Proto-Qongalan

Proto-Mahuentecan
Type	Polysynthetic Agglutinative
Alignment	Ergative-Absolutive
Head direction	Final
Tonal	No
Declensions	Yes
Conjugations	Yes
Genders	No
Nouns decline according to...
Case	Number
Definiteness	Gender
Verbs conjugate according to...
Voice	Mood
Person	Number
Tense	Aspect
Meta-information
Progress	0%
Statistics Nouns 0% Verbs 0% Adjectives 0% Syntax 0% Words of 1500
Creator	chaleroge

Phonology

Consonants

		Labial	Alveolar	Palatal	Velar	Glottal
Nasal		*m	*n		*ŋ
Plosive	Aspirated	*ph	*th		*kh	*ʔ
	Tenuis	*p	*t		*k
Affricate	Aspirated		*tsh	*tʃh
	Tenuis		*ts	*tʃ
Fricative			*s	*ʃ		*h
Approximant		*w	*l	*j
Tap			*ɾ

Vowels

	Front	Central	Back
Close	*i *i:		*u *u:
Mid	*e *e:		*o *o:
Open		*a *a:

Phonotactics

Several minimal pairs appear to have existed varying only by stress or vowel length, this developed into a full tonal system in the Bawa-Pochean languages and some have suggested that Proto-Qongalan was in fact tonal.

Sound Changes

Modern Panatec is the result of three main periods of sound change from Proto-Qongalan over 2500 years ago. The most significant changes are the widespread glottalisation of aspirated consonants and complete loss of the isolated [s] phoneme through various.

Proto-Ingo-Qongalan

Below are the major sound changes associated with the transition from Proto-Qongalan (c. 1000 BCE) to Proto-Ingo-Qongolan (c. 0 CE). This period saw significant alteration to fricatives and ended with almost complete loss of the phoneme [h].

1. Fricatives lost preceding vowels where they were unstressed unless preceded by a non-nasal consonant cluster.
2. [s] and ([ʃ] and [j]) became [ts] and [tʃ] following ([t], [p] and nasals), also triggering [m] and [ŋ] to become [n].
3. [s] became [ʃ] following ([k], approximants and aspirated consonants)
4. Affricates and fricatives modified following unstressed [a] into [e].
5. [ts] absorbed preceding ([p], [l] and [k]), lengthening and stressing previous vowel.
6. [tl] became [to] word-finally, [tol] elsewhere.
7. Unstressed word-initial and word-final [h] were lost.
8. Stressed word-initial [h] became [ʃ] before ([o] and [u]) and [s] before ([e] and [i]) and [k^h] before [a].
9. [h] created a stressed long vowel between identical vowels.
10. All long vowels automatically became stressed. In words with no long vowel, the stressed vowel became long. Single syllable words are unstressed. This rule holds hereafter.
11. [j] became palatised to [tʃ] following nasals and unvoiced obstruents, [ʝ] elsewhere. [mtʃ] then became [ntʃ]

Old Qongāl

Another period of sound change, induced by further contact with Mayan languages, took Proto-Ingo-Qongolan to the Inguoan split (c. 600 CE). The Inguoan languages retained aspirated consonants where Qongāl indiscriminately glottalised them.

1. [h] between two differing vowels had several effects:
   1. [ihV] and [ehV] became [jV], also turning [sihV] and [tihV] into [ʃV] and [tʃV].
   2. [CVhi] became [CVji] or [CVj] in final syllables.
   3. [CCohV] and [CCuhV] became [CCowV] and [CCuwV].
   4. [ohV] and [uhV] became [wV].
   5. [Vho] and [Vhu] became [Vwo] and [Vwu].
2. All remaining [h] became [ʔ].
3. [k^h] became [q] before ([o] and [u]).
4. Word-final aspirated consonants [VC^h] became [CV], or [VCV] to prevent clusters of more than two consonants. All other aspirated consonants became unaspirated.
5. Unvoiced obstruents became voiced before stressed ([o], [u] and [a]).
6. Word-initial [b] became [ɓ].
7. [ntʃ] became [tʃ].

Modern Qongāl

Finally, another period of sound change developed into Classical Panatec (c. 1500 CE) which has since seen some change to become Modern Panatec (Qongāl).

1. [CVw] became [Cw], excluding consonant clusters.
2. Word-initial [s] became [ts] before stressed ([o] and [u]), [θ] before stressed ([e], [a] and [i]).
3. [s] became [θ] if either neighbouring vowel is stressed and [ʃ] elsewhere.
4. [tw], [dw] and [bw] became [θw], [ðw] and [β].
5. [ʝ] became further palatised to [ʃ] word-finally.
6. Word-final [s] became [θ] if stressed, otherwise it was lost completely.
7. Word-initial [ɾ] became [ɗ].
8. Consonant clusters become completely unvoiced if they include an unvoiced consonant.
9. ([e] and [a]) became ([e̞] and [ɐ]).
10. Unstressed [i] and [e] became [ɘ] before obstruents and nasals.
11. [ɘ] was inserted following obstruents in consonant clusters that ended in obstruents or nasals.