User:Soap/Birch

This is not the original Birch, but ratehr a languyage that ios spoekn in Mevumep.

Conosnnats

Rounded bilabials:    pʷ  mʷ  ɸ   w         /a i u ə/
Spread bilabials:     p   m                 /a     ə/
Linguolabials:        pʲ  mʲ                /a i u ə/
Dentals:              ṭ   ṇ                 /a   u ə/
Rounded alveolars:            sʷ      rʷ    /a i u ə/
Plain alveolars:      t   n   s   l   r     /a     ə/
Palatoalveolars:      č   ň   š   λ   ř     /a i u ə/
Palatals:                     ś   y         /a i u ə/
Palatovelars:         ć   ń                 /  i    /
Velars:               k   ŋ   h  (Ø)        /a     ə/
Labiovelars:          kʷ  ŋʷ                /a i u ə/

All four vowels could occur long, but unlike Play there were no superheavy syllables.

Northern Branch P

This is the most conservative branch of the family. It fills a gap early on and thus becomes stable.

1. The labialized consonants kʷ ŋʷ shifted to pʷ mʷ before /a ə/ (the "shadow" shift), and otherwise to k ŋ (thus filling the gap). At the surface level, the latter shift was about IPA [y] shifting to [i] and IPA [u] staying as it was; that is, kʷu > ku was just a matter of analysis.
2. Meanwhile the labial fricative ɸ shifted to h before any /i u/.
3. The labial approximant w became b before /a ə/ and possibly in limited circumstances also before /i/ or /u/ (note that it is very common before these high vowels but was usually not audible, as it simply produced a rounded vowel; the exceptions would be in vowel sequences).

Branch Y

This branch groups like rows of C and Cʷ together, seeing them as having different vowels, and it is thus somewhat like Old Japanese. The palatalized consonants may participate too but velars and palatals would not group together.

Macro-branch SS

This moves towards a sesquisyllabic root strcture since the functional load of unstressed vowels was very low. It remains as a single language for a long period of time, so there are no languages that complete the shift only halfway. SImilar shifts in other branches may occur independently.

1. The unstressed vowels ə i u disappeared to Ø unconditionally. The coarticulations remained. For the time being, stranded /w j/ can be seen as fuill consonants w y rather than coarticulations. tHIS allows for separate reflexes later on for pairs such as /kʷ wk/.