Quick Diachronics Challenge

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sangi39
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Re: Quick Diachronics Challenge

Post by sangi39 »

I'm kind of working on it for an hour or two each night after work. My main struggle is keeping everything in a reasonable order [:P] I've been looking at Language B for the last 15 minutes, and I think I can spot a couple of sound changes, just need to get them all down and make sure they make sense.
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Re: Quick Diachronics Challenge

Post by sangi39 »

And for a preliminary guess at the words in the proto-language:
Spoiler:
1: te'lemekʷo
2: 'mposotsi
3: 'kʷoŋotke
4: aŋ'kʷoŋotke
5: 'serew
6: an'serew
7: qilipoŋq
8: ke'ɬep
9: 'tsinitɬeŋ
10: an'setsa

I'm really, really unsure about 1 and 7
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Re: Quick Diachronics Challenge

Post by opipik »

CLASSIFICATION
Spoiler:
A and G are very closely related, they can be even dialects of the same language.
C and J are more distantly related to A and G.

D and E are closely related, D did a lot of consonant and vowel elisions, though.
H is more distantly related to these two.

B, F and I are family-level isolates for now.

Code: Select all

─┬┬ A
 │└ G
 ├─ C
 └─ J
─┬┬ D
 │└ E
 └─ H
─── B
─── F
─── I
RECONSTRUCTION (step 1)
Spoiler:
Proto-A,G words:
tʰə̃ː.ə̃.ə.kʷw | ŋ̊ʷaːwːəsəs | ˈkʷʰã.wə.akʼ | aːʔ-ˈkʷʰã.wə.akʼ | səəː | aːʔsəəː | xɨ̃ː.ɨ̃ː.ãʔ | kaʃɨːʔ | ˈsɨːəs | ãsaəs
There were two types of words: balanced-stress and initial-stress.

Sound changes to A
Spoiler:
əː//ə_#
w//_#
w//V_V (if not geminated)
wː/w/_
ʃ/s/_
balanced-stress nouns gain penultimate stress
Sound changes to G
Spoiler:
s//_#
Cʼ//_#
ʔ//_#
ə//Cʷ_w
balanced-stress nouns gain initial stress
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Re: Quick Diachronics Challenge

Post by Auvon »

Commentary on guesses below, don't open if you don't want to see.
Spoiler:
I'll provide the first round of actual commentary at this point as I just said, so continue at your own risk.
Sangi, I'll address your guesses first; sort of in order of posting.

Overall, consider what's ancestral versus what're innovations especially in stops (including nasals) and vowels. I'm not necessarily saying this is easy (or even possible for all segments) especially with unconditional mergers that aren't entirely uncommon in this challenge. Some other things to consider: stress was strong in the proto-language, look at the vowels of i and f, as well as what be conditioning environments or cheshirization residue sort of stuff. Consider the cross-linguistic extent of a certain series of segments you reconstructed for the proto-language: given the limited extent of this series, it might be better to not include this in the protolanguage, instead replacing it with a related series.

Your reconstruction of two lateral obstruents is interesting, although not quite right – take a look at c. For the thing about stops mentioned in the first blacked out section, neutralizing processes happened generally at a relatively recent level. Take from that as you will.

Karchei:
Overall fairly good, with some segments that could be trivially improved by matching up to "cognate" segments in other languages. You (correctly) guessed that c j are related to the languages in question, so compare to those to see in which respects either language is more conservative or innovative, and use that to refine guesses. Stress can probably be nailed down just looking at the Macro-Tiakwan langs in general. Aside from stress, no word is more than a segment off; most just a single feature; some are exactly right even including stress.

Overall note to both of you (and others): broad classification is generally right for both, Karchei's placing of some language as isolates is probably a better strategy than grouping them, as some languages split off early. A good idea might be to establish better relationships between the "western" langs. Various hints towards this: h obviously was restructured in terms of syllable structure, h and b both are under influence from languages with square ([high] [front] being the only features), resulting in two different but similar mergers of back vowels occuring in these langs. I'll admit this will be quite a challenge.

Many things reduce to zero, typically due to clusters for C and stress for V.
. This is pretty vague looking back at it, but I will issue a more helpful thing in the future if necessary.
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Re: Quick Diachronics Challenge

Post by Inkcube-Revolver »

I'll be posting my guess soon, most likely tomorrow, as I'll be in for a very slow day at work.

I've gotta say: Bravo, good chap. This is one hell of a maze to sort through.
I like my languages how I like my women: grammatically complex with various moods and tenses, a thin line between nouns and verbs, and dozens upon dozens of possible conjugations for every single verb.
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Re: Quick Diachronics Challenge

Post by sangi39 »

I've had to take a break over Christmas and New Year (spending time with family, and the shop I work in is open every day of the year), but I'm definitely with Inkcube-Revolver on this one, bravo! Trying to make my way through this is a challenge, but a lot of fun [:D]
You can tell the same lie a thousand times,
But it never gets any more true,
So close your eyes once more and once more believe
That they all still believe in you.
Just one time.
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Re: Quick Diachronics Challenge

Post by Auvon »

Quick bump, although I'm sure some are still slowly chipping away at it. If wanted, I can give a few attested epigraphic cognate forms?
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Re: Quick Diachronics Challenge

Post by sangi39 »

Auvon wrote: 12 Jan 2018 06:30 Quick bump, although I'm sure some are still slowly chipping away at it. If wanted, I can give a few attested epigraphic cognate forms?
Sorry, late reply, I'm slowly, slowly having a go at this, just been super busy at work (we can't have holiday in December, so the moment January rolls around every week has one or two people off. If it weren't for that, January would actually be pretty quiet). "Chipping" is definitely the word I'd use for it, lol
You can tell the same lie a thousand times,
But it never gets any more true,
So close your eyes once more and once more believe
That they all still believe in you.
Just one time.
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Re: Quick Diachronics Challenge

Post by Auvon »

bls
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Re: Quick Diachronics Challenge

Post by gufferdk »

So I tried my hand at this and I could probably continue to chip away at things, but it's just more work than I'm really willing to invest. Given the fact that it's died in the way it has I think you might have overshot the difficulty and/or scope a bit. I think the thing to do at the current point would either be: a) declare a winner based on the submissions that have already been made and move on, b) post some quite serious hints that would significantly reduce the scope/difficulty of the present challenge or c) post a new, more manageable challenge; but other people might have different opinions on this.
Warning: Anything I post may be ninja-edited up to half an hour after posting.
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Re: Quick Diachronics Challenge

Post by ixals »

I agree with gufferdk. I often tried to work something out by myself in previous challenges and when it was too difficult or it took too long, I stopped and never really posted anything here. This time I didn't even tried because it looked like too much work. It's supposed to be a minigame, a quick challenge and we went from one to two proto-words to ten that vary between /ˈaːʔaːʔkʷãːɨaːʔ/ and /ˈam̥aŋawotʰoka/ or /ãlã́mũ/ and /ˈtʰə̃ːə̃əkʷəw/. Like gufferdk said, "it's just more work than I'm really willing to invest". I see you've put a lot of work into it but I think it would be better to just announce a winner (which would have also been a good idea two months ago imho). [:S]
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Re: Quick Diachronics Challenge

Post by Creyeditor »

So, I just wanted to mention, for me, it was definitely real life challenges (in a positive way) that got it my way. And there are many more to come.
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Re: Quick Diachronics Challenge

Post by Auvon »

Alright, Sangi in that case would win. I'll post documentation when I have access; Sangi (or if they don't want to/aren't able to, someone else) can start a new one.
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Re: Quick Diachronics Challenge

Post by sangi39 »

Auvon wrote: 24 Feb 2018 05:02 Alright, Sangi in that case would win. I'll post documentation when I have access; Sangi (or if they don't want to/aren't able to, someone else) can start a new one.
I'd definitely be interested in seeing what the proto-words were. I ended up with less time than I wanted, but honestly couldn't get any further with it. I get the feeling I was looking at it hugely the wrong way.

I'll post something as soon as I can, hopefully later today [:)]
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Re: Quick Diachronics Challenge

Post by sangi39 »

Okay, something for people to have a go at:

Image

There are two proto-words to reconstruct from 16 daughter languages [:)]

Blue indicates either ocean or rivers, while the brown areas mark out highland areas that are particularly difficult to cross (which should hopefully aid in grouping the languages together).

Good luck [:D]
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Re: Quick Diachronics Challenge

Post by ixals »

I gave each language a number so I can do this a bit quicker. [:P]

Image

There are a few things that confuse me a little bit, mostly the sibilants at the beginning of some languages as well as the vowels of in the Southwest.

Spoiler:
Concerning the final vowel:

This vowel was fairly stable so I propose /iː/ as the proto-vowel for both words as the final vowel is the same for both words in every language except 4, but I think it got reduced to /i/ in /ˈskʰrau.ti/ because of the preceding heavy syllable/long vowel. The vowel broke a lot in the central languages and is /i(ː)/ most of the time, so I think /iː/ is very likely to have been the original vowel.

Concerning the dental:

The first word has a lot of /t/'s and /d/'s while the second has a lot of /t/'s, geminated or not. 15 and 14 probably shared a Spanish-like /tʲ > ts > tθ > θ/ change I'd guess. 13 looks like it also had a Spanish-like debuccalisation and devoicing à la /dʑ > ɟ > ʝ > ɣ > x/. /tɕ/, /ts/ and similar consonants likely stem from palatalisation caused by the following vowel. 1 and 2 probably had /d/ and /t/ but rhotacised /d/ before changing the dentals to sibilants as in /t/ > /s/ in the second word. 9 deaffricated /dz/ too. I'd say the original consonants were likely /t/ for the first word and a geminated /t/ for the second one.

The first syllable is more difficult so I'm doing this part language by language.

1 and 2: The ancestors of these language were obviously /ˈkʰja/ and /ˈkʰjo/.
3 and 4: Either 3 diphthongised /ɔː/ or 4 monophtongised /au/. Both liquids are at the beginning of a syllable so I think there might have been a change similar to the Slavic liquid metathesis in the first word. Many language have the same vowel in both words so I think the vowel lengthened before liquids (compare English) and then the metathesis happened and finally changed to /r/ (ˈskʰal > ˈskʰɔːl > ˈskʰlɔː > ˈskʰrɔː).
5 and 6: 6 was likely the same as 5 and had the German-like changes /sx > ʂ/ and /sC > ʂC/.
7 and 8: Both changed /al/ to /ɔː/.
8: This one is a bit weird as both words have the same dental but the second word surely had /t/ in the beginning, too.
8 and 10: /kʰl > l̥ (> l)/
9, 10 and 16: They seem to be related because of their shared vowel mutations (or just share the same vowel changes) but I really have no idea how those could have come about. 10 and 16 additionally deleted and lengthened /il/ to /iː/
11, 12, 13 and 14: All share the change /l > j/ after consonants. 14 then changed /kʰj/ to /cʰ/ just like 2 did. 13 deleted the coda liquid and lengthened the vowel. So the original first syllables have been /kʰar/ for the first word and /kʰla(t)/ for the second word.
15: No idea what happened here, to be honest. I think the second word has /kʰ/ because the liquid blocked the change to /cʰ/, ... maybe?
16: Also no idea, but the sequence of sibilant, consonant and liquid probably changed to /ʂtʂ/ in the second word.
I had a final guess, but now that I look at everything again, I might have another idea. Anyways, here's the guess:

Spoiler:
1: /hkʰalˈtiː/
2: /hlatˈtiː/ or /hkʰlatˈtiː/

My original guesses were /skʰalˈtiː/ and /skʰlatˈtiː/ but I think we had another challenge were /h/ changed to a sibilant so I think it could be a likely change in this scenario. So every language without a sibilant deleted /h/ while the ones with a sibilant changed it along the lines of /hC > çC > ɕC (> sC)/.
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Re: Quick Diachronics Challenge

Post by Creyeditor »

My attempt is here. Sorry if anything is unclear. My grouping is a bit off I think, I assumed rivers cannot be crossed. But it was fun anyway.
Spoiler:
Image

Code: Select all

Proto-Word 
*skhar'ti
*skhlot'ti

  Coastal Group
   Proto-Coastal
   *skhiu'ti:
   *skhrO'ti:
    Proto-Coastal to Northern Coastal
    khi>ch
    t>T
    s>c/_C
     Northern Coastal
     cchu'Ti
     ckhrO'Ti
    Proto-Coastal to Southern Coastal
    skr>STS
    s>s/_C
    iu>i:
    t>tc/_i
     Southern Coastal
     skhi:'tci:
     STSO'tci:
      
 Cisaqua-Slope Family
 Proto-Cisaqua-Slop
 *khar'ti
 *khlat'ti
  
  Cisaqua Group
   Proto-Cisaqua
   *khar'ti
   *khjat'ti
    Proto-Cisaqua to Eastern Cisaqua
    t>T
    khj>ch
    i>i:
     Eastern Cisaqua
     khar'Ti:
     chaT'Ti:
    Proto-Cisaqua to Western Cisaqua
    t>tc/_i
    i>ai
     Western Cisaqua
     khar'tcai
     khjat'tcai
    
  Slope Group
   Proto-Slope
   *khar'di
   *khla'ti
    Proto-Slope to Eastern Slope
    ar>a:
    d>dZ>Z>x/_i
    l>j
    t>tc/i
    i>ej
     Eastern Slope
     kha:'xej
     khja'tcej
    Proto-Slope to Northern Slope
    d>dZ/_i
    l>j
    t>tc/_i
     Northern Slope
     khar'dZi
     khjat'tci
    Proto-Slope to Southern Slope
    ar>O:
    i>ie
     Southern Slope
     khO:'die
     khla'tie

 Peninsula-Valley Family
 Proto-Peninsula-Valley
 *khel'di
 *khlo'ti

  Peninsula Group
   Proto-Peninsula
   *khil.'di 
   *khlo.'ti
    Proto-Peninsula to Northern Peninsula
    il>ì:
    kh>0/_l
    {d,t}>tc/_i
    i>í:/_#
    o>ó
     Northern Peninsula
     khì:'tcí: 
     ló'tci
    Proto-Peninsula to Southern Peninsula
    d>z/_i
    t>ts/i
    o>O
     Southern Peninsula
     khil'zi
     khlO'tsi
    Proto-Peninsula to Eastern Peninsula
    il>O:
    i>ej/_#
    khl>lh
     Eastern Peninsula
     khO:'dej
     lha'dej

  Valley Group
   Proto-Valley
   *'khja.li
   *'khjo.si
    Proto-Valley to Northern Valley
    l>r
     Northern Valley
     'khja.ri
     'khjo.si
    Proto-Valley to Southern Valley
    khj>ch
     Southern Valley
     'cha.li
     'cho.si

 Interaqua-Transaqua-Family
 Proto-Interaqua-Transaqua
 *skar.ti
 *sklo.ti

  Interaqua Group
   Proto-Interaqua
   *sxal'di:
   *slat'ti:
    Proto-Interaqua to Western Interaqua
    s>S/_C
    x>0/C_
     Western Interaqua
     Sal'di:
     Slat'ti:
    Proto-Interaqua to Eastern Interaqua
    d>t
     Eastern Interaqua
     sxal'ti
     slat'ti 

  Transaqua Group
   Proto-Transaqua
   *'skhrau.ti
   *'skhro.ti
    Proto-Transaqua to Western Transaqua
    i>i:/after light syllables vowels
     Western Transaqua
     'skrau.ti
     'skhro.ti:
    Proto-Transaqua to Eastern Transaqua
    au>O:
     Eastern Transaqua
     'skhrO:.ti
     'skhro.ti
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Re: Quick Diachronics Challenge

Post by sangi39 »

Right, let's go through some answers [:)]

Covering some of Creyeditor's stuff:
Spoiler:
Creyeditor wrote: 02 Mar 2018 00:06 My attempt is here. Sorry if anything is unclear. My grouping is a bit off I think, I assumed rivers cannot be crossed. But it was fun anyway.
A couple of rivers were crossed, but it seems to have helped a lot with your groupings [:)]


Creyeditor wrote: 02 Mar 2018 00:06 Image
VA, TR, IN, CO are spot on. PE, CI and SL are actually four groups rather than three.

Most of CI and SL do form a higher second order grouping, though, but IN and TR don't belong to the same grouping at that level.


Covering both final answers:
Spoiler:
Creyeditor wrote: 02 Mar 2018 00:06
Spoiler:
Proto-Word
*skhar'ti
*skhlot'ti
ixals wrote: 01 Mar 2018 20:38
Spoiler:
1: /hkʰalˈtiː/
2: /hlatˈtiː/ or /hkʰlatˈtiː/

My original guesses were /skʰalˈtiː/ and /skʰlatˈtiː/ but I think we had another challenge were /h/ changed to a sibilant so I think it could be a likely change in this scenario. So every language without a sibilant deleted /h/ while the ones with a sibilant changed it along the lines of /hC > çC > ɕC (> sC)/.
Between the two of you, a lot of the sound changes you've given are close to spot on, with Ixals' original guess and Creyeditor's guess both being pretty close to the two proto-words. Creyeditor has got the vowel of the first syllable of the second word correct, and Ixals has correctly noted that the final vowel in both words is long. Ixals is right about metathesis taking place within the family, but it's a very, very old sound change, not just limited to Languages 3 and 4.


Hope that helps [:)]
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Re: Quick Diachronics Challenge

Post by Aevas »

Here's my answer, using ixals' numbers:
Spoiler:

Code: Select all

1/2/3/4+5/6/7/8/9/10/11/12/13/14/15/16
skʰaul.diː
skʰlot.tiː
 5/6/7/8/9/10+11/12/13/14/15/16
 skʰalˈdiː
 skʰlɔtˈtiː
  11/12/13/14+15/16
  skʰalˈdiː
  skʰlɔtˈtiː
   15+16
   skʰəlˈtiː
   skʰrɔˈtiː
    15
    ɕcʰuˈθiː
    ɕkʰrɔˈθiː
    16
    skʰiːˈtɕiː
    ʂʈʂɔˈtɕiː
   11/12+13/14
   kʰarˈdiː
   kʰjatˈtiː
    13+14
    kʰarˈθiː
    kʰjatˈtiː
     14
     kʰarˈθiː
     cʰaθˈθiː
     13
     kʰaːˈxej
     kʰjaˈtɕej
    11+12
    kʰarˈdʑiː
    kʰjatˈtɕiː
     11
     kʰarˈtɕaj
     kʰjatˈtɕaj
     12
     kʰarˈdʑi
     kʰjatˈtɕi
  5/6+7/8/9/10
  skʰalˈdiː
  skʰlɔtˈtiː
   7/8+9/10
   kʰVlˈdiː
   kʰlɑˈtiː
    9+10
    kʰilˈdziː
    kʰlɔˈtsiː
     9
     kʰilˈzi
     kʰlɔˈtsi
     10
     kʰìːˈtɕíː
     lóˈtɕíː
    7+8
    kʰɔːˈdiː
    kʰlaˈtiː
     7
     kʰɔːˈdie
     kʰlaˈtie
     8
     kʰɔːˈdej
     laˈdej
   5+6
   sxalˈdiː
   slatˈtiː
    5
    sxalˈtiː
    slatˈtiː
    6
    ʂalˈdiː
    ʂlatˈtiː
 1/2+3/4
 ˈskʰlau.di
 ˈskʰlo.tiː
  3+4
  ˈskʰrau.ti
  ˈskʰro.tiː
   3
   ˈskʰrɔː.ti
   ˈskʰro.ti
   4
   ˈskʰrau.ti
   ˈskʰro.tiː
  1+2
  ˈkʰja.Ri
  ˈkʰjo.si
   1
   ˈkʰja.ri
   ˈkʰjo.si
   2
   ˈcʰa.li
   ˈcʰo.si
And the family map, for a better overview of my subdivisions:
Spoiler:
Image
In case it's not immediately clear, these are my proto-words:
Spoiler:
Didn't put out the stress, since I feel that it could really have been on either syllable.

skʰaul.diː
skʰlot.tiː
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Re: Quick Diachronics Challenge

Post by sangi39 »

Aszev wrote: 05 Mar 2018 20:11 Here's my answer, using ixals' numbers:
Spoiler:
And the family map, for a better overview of my subdivisions:
Image
Spoiler:
Your lowest level groupings are spot on, and you're right that 1, 2, 3 and 4 all form a second-level grouping, and are distinct from the other languages. Similarly, 11, 12, 13 and 14 make up a second-level grouping, but your other non-lowest level groupings are slightly off.


I have to look at the sound changes later [:)]
You can tell the same lie a thousand times,
But it never gets any more true,
So close your eyes once more and once more believe
That they all still believe in you.
Just one time.
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