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 mouths are even shaped slightly differently.

But their linguistic capabilities are slightly different as well, which I hope will cause some changes.

What words?

Phonology/Orthography

Vowels

/a/ - most variable sound; is a back low vowel, but can shift to any low vowel and many mid vowels
/e/ - somewhere near a mid-front vowel, but can degrade in fast speech to sound like /i/ or /a/
/i/ - high front vowel, similar to [j] in intensity, never degrades
/u/ - mostly distinguished from /a/ by closeness of the lips; always a back vowel; most similar, at its core, to the Japanese u

a only counts as a back vowel if it is alone or before u. Otherwise, it is neutral in the sense that it doesn't change consonants as if it's a back vowel.

Acceptable diphthongs are /ae/, /au/, /ua/, /ue/.

Consonants

/b/ - bilabial plosive;
/m/ - bilabial nasal;
/d/ - alveolar ; inches closer to the front of the mouth before /e/ and /i/ and diphthongs and closer to the back before back vowels
/s/ - alveolar fricative; partially voiced and palatalized before /e/ or /i/
/n/ - alveolar nasal; follows the same rules as /d/
/l/ - alveolar lateral; is an affricate before back vowels and an approximant elsewhere
/g/ - velar stop; is palatalized before /e/ and /i/
/h/ - back fricative; palatal fricative before /e/ and /i/, while is uvular/glottal fricative before back vowels

Words

abae - (to be) fruit
abau - (to be) (a) bone
adage - to be done, to be made, to be spoken of
aihi - to make noise
ahuedi - (to be) nature or god
alabe - to have fun with something
alaela - (to be) grass
aliebu - to be many
aliehie - (to be) beautiful
anasi - (to be) a human
anaude - (to be) a herbivore which is undesirable
anausu - (to be) a bird on the ground
aniedu - to flee
asue - to die which is bad
asuse - specific knife used to cut things open most cleanly, to cut
auguma - (to be) a large herbivore, to be eaten, to be edible
eida - (to be) day, the sun
elahi - (to be) a bird in the sky
emabe - stone
esiba - to be affected by something
eugabi - an animal which isn't fit to be eaten due to moral circumstances
ibi - to be the speaker
idule - to be similar
igigu - to listen and/or learn
igu - to be the listener/audience
imau - to be at a specific place
inaeba - to charge forward
isima - sneakily stalk
uba - walk brashly
ubudumua - to lightning and/or thunder, to shake, to make the ground electric, to arrive or come nearer (of the mythical monster)
ubuha - to do, make, or speak of something
ude - to die which is good
udude - (to be) a carnivore/killer which is undesirable
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
ugu - rain, (of rain) to fall, to attack ineffectively but relentlessly
umau - be approached (by something else which was walking)
umi - (to be) a cloud
usisu - to whisper

Grammar

Word Order The language is very strictly SV for its simple sentences. This can be represented by X-XVerb.

• 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.

Generally, the word in the front is written as a noun in the transcription, though it is not different from a verb in practice.

• Bapau bimau baugama.
• SUBJ1-be.bone SUBJ1-eaten.animal SUBJ1-be.at.place
• The skeleton of an animal is over there.

The more complex (transitive sentences) have this setup where . I don't know if this means that they aren't predicates anymore.

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

Underlying Non-Predicates

There are some underlying non-predicates. 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-

I didn't create them as pronouns, but that is what they can theoretically be glossed as.

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

Sentences

Bauguma bimau bapau. - The animal which could have been eaten is now at a specific place and is now a skeleton. (SUBJ1-eaten.animal SUBJ1-at.place SUBJ1-be.bone) Bapau bimau baugama. - The skeleton over there is an animal.

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

Buge bisima mesiba mibi. - The exalted one sneakily stalks and it affects me in some way.
Bisima buge mesiba mibi. - The one who sneaks is exalted, which affects me somehow.

Bahuedi bubuha mauguma

Culture

Names come from the baby's first babbling; they can have phonemes and phonotactic structures which don't appear in the language, like consonant clusters or syllable-final sounds.

Story

Bauguma binaeba (mesiba) masue manasi.
The herbivore charges and kills one person.

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. Then its children become more friendly.)

*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 with Xeugabi.