Juvelan and the Azovic languages

[Solarius]

Juvelan ['jʏwɛlɛ] is a language spoken in The United Kingdom of Juvelas, a con-country in the Baltic Sea. Despite its location, Juvelan is non-Indo-European. Instead, it belongs to the Azovic language family, which originates in Belarus. The languages of the family are spread across Europe and West Asia. These are the branches(crosses next to the name mean that the language is dead):

Azovic
-Juvelan
-Juvelan
-Odsaik+
-Crimean
-Eastern Crimean
-Tauridian
-Leovan
-Judeo-Tauridian+
-Western Crimean
-Kaghar
-Dneiper-Alpine
-Umaric
-Umari
-Omalil
-Sulmaliel
-Syvan+
-Ylamlil
-Hu-Karghlok
-Hu
-Karghlok
-Daav
-Daav+
-Muantsir
-Muantsir
-Western
-Pireno
-Judaoi
-Lychtenbu
-Afeurran
-Talaney
-False Thracian+
-Caspian
-West Caucasian
-Im+
-East Caucasian
-Nkono"+
-Mimpo"
-Siberia-Steppe
-Oripala
-Dinkaskh
-Totvine
-East Cau"yet
-West Cau"yet
-Far Cau"yet+
-Lenan
-Forest Lenan+
-Tundra Lenan
-Anatolian Azovic
-Tfauan
-Tfau

This is the phoneme inventory of Proto-Azovic
/i iː iːː a aː aːː ɯ ɯː ɯːː u uː uːː/<i ii iii a aa aaa y yy yyy u uu uuu>
/p b t̪ d̪ t d k g ts dz tʃ f v s z ʃ x h ɬ ɮ m n ɺ l j e̯ w/<p b T D t d k g ts dz c f v s z S x h ll lh m n r l j je w/

Sound Changes to Juvelan in the next post.

[eldin raigmore]

Is there a deep connection between Azovic and Tasmanian?
And between Pontic (or Negropontic?) and Australian?

[Solarius]

Is there a deep connection between Azovic and Tasmanian?
And between Pontic (or Negropontic?) and Australian?

Nope. This is a complete priori (although there are some loanwords from real languages).

[eldin raigmore]

Is there a deep connection between Azovic and Tasmanian?
And between Pontic (or Negropontic?) and Australian?

Nope. This is a complete priori (although there are some loanwords from real languages).

Well, all of the language-families in my question are made-up, too.
It's just that based on the shapes of Australia and the Black Sea, and of Tasmania and the Sea of Azov, I'm suggesting such deep connections (or at least, fictional linguists' proposing such deep connections) would be "reasonable"-ish.

[Solarius]

Well, all of the language-families in my question are made-up, too.
It's just that based on the shapes of Australia and the Black Sea, and of Tasmania and the Sea of Azov, I'm suggesting such deep connections (or at least, fictional linguists' proposing such deep connections) would be "reasonable"-ish.

Yeah, I guess. Although most in-world relation claims are with "Altaic"* and Indo-European.

*Scare quotes to mark that Altaic is not necessarily real anyway.

[eldin raigmore]

Yeah, I guess. Although most in-world relation claims are with "Altaic"* and Indo-European.
*Scare quotes to mark that Altaic is not necessarily real anyway.

OK, on to another topic:
Do Juvelan languages have lots of uvular phonemes?

[Solarius]

OK, on to another topic:
Do Juvelan languages have lots of uvular phonemes?

Juvelan or Azovic?

If the former, Both Juvelan languages have them. Juvelan has /q ʁ̞/. Odsaik had /q qʲ ɢ χ ʁ̞/

If the latter, the proto-language lacks them, but some descendants have them. Juvelan is the most notable example, but some of the Eastern langs have ʁ̞ as their main rhotic.

[Solarius]

First series of sound changes(Proto-Azovic to Old Juvelan (ancestor of Modern Juvelan and Odsaik):
C is a consonant
K is a voiceless plosive
B is a voiced plosive
N is a nasal
V is a vowel
H is a high vowel

t/tɬ/_a,aː,aːː,u, uː,uːː
o/u/#_
oː/uː/#_
oː ː/uː ː/#_
p/b/_VB
T/D/_VB
t/d/_VB
k/g/_VB
h//#_
s/θ/#_
z/ð/#_
ʃ/s/#_
Ng/ŋ/_
ŋ/w/#_
ɬ/ʃ/#_
ɮ/ʒ/#_
j/ʝ/#_
tʃ/tsj/_
ʃ/sj/_
h/ʔ/_
i/e/_
ɯ/ə/_
u/o/_
a/ɐ/_
V//V_V
a/əə/_
ə/a/_
əə/ə/_
l/ɰ/V_C
l/ɰ/C_C
l/ɰ/V_V
l/ɰ/_#
ɺ/l/#_
0/ə/C_CCC
0/ʔ/#_V
ɬ/s/_
ɮ/l/_
H//K_K
x/χ/_
χ/h/_#
χ/q/_

[Solarius]

Are these sound changes realistic?

[eldin raigmore]

Are these sound changes realistic?

I don't know. I haven't learned a lot about sound-changes yet.

[Solarius]

More sound changes. These, I think, are the iffiest in terms of plausibility, so I would appreciate feedback.

uː/au/_#
iː/ai/_
u/ʊ/_
i/ɪ/_
a/æ/_
v/m/V_V
u/y/_, except before ɰ
uɰ/u/_
ɰ/ɯ/V_
a/e/_u
a/o/_i
t/ʔ/_#
t//_k
V/V́/_ʔ
V/V́/_V́
V/V́/_V́
ʔ//_
sj/ɕ/_
a/ɐ/_#
a/ɑ/C_C
a/ɑ/_#
ɺ/r/#_
C//_#
v/ww/#_
w/v/#_
ww/w/_
eu/ø/_
ay/œ/_
V//_V
F/h/V_V
ɪ/ə/#_
ɪ/ə/_#
ə/ɪ/C_C
θ/ð̞̥/_
ð/ð̞/_
t̪ /θ/_
d̪/ð/_
e̯/e/_
tl,dl/kl,gl/_
lw/ɻ/_
r/ʁ̞/_
ə//#_
ʁ̞//#_
V/Vˤ/_B
B//Vˤ_

[Solarius]

And these are the sound changes that separate the modern, standard dialect from other dialects:

e/ɛ/#_
æ/ɐɛ̯/#_
e/ɛɪ̯/C_C
æ/ɛ/_
e/ɛ/_#
ɛɪ/ɐɪ̯/_
i/ɪ/_
y/ʏ/_
ð̞̥/ð̞/_
u/ao̯ɯ̯/_
ao̯ɯ̯/ʌ/_
ɐɛ̯/ɜ/_
ɐɪ̯̯ /ə/_
Vɦ/Vː/_ (this only applies to Vɦ sequences that are in the same syllable)


EDIT: Added Vowel length and associated changes. I also added more Monophthongization.

[Ceresz]

I love projects like this, so I'll try to take a look at your sound changes later, even though I'm hardly an expert. In the mean time, do you think you could add a few examples?

[Solarius]

I love projects like this, so I'll try to take a look at your sound changes later, even though I'm hardly an expert. In the mean time, do you think you could add a few examples?

I'll put some examples up as soon as I can (the Proto-Language has so far one word in its lexicon, and barely any grammar)
I am working on some fun Morphological changes though. The proto-language had a weird morphosyntactic alignment, and traces of that exist in Juvelan.


Now, here is the Phonology of Modern Standard Juvelan. Modern Standard Juvelan is based off of the dialect of the city of Ëruuemiidx [ɛmi] and this is what the dialect will be called here.

Ëruuemiidx Juvelan has 22 vowel phonemes. However, if one excludes vowel length, there are only 13. There are no dipthongs.
/ɪ ɪː ʏ ʏː ø øː ɛ ɛː œ œː ɑ ɑː ɐ ɐː ʌ ʌː ɜ ɜː o oː ʊ ʊː ɯ ɯː ə əː/
There are also 29 consonant phonemes:
/p b t d k g q ts dz f θ ð s z ɕ x~ɣ ɦ m n ŋ l ʋ ð̞ ɻ j ɥ ɰ w ʁ̞/

Allophony
Allophony is not a huge feature in Juvelan phonology, but it exists.
ɪ ʏ ɛ ɐ ʊ and their long equivalents become i y e a u and their long equivalents in closed syllables
Voiceless obstruents are voiced intervocallically.
/ð̞/ is unvoiced word finally.

Phonontactics
The essential syllable structure is:
(C)(C)(C)V(C)(C)
This will be elaborated on later.

Suprasegmentals
Stress
Stress in Juvelan is generally unpredictable. Native Juvelan stress is further complicated by loanwords from Swedish, Finnish, and Polish. Thus stress must be memorized for each word.
Tone
Juvelan is a tonal language. There are but two tones:High and low. The low tone comes from historical ʔ*.


Sandhi
Liaison
Juvelan has an interesting sandhi process, which mildly resembles Liaison in French. Thus this process is called Liason by linguists.
In Juvelan it is common to drop final plosives and fricatives if the next word begins in a consonant:
/xɛqʏt tamo/ to [xeqʏ tamo]
/bɪs tamo/ to [bɪ tamo]
Ësvälja
Another important process is Ësvälja [swɛjl]. Voiced dorsal and glottal consonants always vanish intervocallically. The vowel is pharyngealized in its wake.
/lɯgop/ to [lɯˤop]
/tuøɦo/ to [tuøˤo]
It should be noted that Ësvälja is based on phonetic voicing rather than phonemic voicing. Thus:
/tətua/ to [təˤua]
Tone Sandhi
Tones change a whole lot when they neighbor another tone. Perhaps the most notable of these processes is downstepping, where the high tone lowers to a middle tone after a low tone. Another important process is the transformation of the low tone into a rising tone word initially, if it precedes a high tone. All other processes are dialectal.

[Solarius]

Modified some of the sound changes.

[Ralph]

Sandhi
Liaison
Juvelan has an interesting sandhi process, which mildly resembles Liaison in French. Thus this process is called Liason by linguists.#
In Juvelan it is common to drop final plosives and fricatives if the next word begins in a consonant:
[xɛqʏt tamo] to xeqʏ tamo
[bɪs tamo] to /bɪ tamo/
Ësvälja
Another important process is Ësvälja# [swɛjl]. Voiced dorsal and glottal consonants always vanish intervocallically. The vowel is pharyngealized in its wake.
[lɯgop] to /lɯˤop/
[tuøɦo] to /tuøˤo/
It should be noted that Ësvälja is based on phonetic voicing rather than phonemic voicing. Thus:
[tətua] to /təˤua/
Tone Sandhi
Tones change a whole lot when they neighbor another tone. Perhaps the most notable of these processes is downstepping, where the high tone lowers to a middle tone after a low tone. Another important process is the transformation of the low tone into a rising tone word initially, if it precedes a high tone. All other processes are dialectal.

You've got the square brackets and slashes the wrong way round there.

[Solarius]

Fixed.

[Solarius]

The Proto-Azovic Case system
Proto-Azovic is reconstructed as having 5 cases. It also had an unusual moprhosyntactic alingment.

The Azovic alignment
Proto-Azovic had a interesting morphosyntactic alignment. This is how it works.

The alignment in the present tense is fluid-S. The nominative and absolutive are unmarked, whereas the ergative and accusative are marked separately.
Intransitive:

Code: Select all

xyyl yaru
man fall
"The man falls"

Code: Select all

Xyyk miluua gogamoms
man-NOM hug reindeer-ACC
"The man hugs the reindeer"

or

Code: Select all

Xyykɬtyy miluua goga
man-ERG hug  reindeer-ABS
"The man hugs the reindeer"

However, in the past and future tenses, The alignment shifts to split-S. The past tense forces it to be Ergative. The future tense, on the other hand, forces it to be Nominative.
The past:

Code: Select all

Xyykɬtyy iiimiluua goga
man-ERG PST-hug  reindeer-ABS
"The man hugged the reindeer"

The future:

Code: Select all

Xyyk tusmilooa gogamoms
man-NOM FUT-hug reindeer-ACC
"The man hugs the reindeer"

Finally, in ditransitive clauses, the alignment is rigidly dative. Alignment of the agent and direct object varies from tense to tense.

Code: Select all

Makamak iiityare naruuus gogamaat 
man-ERG hand wreath-DAT reindeer-ABS-BEN
"The man hands the wreath to the reindeer

[Solarius]

More Cases
Proto-Azovic had several other cases besides the Plain, the accusative, and the ergative. These were the genitive, the benefactive, and the locative.*


How cases changed in the Juvelan family: Part 1
One of the more interesting processes which occurred in the Juvelan family was the gradual change of the ergative into a politeness marker. This change result in the generally strange behavior of its descendant, the suffix -styy (phonetically [-stɯ])
,which, until recently, was not allowed in the future tense. It still cannot be used on a patient. Odsaik, Juvelan's closest relative, is somewhat different. It died out in the 1800s, but even then it was more innovative, using its cognate -sztu[-ʃt], in every possible enviroment.


*I have scrapped a previously existing dative case.

[majortopio]

I have yet to fully wrap my head around the concepts of fluid-S and split-S alignments, but your system looks immensely cool. I love the idea of different case "systems" depending on which tense/aspect the verb is in.