Nenta—Caligan languages
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Nenta–Caligan (IPA: [ˌnɛntakəˈligən]) is a primary language family whose languages are primarily spoken in Quillan.
Kanvas are a species of cat-like anthropomorphic beings unique to Spectradom, the world in which this language family is placed, and the languages in the family reflect that in some ways.
Included languages
- Proto-Nenta
- Classical Nenta
- Old Rokadong
- Modern Rokadong
- Kairitelan
- Karanesa / Middle Nenta (as it appears to be the least divergent descendant of Classical Nenta to this point)
- Imperial Karanesa
- (Modern) Karroka
- New Karanesa (also called New Nenta)
- High Karanesa
- Nenyanezan
- Imperial Karanesa
- Old Rokadong
- High Kanafan
- Saygenan
- Calyuganyuan
- Low Kanafan
- Citalian
- Classical Nenta
- Proto-Caligan
- Irikang Caligan
- Sãdenyan
- Hinkutashan
- Naderean
- Graphinian Caligan
- Inspoll Creole
- Tatrayan
- Irikang Caligan
Characteristics
Most Nenta–Caligan languages today have two or three stop series, which is dependent on the branch of the family: for example, Classical Nenta has only voiced and unvoiced consonants, while Tatrayan has voiced, unvoiced, and ejective stops, and Sãdenyan has aspirated, unaspirated, and ejective consonants.
Nasal consonants appear to be very stable in Nenta–Caligan broadly, with all languages in the family having three or more nasal phonemes. The High Kanafan language Saygenan is the record holder for the highest number of nasal phonemes, with eight.
Proto-Nenta–Caligan
Proto-Nenta–Caligan is the reconstructed ancestor of all languages in the Nenta–Caligan family.
Proto-Nenta–Caligan has stops and fricatives at four places of articulation: labial, dental or alveolar, velar, and uvular. The split between Nentan and Caligan is in part characterized by the latter backing uvulars into glottals consistently. Although Classical Nentan is assumed to have developed a similar sound change later, Nentan broadly did not further develop the now-glottal stop into ejective consonants, while much of Caligan did.
It has three stop series: plain, voiced, and (pre)nasalized. In Irikang Caligan, the former two appear to have become an aspiration distinction. It has two fricative series: plain and voiced. These fricative series appear to be relatively unstable in Nentan, but more stable in Caligan: while almost all Nentan languages appear to have at one point in time merged voiced and unvoiced fricatives, Caligan languages tend to retain some distinct reflex of them. For example, Sãdenyan's guttural approximant /ʕ/ appears to be a reflex of the voiced *ħ.