Old Beltonian

Old Beltonian (Βάμιν Σιδωαδε, Bæmin Siðwade, Modern Standard Beltonian: Bémesiawri Cewl) was the earliest stage of the Beltonian language. It existed in the period from approximately 400 to 900, beginning with the divergence of Wistarian and ending with the divergence of Classical Beltonian from the vernacular dialects.

Old Beltonian was a continuation of the Proto-Beltonic language that was spread across Beltonia by the Beltonic Migration. It largely abandoned the nonconcatenative morphology of its predecessor, though elements of it survived in irregular noun and verb inflections. It remained a highly inflective language with a large number of cases and moods. It also pivoted towards a nominative-accusative alignment, merged two of the genders and introduced verb inflections by person, while mostly eliminating verb inflections by gender. In phonology and it introduced consonant clusters, reduced the number of guttural consonants while adding voiced stops as separate phonemes and expanding the palate of vowels. The language introduced loanwords from other languages, especially Greek, and to a lesser extent Latin, Arabic and pre-Beltonic languages.

The language had multiple dialects which changed over time but were mostly mutually intelligible. In the Wistarian Marches there was a continuum of hybrid dialects between Beltonian and Wistarian. By the 8th century, the Omchoke dialect dominated literature and would become the basis of Classical Beltonian, while the southern dialects would ultimately have a greater influence on Middle High Beltonian and therefore the modern language.

The earliest writings of Old Beltonian are Beltonian Runes. From the 6th century onwards, the language was most often written in the Greek alphabet, and more rarely in the Latin and Arabic alphabets.

History
In Roman Beltonia, Latin was the official language of the government, although Koine Greek had in practice become the local lingua franca. In Lower Beltonia, which unlike the modern region of the same name included what is today Wistaria and Middle Beltonia, ordinary people spoke multiple Ionian languages and dialects of Greek. In Upper Beltonia, notionally part of the Roman Empire, ordinary people spoke various dialects of a language that is now referred to as the Proto-Beltonic language.

The Beltonic Migration took place over the 4th to 6th centuries. As Roman power over the region weakened, many tribes from mountainous Upper Beltonia migrated to Lower Beltonia. Since the 1980s, the consensus among historians is that the number of migrants was small compared to the existing population. Smithson writes "the estimate that the migrants, or invaders if you see the glass as being half-empty, were 10-20% as numerous as the existing population is representative of the prevailing historical views." The Beltonians formed a ruling class that gradually assimilated with the existing population. They initially adopted the Greek alphabet. The official alphabet was changed three times between Latin and Greek, and throughout the Beltonic Migrations both were used.

The Christianization of the Beltonians and the reconquest of the area by the Eastern Roman Empire re-established Greek as a language of administration, trade and religion. Beltonian continued to be spoken by ordinary people. As Byzantine hegemony declined, Beltonian was re-established as the official language of government in 763, using the Greek script. Greek continued to be the official language of the church, although there were religious writings in Beltonian. After the Arab conquest of Wistaria later in that century, the Arabic alphabet was also used to write Beltonian in the Wistarian Marches.

The majority of surviving Old Beltonian literature comes from the period from after 763. In the years leading up to the rise of the Beltonian Empire, the written language became standardised and began to diverge from the vernacular.

Bacha and Chrétien both suspect that the changes to the language that occurred within that time were primarily caused by interactions between the dialects of the migrants. Chrétien writes: "The 200-year period of the was probably the two centuries in which the Beltonian language changed the most." In particular, the simplification of noun gender likely arose from the interactions of dialects with subtle variations on Proto-Beltonian, and Bacha suspects that "at least one of the original dialects lacked the ergativity of Proto-Beltonic." A smaller number of the changes came from those of the pre-Beltonic population learning the language.

Consonants
Old Beltonian had approximately 23 consonant phonemes. Compared to Proto-Beltonic, there was a net reduction in the number of consonants, mainly due to a loss of guttural ones.

Vowels
The number of monophthongs increased from 3 to 6. /e/ and /o/ originally entered the language as allophones of /i/ and /u/, before merging with /ai/ and /au/ as well as also arriving in loanwords. Despite the merger of the original diphthongs, similar ones were formed through assimilation with the palatal consonants and /w/ as well as arriving in loanwords. Ansteh concludes that /ei/ and /ou/ also came into existence through the same assimilation process but quickly became monopthongized to /e/ and /o/.

The vowel system was not fixed. In particular, the Omchoke region showed a series of vowel shifts such as /u/ > /ʉ/ that would mark the transition towards Classical Beltonian.

I-mutation
I-mutation works by colouring the first core vowel that is not /i/ nor proceeded by a palatal consonant:


 * /æ/ and /ɑ/ become /je/
 * /u/ becomes /ju/
 * /wɑ/ becomes /ja/

In addition, if one of the core vowels is /i/, the emphasis moves to this vowel.

Cross-mutation
The third form of mutation focuses on swapping both certain sounds and emphasis. Until i- and u-mutation, this mutation can only affect both core vowels simulatenously.


 * /i/ swaps with /u/
 * /j/ swaps with /w/
 * The emphasis moves to the other core vowel if there is one. If the second core vowel is an /æ/ or /ɑ/ that was previously stressed, it will be reduced to [ə] or deleted.

Sound changes
The following changes appear to have occurred before the divergence of Wistarian:
 * Lowering of diphthong end vowels: [ai] > [ae] and [au] > [ao]
 * Merger of /h2/ and /h3/ phonemes into /χ/. The realization of /h1/ becomes clearer as being [h] on the starts of syllables, [x] after back vowels and /a/ and [ç] after front vowels.
 * /ʎ/ > /j/
 * /ɲ/ > /in/. This creates hiatuses instead of diphthongs.
 * Emergence of /e/ and /o/ as separate phonemes to /i/ and /u/. This begins with compound words which preserve [e] and [o] in places where the Proto-Beltonic allophony rules would require them to become [i] and [u].
 * /a/ divides into allophones, with [a] > [ɑ] in non-emphasized syllables and between two back consonants, and [a] > [æ] in other emphasized syllables. Diphthongs are also affected: [ae] > [æe] and [ao] > [ɑo].
 * Emergence of voiced stops as separate phonemes and increased willingness to contrast voiced and voiceless front fricatives, as compound words do not change voiced/voiceless quality in places where Proto-Beltonic allophony rules require either.
 * Deaffrication in syllables that follow emphasized syllables: /ts/ > /s/, /ʈ͡ʂ/ > /ʂ/, [kx] > /x/, [qχ] > /χ/.
 * Lenition in aspirated consonants that follow an emphasized syllables: [kʰ] > /x/

The following changes appear to have occurred after the divergence and while they were not consistent across the dialects, they ultimately affected all major dialects by the 9th century:
 * The majority of linguists believe there was a gradual conversion of the original pitch accent into stress which started in the High dialects and spread gradually to all dialects, although some instead believe that Beltonian was always reliant on stress.
 * Merger of /x/ and /qχ/ into /χ/, although a contrast between /x/ and /χ/ persisted for longer in Low dialects.
 * Especially in High dialects, /Vχ/ > /əç/ in the least stressed syllables, except for /iχ/ > /iç/.
 * /a/ following a stressed syllable and a front consonant becomes [ə].
 * Realisation of rhotic consonant begins to change in some dialects from [ɻ] to [ʁ], the latter resembling a voiced allophone of /χ/.
 * Monophthongization of diphthongs: [æe] > [e] and [ɑo] > [o].
 * Lowering of word-final vowels: /i/ > /e/ and /u/ > /o/.
 * Fronting of retroflex consonants: /ʂ/ > /ʃ/, /ʈ͡ʂ/ > /t͡ʃ/ and /ʐ/ > /ʒ/.
 * /ŋ/ > /n/ in non-stressed syllables.
 * /ja/ > /je/
 * Loss of [ə] before and after fricatives, after liquid consonants and on the ends of words, triggering consonant assimilation and deletions.

The following changes did not affect all dialects but were found in the majority that affected both Classical Beltonian and Middle High Beltonian:
 * Monophthongization of short diphthongs in High dialects: /ei/ > /e/ and /ou/ > /o/, which slowly spread to Low dialects.
 * Especially in Low dialects, [ɒ] emerges as an allophone of /ɑ/ after /w/ and before nasal vowels.
 * Especially in High dialects, loss of [ə] between stops, triggering consonant assimilation.
 * Especially in Low dialects, /u/ > /ʉ/, initially only in unstressed syllables.
 * Loss of uvular stops /q/ > /k/ except its allophone [ɢ] > /g/. Bacha believes this began in the central dialects, although other linguists like Ansleh believe it began in Low dialects.

Nouns
Nouns were divided into two genders: common and neuter. The genders influenced agreement from adjectives, a few verb tenses and, initially, which pronouns would replace them. From the 7th century onwards, inanimate common nouns shifted towards taking the neuter pronouns. The common gender was formed the merger of the Proto-Beltonic masculine and feminine genders.

The conceptual plural disappeared during the 6th century. Some strong nouns underwent regularization.

Strong nouns
Strong nouns preserved two vowel inflections from Proto-Beltonic. With the accusative being the base form, the plural was formed through i-mutation and the nominative was formed through cross-mutation. In the former, the first core vowel had a /j/ inserted in front of it, with a few exceptions: /wæ/ and /wɑ/ became /wi/, while /æ/ and /ɑ/ became /je/. If the first core vowel was /i/ or was /j/ before it, the mutation instead moved to the second or (for bilateral roots only) resulted in /e/ being added on the end.

Cross-mutation usually resulted in the swapping of /u/ and /i/ and of /e/ and /o/ among the core vowels. /æ/ and /ɑ/ were unaffected, but if both core vowels were those vowels, then the second core vowel was deleted.

Starting in the 7th century, strong nouns began to switch their copulative form to resembling the nominative form, while retaining the -(o)s suffix.

Verbs
Like the modern Beltonic languages, Old Beltonian had multiple moods:
 * Indicative: Conveying that an action is happening or has happened.
 * Energetic: Conveying the same as the indicative but with emphasis.
 * Jussive: Conveying that an action is desirable.
 * Imperative: Conveying commands in the second person, and in other persons conveying an exhortation that someone should do or be allowed to do an action.
 * Conditional: Conveying that an action would only happen under a certain condition. Unlike the conditional forms of many modern languages, it could not be used to present the 'future in the past'.
 * Negative: Conveying an action did not happen, in conjunction with the adverb gu. This came from the Proto-Beltonic potential mood.
 * Habitual: Conveying a recurring habit instead of a one-off or ongoing action. This is normally described in most languages as an aspect rather than a mood, but has the grammatical characteristics of a Beltonic mood.

Verbs also inflected for person and number, and in the third person inflected for three genders as well. Each mood also had an infinitive form and past participle. This meant there were 12 inflections for each mood, except the indicative mood which had additional inflections for the preterite (past indicative). However, not all the inflections were unique.

In addition, verbs were also divided between dynamic and stative verbs. The majority were the former and concerned actions, whereas the latter dealt with adjectival descriptions. Stative verbs used a present tense that was based off the original present tense, and did not distinguish between the indicative and habitual mood. Bacha uses the terms "quasi-stative" and "quasi-dynamic", noting that in Old Beltonian the distinction became arbitrary. For example, wikut (to be in charge) became to take a more dynamic meaning (to lead, command) but retained a stative pattern. Most dynamic verb inflections were formed by merging with pronouns from the Proto-Beltonic copulative case, whereas stative ones were formed by the pronouns in the absolutive case. The exceptions were infinitives, past participles and third person neuter forms.

Verbs were also divided between weak, semi-strong and strong verbs. Weak verbs followed two patterns, depending on whether they were dynamic or stative. The majority of verbs were weak and dynamic, and with the exception of a few suppletive verbs, all strong verbs were dynamic. Aspects of the weak verb patterns had been introduced to the strong verbs through regularization. Strong verbs retained the vowel mutations of the proto-language, although most did not retain it completely. The conditional mood in particular was prone to being regularized. Regularization tended to occur if a strong verb pattern had become unrecognizable through sound change. Semi-strong verbs had almost completely abandoned the vowel mutations except for the past tense.

Strong and semi-strong dynamic verbs
Strong verbs formed the preterite through cross-mutation and formed the jussive and negative moods through i-mutation. Only 10 used both sound mutations to form the conditional mood, with the rest undergoing regularization and adopting weak verb endings.

Weak verbs
Weak verbs were generally regular and formed moods and tenses through suffixes, although sound change had created a few exceptions to the general rules.

Copula
There were two forms of copula: the pronouns in the copulative case and the verb raha ("to be, to exist"). The former tended to imply a more permanent state. The latter was a suppletive verb that incorporated some forms from an alternative Proto-Beltonic mood, including its preterite and imperative stems.

Other suppletive verbs
At least five other verbs were suppletive, with at least one mood formed from an alternative root.

Adjectives
Adjectives agreed with nouns based on their gender, number (singular or plural) and case, with cases agreements divided.

Adjectives became divided into strong and weak adjectives. Strong adjectives taken from strong nouns, or resemble strong nouns. They relied on the Proto-Beltonic i-mutation, with the irregularities to the pattern that had developed in Old Beltonian, in order to form the plural form.