30000 BC

This proto-lang will be made in the equivalent of 30,000 BCE. This constitutes the Upper Paleolithic.

It will be for an alien species which is (what a coincidence) biologically very similar to humans, but is probably different in some way. Maybe their hands are made differently or they can climb trees a bit better, or maybe their heads are oriented to be more like cones.

I plan to evolve this until the present day.

Vowels
Front:

/e/ - [ɛ]~[e], can degrade to [ə] in unstressed syllables

/i/ - [i]; similar to [j] in intensity when alone

Back:

/a/ - [a] before bilabial consonants, [ɑ]~[ɤ] elsewhere

/u/ - [o]~[u]

There are 8 acceptable diphthongs:

Front:/ae/ [əɛ], /ai/[əi], /ei/[ei], /eu/[ɛo], /ie/[ie]

Back: /au/[ɑo], /ua/[oɑ], and /ue/[oe]

No more than two vowels can occur in a row.

Syllables
The only permissible syllable structure is (C)V.

Stress Rules
Generally, if there aren't any diphthongs in the word, the stress falls on the final syllable of the word. If there are diphthongs, they are stressed, and then every syllable an even number after the diphthong is stressed.

Exceptions:
 * In "eugabi", the syllable "ga" is stressed.

Words
aenalabe - to see

aene - to be an eyeball

aihi - to make noise

ahuedi - (to be) nature or god

aliebu - to be many

aliehie - (to be) beautiful

aniedu - to flee

asiena - mysterious, new

asae - to cut

aseu - wind

asue - to die which is bad

auguma - (to be) a large herbivore, to be eaten, to be edible

bae - (to be) fruit

baeguba - imitation of the sound of footsteps hitting the ground

bau - (to be) (a) bone

biema - to be similar to another thing

budumua - to lightning and/or thunder, to shake, to make the ground electric, to arrive or come nearer (of the mythical monster)

bueda - (to be) the color of the sky right now

buha - to do, make, or speak of something

dage - to be done, to be made, to be a theoretical thing spoken of

dude - (to be) a carnivore/killer which is undesirable

edugu - (to be) a home, where someone lives generally

eida - (to be) day, the sun

elahi - (to be) a bird in the sky

elali - (to be) the earth, its creator, its bounty

emabe - stone

enaule - flatland, plain

esiba - to be affected by something

eugabi - an animal which isn't fit to be eaten due to moral circumstances

gigu - to listen and/or learn

gu - rain, (of rain) to fall, to attack ineffectively but relentlessly

ibi - to be the speaker

idule - to be similar

igu - to be the listener/audience

ihaedi - to sit

imau - to be at a specific place

inaeba - to charge forward

inihi - to stop

labe - to have fun with something
 * adverb: indicates that the following happens after the previous thing stops

laela - (to be) grass

luamu - mud, which is mud

mau (interjection) - sad sound

nasi - (to be) a human

naude - (to be) a herbivore which is undesirable

nausu - (to be) a bird on the ground

nese - to be caught, to be obtained; used to create object for some predicates

nusi - to cast a shadow, a cast shadow

sase - specific knife used to cut things open most cleanly, to cut

sidi - indicates that the previous word is false

sigi - (to be) jutting up and down, such as mountains faraway

sima - sneakily stalk

uba - walk brashly

ude - to die which is good

uedau - to be wise

uge - (animal) to be dangerous in an admirable way, (human) to be renowned

ulali - to be happy, to be bright, to be near something which is good

ugebe - club to break things; to smash

ugeuba - to walk (like) an animal, with grace

ulaehu - (to be like a) flower

umau - be approached (by something else which was walking)

umi - (to be) a cloud

usisu - to whisper

Compound Words in General (with b- for clarity)
bisigi benaule - a jocular word for their mountain home, which is like a flatland to them

buge beugabi - used to specify an exalted animal

buge banasi - used to specify an exalted human

bunusi mesiba muluamu - to leave tracks (esp. in mud)

Prefixes
These are prefixes which attach to the beginning of the word and signify connected things. They generally go in this order, from first to last:
 * b-
 * m-
 * d-
 * n-
 * g-
 * h-

When the predicate comes before a consonant, the vowel in between them is the same as the one after the beginning of the word.

Predicates which refer to the same thing have the same prefix.

Intransitive Sentences
Simple sentences can be represented in English by making the second word a verb. However, this is not actually a change in the word. Generally, the word in the front is written as a noun in the transcription, though it is not different from a verb in practice.
 * Bauguma bimau bapau.
 * SUBJ1-eaten.animal SUBJ1-be.at.place SUBJ1-be.bone
 * The animal which could have been eaten is now at a specific place and is now a skeleton.
 * Bapau bimau baugama.
 * SUBJ1-be.bone SUBJ1-eaten.animal SUBJ1-be.at.place
 * The skeleton of an animal is over there.

Transitive Sentences
The slightly more complex transitive sentences have a setup where two words with different prefixes are next to one another, and they interact in such a way that the first one is implied to be related to the other.


 * Buge bisima mumau mibi.
 * SUBJ1-be.exalted SUBJ1-sneakily.stalk SUBJ2-be.approached SUBJ2-be.speaker
 * The exalted one sneakily stalks me.

Generally, mumau is used for the objects of verbs involving the subject's physical motion towards something. However, this is not necessary.


 * Buge bisima mesiba mibi.
 * The exalted one sneakily stalks and it affects me in some way.

Reduplication
Reduplication of the first syllable implies an iterative nature. Reduplication of the last two syllables implies a habitual/gnomic nature. In reduplication, /i/ after /u/ becomes /e/; igigu -> igigu{igu} -> igiguegu

Sentences
Bisima buge mumau mibi. - The one who stalks is exalted and comes near me.

Bisima buge mesiba mibi. - The one who sneaks is exalted, which affects me somehow.

Story
Bauguma binaeba (mesiba) masue manasi beugabi.

The herbivore charges and kills one person, and is not fit to be eaten*.

Banasi baliebu bubuha mesiba meugabi.

Many people talk about the disgraced animal*.

(They have to find the animal. Then the story continues.)

Baliebu bugu mesiba meugabi balaliebu mesiba maniedu.

The crowd attacks the animal, albeit ineffectively, but the sheer number of attacks affects it, and it flees.

(When they find the animal, they go to kill it, but lightning strikes. This shows that the animal was not meant to be eaten, and they show it the way out of the fire. This is why you should not attack.)

*The animal is bad, and so it cannot be eaten because it has done evil and has killed for a reason other than eating. Therefore, it is referred to as an eugabi.

Culture
Names come from the baby's first babbling; they can have phones and phonotactic structures which don't appear in the language, like consonant clusters or syllable-final sounds. Eventually, though, people's names are mispronounced to the point that they fit within the

These people can skin animals.

They don't really have a musical instruments. The little music they have consists of clapping as they tell stories.