History of the other languages in the world of Kxënt'exo
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In order to create Gua'ava, Shokô and Séén the diachronic method of conlanging was used, which means that first ancestral forms of the languages were created (known as a proto-languages) and then a process of linguistic evolution was simulated to turn the proto-languages into the final product.
The reason the diachronic method is used is because it allows the conlang to have some of the features that are expected to be present in natural languages, such as irregular conjugations, historical spelling, all sorts of complex rules and even different dialects or sister languages. By using this method the conlang will have an appearance that more closely resembles the languages we see naturally developing in the real world.
This page contains information on the two proto-languages used for the creation of Gua'ava, Shokô and Séén. Proto-Forest evolved into Gua'ava and Shokô, while Proto-Sea evolved into Séén.
These proto-languages were spoken at an even more ancestral point in time than the three evolved languages, which are already ancient languages in the fictional setting.
Note that all words that come from a proto-language are written with an asterisk at the beginning, like so: *jihan (town, city).
Proto-Forest
Phonology
Proto-Forest has 4 monophthongs:
| Front | Central | Back | |
|---|---|---|---|
| High | i | ɨ | u |
| Low | a |
6 diphthongs:
| j | w | ||
|---|---|---|---|
| Rising | əj | əw | |
| Falling | To e | je | we |
| To a | ja | wa | |
And 19 consonant phonemes:
| Labial | Alveolar | Palatal | Velar | Uvular | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Nasal | m | n | ||||
| Stop | Unvoiced | p | t | k | q | |
| Voiced | b | d | ɡ | ɢ | ||
| Fricative | Unvoiced | f | s | ç | x | |
| Voiced | v | z | ||||
| Approximant | w | ɾ | j | |||
These phonemes are treated as having no allophonic variation, even the evolved languages don't really have any defined allophones because it's not necessary to flesh them out that thoroughly for the purposes of this project.
Syllables are of the shape CV(C) (Consonant-Vowel-Consonant) the consonant at the beginning of the syllable is obligatory; no syllable can start with a vowel, but the consonant at the end is in parenthesis because it is optional.
Only nasals and fricatives can be codas, that is, only nasal or fricative consonants can end a syllable.
Proto-Forest words always have the stress on the first syllable of the word, no matter what.
The sounds and words of Proto-Forest are usually typed simply using their IPA letters in order to maintain clarity, so a word like /ˈqa.wɨ/ "language, speech" would typically be written as *qawɨ, however, for the sake of convenience it's possible to use a romanization system to transcribe the words.
This is useful for people who have a harder time typing the special IPA characters, and as long as the context shows that we're talking about Proto-Forest it's clear which exact sound is intended.
The romanization of Proto-Forest uses only one letter with a diacritic.
| Letter | IPA |
|---|---|
| a | a |
| b | b |
| d | d |
| ey | əj |
| ew | əw |
| f | f |
| g | ɡ |
| gq | ɢ |
| hy | ç |
| i | i |
| ï | ɨ |
| k | k |
| m | m |
| n | n |
| p | p |
| q | q |
| r | ɾ |
| s | s |
| t | t |
| u | u |
| v | v |
| w | w |
| wa | wa |
| we | we |
| x | x |
| y | j |
| ya | ja |
| ye | je |
| z | z |
If you have difficulties typing the diaeresis diacritic for the i vowel (ï) you can use any other diacritic (ì, ĭ) or type it as "ih".
It's important to note that Proto-Forest does not feature vowel harmony, that is something that evolved later in the history of Shokô.
Morphology
There isn't much information decided on the morphology of Proto-Forest beyond just the basic idea that affixes would be used commonly, probably a lot of agglutinative affixes.
The language would probably have a grammatical case system, though I'm not thinking of developing affixes for it unless it is necessary for making a word that will be borrowed into Kxënt'exo or Proto-Kxënt'exo.
Nouns can end in -a -az -u -ux -ɨ, there is no meaning assigned to these suffixes, perhaps they stand for the typical endings of nominative nouns.
Adjectives can end in -a -əj -ni -we -tuv, once again there is no meaning attached to these suffixes.
Syntax
The default word order of Proto-Forest is SOV (Subject - Object - Verb) which is to say that in a sentence the doer of the action goes first, then the one receiving the action, and finally the verb, as in "The villager the potatoes harvested".
The order of modifiers in relation to the words they modify is as follows:
| Order | Example |
|---|---|
| Adjective - Noun | Big house |
| Noun - Postposition | Table on |
| Possessor - Noun | The wolf's collar |
| Auxiliary - Verb | Must go |
| Adverb - Verb | Quickly go |
| Noun - Numeral | Houses 3 |
| Noun - Determiner | House this |
Evolution tools
In order to evolve the phonology of the language, the words from Proto-Forest get put in a sound change applier known as Lexurgy, I basically wrote code that automatically takes the proto-words and applies every single historical sound change to them in the correct order to produce the final evolved forms of words.
I also typically use Lexurgy to automatically get the romanizations of words and even their spelling, though the code isn't perfect and sometimes I find some unexpected result that I then have to patch periodically, because maybe the way I wrote a sound change allows for some weird edge-cases that I hadn't considered before.
A document containing the different Lexurgy codes and instructions on how to use them will be posted here at some point, there's codes for evolving Proto-Forest into Gwa'ava and Shokô.
I also wrote a code for Lexifer that generates random words using the phonology of Proto-Forest, it's important to keep in mind the morphology of the language when coining new words, but this can be a good tool for deriving new roots, getting inspiration or even for testing out the Lexurgy code, by generating around 300 words and putting them into Lexurgy you can see how the sound changes affect all sorts of words.
Just like with Lexurgy, there will be a link to the code used for Lexifer here at some point in the future.
Notes on borrowing vocabulary
The area where Proto-Forest was spoken was mostly in and around forests (as the name suggests) and it included some humid areas and also cold areas, but it didn't extend as far into the mountains, or the freezing and tropical biomes that Gwa'ava and Shokô exist in.
It's important to keep in mind what type of vocabulary you want to borrow into Kxënt'exo:
If it's something fairly basic that would've existed in forest-y, humid or cold areas in ancient times you may want to borrow a Proto-Forest word into Proto-Kxënt'exo.
If it's something more advanced, complex, or specific to tropical, mountainous or freezing places you may want to borrow it from Gwa'ava or Shokô into Classical Kxënt'exo, which language you use depends on the geographical or cultural origin of the word, refer to other languages in the world of Kxënt'exo to decide which language you should borrow the word from.
Proto-Sea
Phonology
Proto-Sea has 3 vowels:
| Front | Central | Back | |
|---|---|---|---|
| High | i | u | |
| Low | a |
And 25 consonant phonemes:
| Bilabial | Dental | Alveolar | Palatal | Dorsal | Glottal | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Nasal | m | n | |||||
| Stop | Plain | p | t | c | k | ʔ | |
| Voiced | b | d | ɟ | ɡ | |||
| Velarized | pˠ | tˠ | |||||
| Fricative | Unvoiced | ɸ | θ | s | x | h | |
| Voiced | β | ð | z | ɣ | |||
| Approximant | w | j | ʀ | ||||
These phonemes are treated as having no allophonic variation, even the evolved language doesn't really have any defined allophones because it's not necessary to flesh them out that thoroughly for the purposes of this project.
Syllables are of the shape (C)V(C) (Consonant-Vowel-Consonant) the consonants are in parenthesis because they're optional, so the minimum syllable is just a vowel and the maximum syllable is a consonant at the beginning, a vowel and then a consonant at the end.
Only nasals, unvoiced fricatives and plain stops can be codas, that is, only nasal consonants, unvoiced fricative consonants and plain stop consonants can end a syllable.
Proto-Sea words are treated as not having any stress, perhaps Proto-Sea did have a system of stress but it didn't really play a role in the evolution of the language and it got completely lost in the evolution process anyway.
The sounds and words of Proto-Sea are usually typed simply using their IPA letters in order to maintain clarity, so a word like /ɣih.juc/ "voice" would typically be written as *ɣihjuc, however, for the sake of convenience it's possible to use a romanization system to transcribe the words.
This is useful for people who have a harder time typing the special IPA characters, and as long as the context shows that we're talking about Proto-Sea it's clear which exact sound is intended.
The romanization of Proto-Sea uses no special characters, so it should be easily type-able by anyone.
| Letter | IPA |
|---|---|
| a | a |
| b | b |
| c | c |
| d | d |
| dh | ð |
| f | ɸ |
| g | ɡ |
| gh | ɣ |
| h | h |
| i | i |
| j | ɟ |
| k | k |
| m | m |
| n | n |
| p | p |
| p' | pˠ |
| r | ʀ |
| s | s |
| t | t |
| th | θ |
| t' | tˠ |
| u | u |
| v | β |
| w | w |
| x | x |
| y | j |
| z | z |
| ' | ʔ |
It's important to note that Proto-Sea does not feature tone, that is something that evolved later in the history of Séén.
Morphology
There isn't much information decided on the morphology of Proto-Sea beyond just the basic idea that there wouldn't be many affixes, most of the words would probably only have one form with no inflections.
The language would probably have strict word order to communicate who is doing what to whom, instead of relying in strategies like grammatical cases.
Words can end in any vowel or syllable, there are no specific word shapes that are characteristic of a certain part of speech, although there may be some repeating patterns that you will spot from derivational affixes or compounding.
Syntax
The default word order of Proto-Sea is VOS (Verb - Object - Subject) which is to say that in a sentence the verb goes first, then the one receiving the action, and finally the doer of the action, as in "Harvested the potatoes the villager".
The order of modifiers in relation to the words they modify is as follows:
| Order | Example |
|---|---|
| Adjective - Noun | Big house |
| Preposition - Noun | On table |
| Noun - Possessor | Collar of the wolf |
| Auxiliary - Verb | Must go |
| Adverb - Verb | Quickly go |
| Numeral - Noun | 3 Houses |
| Determiner - Noun | This house |
Evolution tools
In order to evolve the phonology of the language, the words from Proto-Sea get put in a sound change applier known as Lexurgy, I basically wrote code that automatically takes the proto-words and applies every single historical sound change to them in the correct order to produce the final evolved forms of words.
I also typically use Lexurgy to automatically get the romanizations of words and even their spelling, though the code isn't perfect and sometimes I find some unexpected result that I then have to patch periodically, because maybe the way I wrote a sound change allows for some weird edge-cases that I hadn't considered before.
A document containing the different Lexurgy codes and instructions on how to use them will be posted here at some point, the main code evolves Proto-Sea into Séén.
I also wrote a code for Lexifer that generates random words using the phonology of Proto-Sea, this can be a good tool for deriving new words, getting inspiration or even for testing out the Lexurgy code, by generating around 300 words and putting them into Lexurgy you can see how the sound changes affect all sorts of words.
Just like with Lexurgy, there will be a link to the code used for Lexifer here at some point in the future.
Notes on borrowing vocabulary
It's important to keep in mind what type of vocabulary you want to borrow into Kxënt'exo:
If it's something fairly basic that would've existed in coastal areas or islands in ancient times you may want to borrow a Proto-Sea word into Proto-Kxënt'exo.
If it's something more advanced, complex, or specific to deeper parts of the ocean or far away lands you may want to borrow it from Séén into Classical Kxënt'exo, to learn about the geographical and cultural characteristics of the places where Séén is spoken see other languages in the world of Kxënt'exo.
Other links
- Back to the main Kxënt'exo page
- Gua'ava, Shokô and Séén