Tanisi languages

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Attamian
Neumato-Attian
Created by
Geographic
distribution
Western Asia
Linguistic classificationlanguage isolate
  • Attamian
Proto-languageProto-Attamian
Subdivisions
Attamian langs.png
Proportion of the Attamian ethnic groups that speaks an Attamian language:
  0–20%
  20–40%
  40–60%
  60–70%
  70-80%





Attamian (/aˈtɛɪ̯mi̩ɘn/; also Neumato-Attian, Attno-Manathi, Attian,) is a Caucasian language family which includes at least the Attnic languages, Namic, and Garathi languages.

In November 2012 a proposal connecting Attnic to the Neumatic languages of Western Iran into the Attamian family was published and well received by a number of linguists. The family's relation to Caucasian and Indo-European language families remain controversal, but persists - mostly due to the number of loan words in the language family.

General Information

The Attamian languages is a family, or group, of constructed naturalistic languages, which share common features derived the hypothetic Proto-Attamian language. They are inspired by a diversity of natural languages, each of them with a distinct style, yet with grammatical and semantical similarities, as well as a shared vocabulary.

These are the planned Attamian languages so far:

  • Attian - Armeno-Arabic inspired language with an active-stative alignment and nonconcatenative morphology. Originally an attempt at uniting Celtic and Arabic.
  • Damian - A so far sketchy language with Greek/Slavic/Shona/Khmer influences. Possibly ergative, maybe accusative. Mangled by allophony.
  • Namic - Indo-European and especially Indo-Iranian influenced language, tripartite, heavy in phonemes, heavy in cases and heavy in scope. A language revised from being a mixed a priori - a posteriori language of the Indo-Iranian branch.

Attamian attributes

  • A by origin nonconcatenative morphology. Not present in the Namic language.
  • Basic vocabulary expressed in roots, marked: √
  • Secondary fusional morphology. High degree of affixation in all languages. Varying degree of cases.
  • An inherited tonal system - moraic stress in Attian, tone in Damian and pitch in Namic.
  • khāna = /ˈkʰaːna/ = [ˈkʰa͜ánā]
  • Medium-to-large phoneme inventory.

Genealogy

Proto-Attamian
Attno-Damian

Attnic

Ancient Attian

Sengani


Middle Attian

Attian





Hayani




Manatho-Damian†
Ancient Damian

Damian




Manathi





Neumatic

Central
Ancient Namic

Rayan


Middle Namic

Namic





Southern

Parsi



Garathi







  • A language in bold denotes that it is extant.
  • A language in italics denotes that it is now extinct (i.e. has no native speakers).
  • † denotes the extinction of a linguistic subgroup

Attno-Damian languages

Attnic languages

Sound changes

  • Müller's law
*p → kʷ → kw → k͡p
*b → ɡʷ → ɡw → ɡ͡b
*m → ŋʷ → ŋw → ŋ͡m
  • Crossing's law
    • First law of Crossing
*tʷ → tʍ → t
*kʷ → kʍ → k
*ɡʷ → ɡw → ɣw → w (through intermediary ɰ)
  • Second law of Crossing
*tʰ → θ
*kʰ → x
*ɡʰ → ɡ

Examples:

  • Proto-Attamian *tʰn → Attian thana

Manatho-Damian languages

Neumatic languages

Central

Southern