East Asian languages

From FrathWiki

The East Asian languages are the easternmost branch of the Euro-Byusan language family in the Indo-European Japan Timeline. Today, the Byusan languages are the sole surviving representatives of the family, but in the past, there were a number of languages spoken in parts of Siberia, Manchuria and Korea.

Contents 1 Proto-East-Asian 1.1 Phonology 1.1.1 Consonants 1.1.2 Vowels 1.1.3 Sound Changes 1.2 Grammar

Proto-East-Asian

The common ancestor of the East Asian languages is known as Proto-East Asian. PEA split off from PEB at an early stage, its speakers migrating eastwards into modern-day Manchuria and southeastern Siberia.

Phonology

Consonants

	Bilabial	Interdental	Dental	Palatal	Velar	Labiovelar	Glottal
Stops	b		d		g	gʷ
	p		t		k	kʷ	ʔ
Affricates			dz
			ts
Nasals	m		n
Fricatives	f	ɵ	s	ç	x	xʷ	h
Liquids			l, r
Glides				y		w

The consonants /ʔ/ and /h/ were descended from the PEJ laryngeals h₁ and h₂.

Vowels

All vowels may be long or short.

Sound Changes

Proto-East Asian was a satem language, the palatized velars becoming /ts/ (<k̑), /dz/ (<g̑) and /ç/ (<ĝʰ). Voiced aspirates evolved into voiceless fricatives, presumably through an intermediate stage of voiceless aspirates. Plain voiced velars became nasal. The labial and dental voiced stops became fricatives. Falling diphthongs were monophthongized.

Grammar

Ablaut remained productive. Nominal inflection was slightly simplified. The dual number was lost in most cases. Six cases (Nominative, accusative, genetive, locative-ablative, dative, and a vestigial instrumental) are believed to have existed. The original Euro-Byusan genders were still in at least some use, but counters began to enter the language. All of the East Asian languages eventually replaced the inherited EB gender with counters.