User:Soap/Todrom

Nameless Parent Language to Proto-Todrom

1. The voiceless alveolar stop t shifted to c (IPA /ts/). It is possible that the alveolars became dentals in this branch, or at least within one part of it, and therefore this new /c/ would shift back to a dental /ṭ/ and merge with the reflex of /d/. But the affrication happened very early even if it was undone.
2. The postalveolar affricates č ǯ shifted to s ʒ, except possibly in some codas where the /č/ had already assimilated to the onset of the following syllable.
3. The stops p b k g shifted to pʷ bʷ kʷ gʷ before any /u/.
4. The voiced bilabial stop shifted to bʲ before any /i/. Other consonants also became allophonically palatalized, but only this one became decidedly phonemic early on (because of /gʷ/ > /b/).
5. All unstressed sequences of Dih Dəh Duh shifted to Tʲ T Tʷ, where D indicates a voiced sound and T a voiceless (and allophonically aspirated) one. At least at the time, this even included the nasals and liquids.

   NOTE: It is important not to confuse this aspiration shift with the upcoming devoicing shift. The two stop series first merged, and then the voiceless ones became fricatives.

6. Likewise, hiD həD huD all shifted to T; it is possible that some weak consonants such as /h/ may have been palatalized or labialized, but the stops were probably unaffected.
7. Possibly, the clusters sm sn sŋ become voiceless nasals. They may retain a geminate pronunciation which could be important later.
8. The voiceless stops pʲ p pʷ kʲ k kʷ shifted to f f ɸ ś x ɸ except in certain clusters; these clusters included at least all geminates, all post-nasals, and for the dorsals, also after /r/. The /kʲ/ may not actually exist, or it may have been more restricted than /pʲ/.
9. The voiceless h was then deleted to Ø.
10. The voiced stops b bʲ d ʒ g shifted to p pʲ t c^? k. Note that /g/ in this branch was always a stop, even in the coda.
11. Geminate nasals become prestopped: mm nn ŋŋ > bm dn gŋ.
12. The alveolar flap r (but not its voiceless form) shifted to d in word-initial position.
13. Probably, ŋʲ ŋ ŋʷ shifted to ǵ g b in word-initial position; the labiovelar would perhaps fit better up above but the shifts would then also need to be re-ordered.

Culture

The people are feministic, with women taller than men and also more numerous than men. Women have a superior place in society. There are strict, complicated rules governing where and when couples may have sex, because the east coast's environment causes women to preferentially conceive daughters, and in peacetime all of the nations agree that society should be primarily female. The restrictions are lifted during war, but since it takes 15 years for newly conceived boys to become available for soldier duties, these laws are ever the source of controversy, with reformists arguing for a variety of positions ranging from total pacifism (allowing all enemies to invade) to proactive invasions of neighboring lands to secure buffer territories for men only, who would defend the inner societies which would remain primarily female. (In later times, Moonshine did both of these things as well as a compromise solution of creating a territory ostensibly for war refugees from around the world, in the hopes that invaders would collide with each other there and never reach the core of Moonshine where women predominated.)