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Scratchpad

16:40, 13 July 2025 (PDT)

Note this might be eastern Star.

Aboriginal Proto-Baeban language

NOTE, it is not certain if this is better placed as proto-Macro-Baeban or merely Old Baeban, a language for the capital city alone.

The Proto-Baeban language was typical for the area in having a vowel system of /a i u ə/, a minor contrast of high vs low tone on open stressed syllables only, and a consonant inventory of

Labials:               ph  p   m       w                  
Alveolars:             th  t   n   s   l   r                         
Palataloids:           č       ň   š   y     
Velars:                kh  k   ŋ   x                  
Labiovelars:           kʷh kʷ  ŋʷ  xʷ
Glottals:                          h   ʕ

The plain voiceless stops were allophonically ejective before a stressed vowel, but this was weak and noncontrastive, so aspiration as shown as the marked feature.

Pre-Baeban sound shifts

The language had recently lost all its voiced obstruents, and therefore nasals were more common by comparison than in languages of the Gold family. The remaining plain voiceless stops and fricatives had voiced allophones when occurring after a nasal, but were otherwise voiceless; the aspirated stops were voiceless even after nasals.

Even earlier, there had been a lenition shift that changed /ph p/ > /f b/, /th t/ > /s r/, and /č/ > /š/ in some positions, but left /kh k/ and the labialized versions untouched. Later, /f/ > /h/ and /b/ > /ʕ/ almost unconditionally. Thus Proto-Baeban has relatively little of /ph p th t/, but lots of /kh k/.

Vowels

There are four underlying vowels, the same /a i u ə/ found in nearby languages, with the others being diphthongs and/or vowels colored by neighboring consonants. The diphthongs are /ai au əi əu/. Nonetheless, diphthongs and allophones are so common that the native script has 10 vowel signs.

The true vowels /i/ and /u/ get two script vowels apiece: /i y/ and /ɨ u/.

The mid vowel /ə/ gets three script vowels: /e ə o/.

The low vowel /a/ gets three script vowels: /æ a ɒ/.

Therefore, each of the four vowels can be either spread or rounded, and each of the two lower vowels can also be either front or back, but there are no low or mid front rounded vowels.

PHONOTACTICS OLD INFO

Baeban has a very complicated system of phonotactics to ensure that its phonemes all fit together well. Instead of treating phonemes singly, Baeban groups them into 8 overlapping categories of varying composition, and these are the smallest meaningful phonological units that words can use. The following abbreviations are used below for these categories:

• S = (a, i, u, pa, pi, pu, ma, mi, mu, ta, ti, tu, na, ni, nu, sa, si, su, la, li, lu, ra, ri, ru)
• G = (_, i, u, pa, pi, pu, ma, mi, mu, ta, ti, tu, na, ni, nu, sa, si, su, la, li, lu, ṗa, ṗi, ṗu, ṁa, ṁi, ṁu, ṭa, ṭi, ṭu, ṇa, ṇi, ṇu)
• T = (0, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8)
• Z = (pa, pi, pu, ma, mi, mu, ta, ti, tu, na, ni, nu, sa, si, su, la, li, lu, ra, ri, ru, ṗa, ṗi, ṗu, ṁa, ṁi, ṁu, ṭa, ṭi, ṭu, ṇa, ṇi, ṇu, k, x, ŋ) + ASP
• P = (_, p, m, t, n, s, l, u, i)
• K = (_, k, ŋ)
• V = (a, e, i, o, u, ø, ə, ɨ, œ, y, æ, ɒ)
• U = same as V, but with choice of 4 tones

The /œ/ may be a mistake for capital oe. The entire setup looks like a square .... 3 vowel heights, front/mid/back, plus a column of front round vowels.

An underscore stands for silence; the clicks are spelled ṗ ṃ ṭ ṇ (sometimes dot on top); all vowels are IPA (see history for SAMPA).

Thus the consonants are:

• /p m s l k r t n ŋ x ṗ ṃ ṭ ṇ/, where th dotted letters are clicks. /j/ and /w/ are common but are not considered consonants.

The tones are:

0 ă

A low tone, the commonest one, essentially "neutral" and level.

1 à

High, but considered as "mid" in some contexts.

2 á

Even higher tone.

3 ā

"Rising then falling", sometimes spelled with cirumflex.

Tones 4 through 7 are repeats of these, but weith phragynealization. (spelled ʕ/. Tone 8 is a whispered tone, i.e. a voiceless vowel.

Very unusual is that all word stems are either GVTVK or PVZUK. There are no single-vowel words at all oither than a few particvles. Thus the odd traits of the languaga are:

Characteristics

• All word roots must end in a vowel, /k/ or /ŋ/. Affixes are made of "S" syllables, which are all (C)V and have only 3 possible vowels, of which the /a/ is often elided. THus all words ending in a consonant other than /k ŋ/ actually end in an elided /a/.
• All word roots must have 2 vowels, even if those two vowels are the same and have no interveneing consonant.
• Since pharyngealizedf vcowels can only occur in "GVTVK" stems, they can only occur in stems with no consonants in the middle. This is partly because pharyn gealization originally came from a central consonant that was bled out.
• No word can begin with a velar consonant (/k ŋ x/). Words with central consonants cannot begin with a click or an /r/.
• Singlw vowel words are particles that cannot occur alone, and they can only have the vowel;s /a i u/.

Earlier, the Proto-Baeban language had had a phonology more like its neighbors. Proto-Baeban allowed only bisyllabic roots, with the accent always on the second syllable. Word-initial velars were allowed and there were no pharyngealized vowels. The split in the two types of words occurred when all voiced stops and fricatives were deleted from the language, and intervocalic ones bled out into pharyngealized vowels. This is why pharyngealized vowels only occur in words which have vowel hiatus (even if it is two of the same vowel). Later, all word initial velars were deleted. Clusters like /kj/ and /kw/ changed to /tj/ and /pw/ (note that these are not considered palatalized and labialized, but rather true clusters). Thus, Baeban could be said to be a "P" language, like Ogili, because it shifted its palatals forward and also shifted its labial-velar clusters forward into labialized bilabials. There are very few velar consonants remaining in modern Baeban, excluding clicks.

Note that the click consonants existed even in proto-Baeban, although they had arisen not long before from the collapse of clusters like /pk/ and /tk/. This was a defining feature of the Baeban settlement area, as these clusters had also existed in languages spoken to their north and south, but both of these other language groups instead created ejectives from the stop+stop clusters and homorganic clusters from the nasal+stop clusters.