Proto-Panatecan

Proto-Panatecan is the hypothetical common ancestor of the 10 (9 living, one extinct) Panatecan languages native to the Mexican states Oaxaca, Chiapas and Panatán as well as parts of Guatemala. The Panatecan family is today considered to be divided into three main subgroups, Mahuentecan, Qongalan and Bochean.

History
Proto-Panatecan existed until it split into the Mahuentecan and Qongalan subgroups in around 500 BCE, long after the other Mesoamerican proto-languages split into their major groups. In around 100 CE, Mahuentecan split into Chehuentec and the Mawantan languages which are found today in Guatemala and Chiapas. The last speaker of Chehuentec died in the year 1727 making it the only known extinct Panatecan language. The Qongalan languages split into Inner Qongalan (Bawa-Pochean) and Outer Qongalan (Inguo-Qongalan) in around 400 CE. The Outer Qongalan languages are native to Isla de Panatéca and include modern Panatec (Qongāl) which is spoken by around 400,000 people. There are three known Bawa-Pochean languages which are spoken in some rural towns in Oaxaca state.

Polynesian Coincidence
Researches have suggested that there is significant evidence to suggest that an early form of Proto-Panatec may have in fact been related or even descended from the Malayo-Polynesian language group. The main two pieces of evidence cited are the fact that all Panatec mythologies agree that their people originated from a volcanic island across the ocean, similar to [], as well as a number of lexical coincidences between Panatecan languages and Malayo-Polynesian languages.

[Examples]

Additionally, there are grammatical features which, in Mesoamerica, are unique to the Panatecan languages but which also appear in Polynesian languages such as Hawaiian, Māori and Tongan as well as a few Micronesian languages, most notably Gilbertese. The modern Panatecan languages, however, have not retained enough evidence to confirm this hypothesis due to the significant changes the earlier proto-language underwent once it came in contact with the Mesoamerican language area.

Phonology
The reconstructed consonant inventory is relatively simple, using a basic five-vowel system and exclusively unvoiced obstruents.

Phonotactics
Proto-Panatecan adhered to a strict CV syllable structure. Words were heavily harmonic, with most words having one type of vowel per word. Words were stressed on the penultimate syllable. Word-final consonants were restricted to obstruents and nasals.

Sound Changes
Below are the major sound changes associated with the transitions from Proto-Panatecan to Proto-Qongalan and Proto-Mahuentecan, which took place from around 1500 BCE to 700 BCE. The vowel receiving stress in each word is underlined and long vowels are indicated with an overbar.

Proto-Qongalan

 * 1) [p], [t], [k], and [ts] became aspirated by absorbing [h] from the following syllable and losing their vowels.
 * 2) * k a ha → kh a
 * 3) * poh o no → ph o no
 * 4) * tsah o ho → tsh o ho
 * 5) The trill [r] was reduced to a tap [ɾ] in all environments.
 * 6) The approximants [w], [l], [j], when not in the first syllable, all lost preceding vowels (i), or swapped with preceding vowels where necessary (ii). This also lead to vowel lengthening where non-nasal consonant clusters were formed (iii).
 * 7) * i) aw a ka → w a ka
 * 8) * ii) n u ju → u nju
 * 9) * iii) at a la → ā tla
 * 10) Word-final vowels were lost completely (i, ii), single open syllable words had a glottal stop appended (iii).
 * 11) * i) t o ko → tok
 * 12) * ii) mon o khu → mon o kh
 * 13) * iii) pha → phaʔ
 * 14) Nasals dropped their vowels in unstressed syllables followed by obstruents (i), switched places with their vowel in word-initial position (ii) and triggered the following syllable to invert if it was word-final (iii).
 * 15) * i) a nutun → a ntun
 * 16) * ii) nok o n → onk o n
 * 17) * iii) o mep → o mpe
 * 18) [n] became [m] before [p] (i), [m] became [n] before ([s], [t] and [ts]) (ii) and ([m] and [n]) became [ŋ] before [k] (iii).
 * 19) * i) a npal → a mpal
 * 20) * ii) t i mtsin → t i ntsin
 * 21) * iii) o mkots → oŋ kots
 * 22) [t], [ts] became [tʃ] (i, ii) and [s] became [ʃ] when preceding [j] (iii).
 * 23) * i) u tjum → u tʃum
 * 24) * ii) o tsjos → o tʃos
 * 25) * iii) i sjiʔ → i ʃiʔ

Word Order
A basic VSO word order has been reconstructed by comparison of the grammars of the Panatecan languages.

Alignment
Proto-Panatec is assumed to have been Ergative-Absolutive in its agreement as this is how the modern languages align, however it may have undergone a transition from Nominative-Accusative or an Austronesian alignment. Every living Panatecan language includes some kind of Nominative-Accusative alignment, mostly on common verbs and simple grammatical structures suggesting that this alignment may be fundamental to the family and been predominant in the proto-language.

Nouns
Nouns were thought to have been inflected for the nominative, genitive and dative cases. Definiteness and number were specified with pre-nominal markers. Panatecan languages have no noun genders, but Proto-Panatecan may have been sensitive to noun animacy, as most Panatecan languages are today.

Verbs
Verbs were conjugated using prefixes for person and number and suffixes for tense. It is thought that there also existed voice affixes which are still found in the Bochean languages. Verb moods and aspects did not exist explicitly and were most likely inferred by context or constructed with particles as moods are in the modern Qongalan languages.