŋëdēla'' (“Innersea”) group. During the New Era Meskangela is still often referred as a single language, even though by the end of the classical period it had already been a group of closely related languages. The most accurate term to describe Meskangela as a whole is a [[w:Dialect continuum|dialect continuum]].

The only neighbouring family to Meskangela is the Ilain languages in the southeast. There is no agreement whether the Ilain family is genetically related to Meskangela. The common reconstructed features of Proto-Meskangela and Proto-Ilai are spurious. A large amount of words that seem to be cognates are likely borrowings into Proto-Ilai or individual Ilain varieties from Meskangela, and inconsistent sound correspondences support that idea. The similarity in grammar, especially verbal morphology, is also likely due to later Meskangela influence, rather than a genetic similarity between the two branches. Some ancient morphological elements, such as the nominalising suffix ''-in'', agentive ''-uma/-upa'', optative-imperative ''p-'' prefix, the negative-prohibitive particle ''ma''; as well as some words belonging to core vocabulary: Il. ''cai'' – Cl.Mes. ''dzān'' “to eat”, Il. ''mecuk'' “full” – Cl.Mes. ''cyok'' “enough”, W.Il. ''līŋ'' “soul, heart”, E.Il ''paluŋ'' “stomach” – Cl.Mes. ''luŋ'' “heart” point out to a distant genetic relationship with a possible common ancestor breaking into the two branches no later than 8000 BNE.

| ''*tyik'' || ''dan'', ''cyik'' || ''tik'' || ''cyik'' || ''lăŋē'' || ''*aˀtyi'' || ''asa'' || ''áci''

| ''*nis'' || ''ni'' || ''gënis'' || ''nis'' || ''gne'' || ''aˀ(a)li'' || ''āli'' || ''ára''

| ''*lëŋa'' || ''lëŋa'' || ''eŋa'' || ''łuŋa'' || ''băŋa'' || ''*lu'' || ''pēli'' || ''lu''

| ''*Cuk'' || ''khuk'' || ''khuk'' || ''lëruk'' || ''luk'' || ''*anöm'' || ''enem'' || ''anom''

| ''*sëni(s)'' || ''sënis'' || ''stris'' || ''hëni'' || ''enit'' || ''*peˀtu'' || ''pētu'' || ''petho''

| ''*biryat'' || ''bëryat'', ''ryit'' || ''bërkyat'' || ''rit'' || ''mejat'' || ''*siwa'' || ''siva'' || ''siwa''

| ''*kū'' || ''dëkū'', ''kū'' || ''kwau'' || ''hëkwa'' || ''lagu'' || – || ''lavu'' || ''lau''

| ''*cyai'' || ''cyai'' || ''gip'' || ''līni'' || ''si'' || ''*cāhi'' || ''cahi'' || ''cāwi''

| ''*nisCuk'' || ''nikhuk'' || ''niskuk'' || ''nirhuk'' || ''niluk'' || – || ''nilu'' || ''phesî''

| ''*mëkul'' || ''mëkul'' || ''mëkul'' || ''mëkū'' || ''mukog'' || ''*huli'' || ''huli'' || ''mokō''

Ilain word for “nine” (as well as Western Ilai ''nilu'' “twelve” and Eastern Ilai ''mokō'' “twenty”) are obvious borrowings from Southern Meskangela. The word ''*li'' “four” may also be an old borrowing, although Eastern Ilai ''lalí~rarí'' can be derived from “two pairs” (''ra'' “pair” is likely present in *ára “two”). Other words, such as “one” and “ten” show possible cognation, and Eastern Ilai ''lu'' “five” being similar to first syllable in ''lëŋa'' “five”, though the evidence is inconclusive. The similarities might have arisen from borrowing into Ilain from Meskangela (or vice versa) during prehistoric times.

The typical Proto-Meskangela root syllable consisted of the following structural elements: an onset consisting of a root initial consonant '''C_i''', optionally followed by a liquid '''L''' or semivowel glide '''G''' (either "j" or "w"); and a vocalic nucleus consisting minimally of a simple vowel '''V''', followed by a final consonant '''C_f'''. The semivowels could also occur postvocalically, forming falling diphthongs in  "-w"  and "-j", thus belonging to the inventory of '''C_f'''. Unlike word roots, prefixes and suffixes followed a different pattern, consisting of a single consonant followed by a vowel '''PV_p''' or '''SV_s''' (in case of prefixes and suffixes respectively). Only root vowels could carry vowel length (:) and tone ('''t'''), the latter being a consonantal feature at the Proto-Meskangela stage. There was no contrast between zero-initial  *VC  and glottal-initial  *ʔVC, in such cases the second variant is reconstructed with '''C_i''' being an obligatory element. of the root syllable. Two non-syllabic suffixes are reconstructible for Proto-Meskangela, *-s and *-n. When added they could have resulted in a forbidden postvocalic sequence of two consonants ( e.g. -C_fs or C_fn). For these specific instances the suffixes are instead reconstructed as '''ə_sS''' with "ə" being a short semi-syllabic element that disappeared in Classical Meskangela and later dialects. In other cases, where a single final consonant suffix is expected, a "hollow" consonant is reconstructed (which in some cases gives rise to tone H_t, or disappear without a trace H₀), as in  *rjaH₀ən  “to laugh”. In Classical Meskangela the suffix became phonetically identical the C_f, becoming a part of the root ( e.g. ''gësata'' ← ''*gVsaH₀t-ʔa''  “he/she kills”. Thus a potential fully inflected word consists of the following elements:

A similar copula ''uré'' and its negative counterpart ''mórid'' are basic locative copulas that mark possession (''maroŋ uréŋ'' “I have a cat”) or location (''tau uréŋi'' “we are here”).

The causative, detransitive and iterative suffixes are used mostly for verb-derivation (the iterative suffix lost its conjugational meaning in the Western and Southern dialects, where it is only used for derivation). These suffixes often create a string of derived forms of simple root verbs, for example: ''koŋan'' “to carry” → ''goŋan'' “to wear (to carry on ones’ body)” → ''skoŋan'' “to dress” → ''mikhoŋan'' “to continue (to carry on)” → ''sëmikhoŋan'' “to prolong”; ''koran'' “to turn” → ''goran'' “to be late” → ''*skoran'' “to cause turning (verb is possible, but not used)” → ''sikoran'' “make it turn around” → ''sukoran'' “to turn around” → ''misphikoran'' “to overturn”.

| rowspan="3" | <small>1du;2du.Pat<br />''-es''</small>