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==History== | ==History== | ||
{{main|Old Gaju}} | {{main|Old Gaju}} | ||
Gaju is a member of the South Rttirrian branch of the Rttirrian language family of [[w:Southeast Asia|Southeast Asia]]; the dialects of Proto-South-Rttirrian that would become Gaju split off from those that would become Rttirri around the 3rd to 5th century CE, probably in southeastern Rttirria. | |||
Gaju is considered more linguistically [[w:conservative (linguistics)|innovative]] than Rttirri, having undergone many phonological and grammatical changes from Proto-South-Rttirrian that did not occur in Rttirri. The main such changes are summarized here: | |||
* The loss of the retroflex series. */ʈ ɖ ɳ/ merged into /t d n/, while */ɽ/ became [w] and */ɻ/ merged with onset */ʟ/ as [l]. However, the original three vowels */a i u/ had developed allophones after retroflex consonants, and these became independent phonemes: /ɑ e o/. */ɑ/ would later raise and round to /ɔ/. | |||
* Gradual development of a [[w:tone (linguistics)|tone]] system. First, coda */ʟ/ disappeared and left a low tone on the preceding vowel, all vowels took a low tone before stops, and various grammatical particles and affixes took low tones—other syllables took high tones. From there, further phonological elision and grammaticalization of morphemes led to a contour tone system. | |||
* The gradual allowance of a few nasal consonants in coda position: /m n ŋ/. | |||
* The simplification of stop-stop clusters, which in Rttirri would develop into [[w:ejective consonant|ejectives]]. The initial element of the cluster was fricativized, e.g. */tk/ > /sk/, and then an epenthetic /ə/ with a low tone was inserted, e.g. */ski˥/ > /sə˩ki˥/. In some function words and affixes, though, the second stop was lost altogether, e.g. */tk/ > /s/. | |||
* The development of several unusual voiceless consonants. In clusters ending in */m n ɻ ɽ/, the first consonant (which was always voiceless) disappeared, which left /m̥ n̥ ʍ l̥/ as new phonemes. | |||
* The development of the vowels /ɛ ɪ/, which started as allophones of /e/ and /i/ that dissimilated after palatal consonants. | |||
* A chain shift from voiced stops, to voiceless stops, to aspirated stops. | |||
* Much of Proto-South-Rttirrian's agglutinative morphology being lost, in favor of a more analytic system. For example, the subject and object verb prefixes became freestanding pronouns, and the adoption of the third-person singular and third-person plural pronouns (''-ge'' and ''-di'') as new accusative affixes on nouns contributed to the development of a noun case system. | |||
* The reappropriation of the Proto-South-Rttirrian [[w:evidentiality|evidential]] particles as a fused politeness-aspect system. | |||
==Phonology== | ==Phonology== | ||