Proto-Insane

A world-internal conlang, derived from Classical Chinese', yet the grammar and lexicon are entirely a priori (tho influenced by its parent). Confused? Originally the language arose as a religious cryptolect, with meaning assigned to subphonemic modifications of chants.

Phonology

• [n] is split to /n ɲ ŋ ɴ/
• [l] is split to /l ɬ ʎ ʎ̝̊ ʟ ʟ̝̊/
• [r] is split to /r ʀ ɹ j ʁ/
• [ʃ] is split to /s z ʃ ʒ ç ʝ/ (certain scolars construct a fourth, retroflex series)
• [k] is split to /k kʰ kʼ q qʰ qʼ/
• [t] is split to /t tʰ tʼ c cʰ cʼ/
• [p] is split to /p pʰ pʼ/
• [ɡ] is split to /ɡ ɡʱ ɠ ɢ ɢʱ ʛ/
• [d] is split to /d dʱ ɗ ɟ ɟʱ ʄ/
• [w] is split to /b bʱ ɓ β w/
• [u] is split to /u ɯ/
• [i] is split to /i y/
• [o] is split to /o ɔ/
• [oː] is split to /oː ɔː ou ɔu/
• [e] is split to /e ɛ/
• [eː] is split to /eː ɛː ei ɛi/
• [a](ː) is split to /ɑ æ ɐ/(ː)

Fate

The language survives into the modern day, with some highly unusual descendants.

Some initial phonetic developments are loss of difthong openness and high vowel roundness distinctions;, follo'd by raising of the difthongs to high long monoftongs. Glottalization, unfamiliar in the region, separates as a prosodic feature medially and is lost initially. The palatals decay to postalveolars (sometimes velars), and the velar lateral fricativ becomes /χ/. Proto-Insane thus comes to contain a slightly diminished but still formidable sound inventory of 42 consonants and 18 vowels:

pʰ	tʰ	ʧʰ	kʰ	qʰ
p	t	ʧ	k	q	ʔ
bʱ	dʱ	ʤʱ	ɡʱ	ɢʱ
b	d	ʤ	ɡ	ɢ
	n	nʲ	ŋ	ɴ
	l	lʲ	ʟ
	ɬ	ɬʲ
	s	ʃ		χ
β	z	ʒ		ʁ
w	ɹ	j
	r			ʀ

---

i	iː	u	uː
e	eː	o	oː
ɛ	ɛː	ɔ	ɔː
	ɐ	ɐː
æ	æː	ɑ	ɑː