Proto-Riphic

Proto-Riphic (native name firmištarifjē irštinē) is a descendant of Late PIE with a Proto-Germanic, Proto-Balto-Slavic and Old Prussian hybrid aesthetic.

Phonology

Consonants

Thee evolution of consonants from PIE to Proto-Riphic involves various sound changes, including one similar to Grimm's law. In addition, Riphean developed a tone system with five tones from the interplay between PIE stop phonation and stress accent, analogous to Verner's law.

Stop phonation shifts initially result in a Xhosa-like outcome: voiceless -> voiceless aspirated and voiced -> voiced breathy while glottalized consonants are ejective (as in early PIE) with implosive allophones after unstressed vowels. Riphean is notable for having Grassmann's law apply to voiceless stops, so a PIE root like *tep- turns into /tepʰ-/, later reinterpreted as /t'epʰ-/. Riphean is a satem language, which means the labiovelars delabialized, and the palatovelars turned into alveolar affricates /tsʰ ts' dz/.

The "voiced" consonants of Riphean are actually half-voiced with the following vowel realized breathy. The development is somewhat parallel to the development of voiced PIE stops in Italic, Greek and Indo-Iranian. In South Riphic, including Mixolydian, these stayed distinct from the glottalized series, whereas North Riphic merged them and transferred the contrast to tone on the following vowel.