Quame languages
| Quame | |
|---|---|
| Naquo-Bjeheondo-Talman, Northwestern | |
| Created by | IlL |
| Geographic distribution | Txapoalli, Talma, Etalocin; today worldwide |
| Linguistic classification | One of Tricin's primary language families |
| Proto-language | Proto-Quame |
The Quame languages (Eevo: brits Cłem, from *kʷēm, the reconstructed word for 1), also known as Naquo-Bjeheondo-Talman, are a major language family in Tricin. It is well-established that that Naquic and Talmic form a Naquo-Talmic family; the relationship of other languages to Naquo-Talmic is conjectured by some but not well-established.
The Quame urheimat is surmised to be somewhere in Etalocin (the union of Clofabolocin and Dodellia). Proto-Quame was spoken 3000 years ago.
Proto-Quame phonology is inspired by classical IE languages (esp. Greek and Proto-Celtic) and Tsez.
Family tree
Phonology
Consonants
The following inventory of consonants is reconstructed for PQ and is now accepted by the majority of Trician scholars.
| Labial | Dental | Alveolar | Palatal | Velar | Uvular | Glottal | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| plain | labialized | plain | labialized | |||||||
| Nasal | *m | *n | ||||||||
| Plosive | plain (asp.) | *t | *T | *k | *kʷ | *q | *qʷ | *ʔ | ||
| ejective | *tʼ | *Tʼ | *kʼ | *kʷʼ | *qʼ | *qʷʼ | ||||
| voiced | *b | *d | *D | *g | *gʷ | *ɢ | *ɢʷ | |||
| Fricative | *φ | *s | ||||||||
| Resonant | *l | *r | *y /j/ | *w | ||||||
Vowels
| Front | Central | Back | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Close | *i *ī | *u *ū | |
| Mid | *e *ē | *o *ō | |
| Open | *a *ā |
Suprasegmentals
Stress was phonemic.
Phonotactics
Rules:
- Grassmann's Law operates in many descendants.
Grammar
Typology
No case, number + classifier marking articles, clusivity (very un-IE)
OVS; focus prominent; Wackernagel clitics
Classifiers
- qon, pl. stē = animates (humans, more "animate" animals like pets)
- ṭēn, pl. yes = honorific form of ne
- kwon, pl. φrī = organisms not viewed as sentient: plants, fungi, "lower" animals, pests
- φās, pl. nē = generic inanimates
- smār, pl. smin = tiny, point-like objects; mass nouns
- oyr, pl. φal = long, thin objects
- φū, pl. zoy = flat sheets
- gī, pl. krūh = food items
- rāw, pl. sya = abstractions; intellectual works such as art, books, ...
- kmāh, pl. lū = manmade structures: houses, buildings, cities; tools
- Units of measurement do not take classifiers with numerals.
Derivational morphology
- -sa: "Caland" suffix
- Compounding (head-final)