Primitive W., and a name-change

First off, the name change.  I've been unsatisfied with the name of both
my conculture and of my conlang since recent changes to the conculture.=20
In the Classical Period, there are still both the monotheistic Faith,
and the Old Ways (polytheistic), the Classical Period beginning with a
religious schism creating the Faith, analogous to the Reformation.=20
Thus, while those who follow the Faith may refer to them selves as "The
Faithful Ones", it's not accurate for all of them.  Thus, I know call
the language simply "wasagga'" (The Language), and the people
"wayani'sa'" (The People).  There are other names, but no standard
name.  The Prophetess' village used the words "sukkassi'" for the
people, and "watakassi'" for the language (ta- =3D "language of").  The
origin of this -kassi' is unknown.

Now, for Primitive Wasagga'.

Primitive W. is an older stage, the stage used by the original invaders.

It contains 6 vowels, i, e, a, o, u, and @, all of which (including
schwa) can be stressed or unstressed, and can occur in closed or open
syllables.  Stressed @ tends toward [i-] (close central unrounded
vowel).

Consonants
Stops: p, t, k, q, b, d, g
Nasals: m, n
Fricatives: f, s, h, v, z
Approximates: l/r
l and r are allophones of a single phoneme, normally analyzed as /l/, in
free variation.  In old documents, both <r> and <l> appeared (they
acquired their alphabet from a language with a phonemic distinction
between the two), but I'll only use /l/.

Note that there is no palatization, thus <ti> =3D [ti], not [tSi]

Syllable structure:
CV(N/F/L) [N =3D nasal, F =3D fricative, L =3D l) - note that all syllabl=
es
begin with a consonant, no vowel clusters or diphthongs

In evolving into Standard Modern W., there were only a few minor
changes.  Root-final non-nasal consonants were lost, unstressed schwa
was dropped in many cases, /h/ and /q/ were lost (except that /q/ became
/k/ when preceding a stressed vowel - is that reasonable?), and /i/ and
/e/ merged, as did /u/ and /o/, and /a/ and remaining /@/.  Grammatical
changes are fairly minor.  The verb moved to mandatory-first position,
case-agreement was lost from the articles, which fused onto the noun as
the modern Gender-prefix, the plural suffix was lost, and the old dual
took over its use, reciprocative voice was lost, and some changes
occurred to the pronominal system.

In other dialects, /@/ evolved differently.  In the Southern Dialects,
it became /i-/ both stressed and unstressed, and actually survived for
quite some time before being fronted to /i/.  In the Central dialects,
stressed /@/ became /i/ (from the allophone [i-]), while unstressed /@/
became /o/, which subsequently merged with /u/, thus triplets like, from
k@p@t=ED, kapat=ED/kipit=ED/kuput=ED (Northern/Southern/Central).  Also, =
/q/
became /k/ in the Southern Dialects, thus, Southern Dialects have the
form kyauk=EDn (to sleep) from qihahuq=E9n (to rest) (pronounce,
incidentally, as [(t)sau(t)sen], palatized /k/ became /ts/ in Southern
Dialects, and de-affricated in a few of those dialects)

/j/ and /w/ in Modern W. evolved from unstressed /i/ or /e/ and /u/ or
/o/ before vowels, derived from lost phonemes, for instance, Prim.
qihahuq=E9n (to rest) gave Modern yaw=EDn (to die), consonant clusters su=
ch
as /gl/ are derived from lost schwas, for instance, g@l=E1 (all) gave
Modern gl=E1 (all).  That's also the origin of diphthongs, for instance,
dik=E1hos became dik=E1=FA.

Pitch evolved from stress.  The stressed syllable came to be
higher-pitched, and this high pitch came to spread to following
syllables.

An example of Modern W. and Primitive W.:
Slusaf=E1=EDt=E1nv=E1 walasagg=E1l=ED suddik=E1w=ED (Modern)
Sol dik=E1hosna sulus=E1h@tanv@ walif vaz=E9flif (Primitive)
In this example, s=E1h@ (to be) has not survived as a free root, but it i=
s
the source of the prefix sa- which makes verbs out of adjectives, as
well as the first syllable of saf=E1=ED (come into being), derived from
*sah@f=E1qi; -f=E1qi =3D begin.to; and vaz=E9f has completely disappeared=
 (it
would be *wavaz=ED, had it survived).  Despite appearances, saf=E1=ED and=
 saf=ED
(be born) are unrelated, saf=ED comes from h@saf=E9

These, incidentally, mean "With a word, the Gods create"

--=20
Slusaf=E1=EDt=E1nv=E1 walasagg=E1l=ED suddik=E1w=ED
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