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Difference between revisions of "Old Besokian language"
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Shortly after the first disappearances of the <h> glyph, the <V> glyph is used more and more regularly in word-final position, suggesting elision of final consonants if followed by a similar consonant in the next word. This is first apparent with the consistent dropping of final nasals if the following word begins in a nasal and eventually affects <c#k> clusters as well. By the 1830s, vowel-hiatus is always resolved by deletion of the second vowel. | Shortly after the first disappearances of the <h> glyph, the <V> glyph is used more and more regularly in word-final position, suggesting elision of final consonants if followed by a similar consonant in the next word. This is first apparent with the consistent dropping of final nasals if the following word begins in a nasal and eventually affects <c#k> clusters as well. By the 1830s, vowel-hiatus is always resolved by deletion of the second vowel. | ||
===Morphology=== | |||
The most striking grammatical change seems to be the complete disappearance of the Proto-Besokian derivational system. No instance of its use in Proto-Besokian is attested, but complex derived words appear the Besokian Cosmogony and are preserved in all daughter languages. While Old Besokian makes use of a fair vocabulary of derived terms, this is a static list containing only common terms and no seemingly spontaneous innovations, and many derived items show phonological innovations that suggest an origin before Old Besokian. | |||
Inflection also seems to have simplified. Where Proto-Besokian displays multiple pseudo-casus markers designating different types of adjuncts, Old Besokian only has ''î-'', introducing any kind of modifier, both verbal and phrasal; this change is one of the first attested in writing. The composite interfix ''-e-'' has disappeared entirely, and their reduced usage suggests that the size-indicators ''-êsh'', ''-an'', and ''-or'' had fallen out of use by 1950 B.E.B. | |||
==Attestation and Written Form== | ==Attestation and Written Form== | ||
Unlike Proto-Besokian, Old Besokian is well-attested in writing. Virtually all of the Nishûnâc inscriptions are in this language, providing a broad corpus of religious and historical texts. They are also the main source for the Old Besokian abugida, which seems to have been created for Proto-Besokian no later than 2900 B.E.B.; while presumed to have been in constant use since its invention, a large part of Proto-Besokian text are lost, and most extant writing in this system is likewise in Old Besokian. | |||
==Trivia== | ==Trivia== | ||
The Old Besokian language, with the Besokian abugida in a mid-21st century orthography, was used in the Conscript Relay for the 10th Language Creation Conference in spring 2023. | |||