The CBB

My question is, which one would be more realistic/interesting? Should I make a thread about one of them? Or about both? In addition to Omzinesy's suggestions, there is also the example of Neo-Aramaic(s), some of which developed an ergative system exactly as Omzinesy describes (possible under influe...

This is a scratchpad for some ideas I've been playing with for a highly regular, highly agglutinative language, i.e., there will be very few complex morpho-phonological processes, but lots of transparent morpheme stacking. It is partly inspired by languages such as Turkish, Inuktitut, and Japanese, ...

Oh, I'm sure that with a divine name like that, in that part of the world, it's not Armenian that people will immediately think of! Indeed [:D] Although perhaps the philologists would have spotted the Armenian connection...! Verbs (Still very much a work in progress...) Osroene verbs continue to sh...

A little sample of Osroene, from the Osroene translation of John's Gospel, 1:1. The Osroene version relies heavily on the Syriac, as is evidenced by the many calques and direct borrowings. This is unsurprising given that Syriac/Aramaic remained the main language of Christianity in the region, as wel...

Osroene’s Euphratic and IE Roots This post will look at some words which have been proposed as deriving directly from Euphratic, or a closely related dialect/language to Euphratic. Some Osroene words which are not attested in Euphratic have also been proposed to come from IE roots. <κεδρα> /ˈceðra/...

Medieval Osroene As the period around 1200 –1400AD is where I want to focus on in this alternative history, I should probably present an overview of Medieval Osroene, spoken around this point. I won’t go into great detail on the specific history in this point; it is enough to note that Classical Os...

ested as affecting things like this, I think)... [...] Well, in a *T-D-Dh system, *D can swing both ways as it shared non-aspiration with *T and voicedness with *Dh, so you are IMHO fine. Thanks! All very useful information. I look forward to reading about Old Albic (when it is ready, of course). T...

Fine. My personal view of the Early PIE stop system no longer involves any glottalized stops, though. I have found a rather simple solution to the question of the root structure constraints: the *T set was aspirated, while the *D and *Dh sets were as in the traditional reconstruction. [...] Thanks ...

A Closer Look at Euphratic Plosives The outcome of PIE plosives in Euphratic requires further attention. Although the spelling system is defective and thus any conclusions are tentative, the evidence is compelling in some aspects. The outcome of the stops is also the main reason suggesting Euphrati...

I think the correct name for the common ancestor of Late PIE (the common ancestor of the non-Anatolian IE languages) and Anatolian is Early PIE [...] Thanks - yes that's pretty much also my understanding of the situation, hence using the "conventional" reconstructions. Mitanni, (Indo)-Ira...

It's been too long since I was last doing a basal PIE language for me to remember enough about PIE to comment meaningfully. One thing, though: you talk about 'Pre-PIE', but your parent language looks a lot like PIE. Do you have any differences in mind? Indeed, it looks a lot like LPIE - I assume yo...

The "Proto-Anatolo-Mesopotamian Hypothesis" is in some ways similar to the "Southern IE Hypothesis" I am using for (the ongoing revision of) Old Albic. The idea is that there were two primary branches of IE, namely Northern IE , which consists of all extant non-Anatolian IE lang...

Ooh I like this a lot. I love the aesthetics of it. It has an almost Lihmelinyan-like feel to it [:D] And I like to see any conlang that uses Anatolian as an influence. Thanks! I do remember Lihmelinyan being influenced by archaic-IE features, so the resemblance is perhaps expected! [:)] Notes on t...

Be sure to give us the original text of the Letters of Christ and Abgar when you get this sufficiently developed! I like the premise thus far! Thanks both! I certainly will. Some more words found on the Euphratic–Babylonian–Kassite lexical list tablet reveal other possible cognates. Qorṣwánni- This...

The exact chronology of the sound changes from Pre-IE to Ancient Euphratic is unclear, given both the relative scarcity of data and the length of time between its proposed split from Pre-PIE and the earliest attestations. Internal variation and dialectology is also unclear. Additionally, as the earl...

I have been toying with the idea of a ‘lost’ IE language (or ‘speculated’ IE’ language) spoken in Mesopotamia for a while now, but none of my attempts so far have been particularly satisfying. In this iteration, I am incorporating some previous ideas/themes, but I’ve also had some new ideas which I ...

I can't remember, but can pharyngeals lower vowels? I know that they advance the tongue root, in contrast to uvulars that retract it, but I'm not sure if that means they couldn't lower vowels. Or conversely, could they raise vowels? I don't have any academic sources, but from my own experience, Ara...

Descendant B Descendant A and B form a clade, being unified until sound change 5, after which they split. This stage can be called Common-AB. Descendant B then differs from Descendant A in the following points: – No vowel lowering before /ʔ ŋ/. A: káβeŋ , B: káβiŋ – Final *N all > /ŋ/ . Whereas A r...

Some morphology Subject Marking Affixes The Proto-Language likely had the following subject marking affixes (unspecified for TAM at the minute) on verbs: 1sg: *k- 2sg: *ŋa- 3sg: *-(j/w)i 1pl. *k-…-ŋ 2pl. *-r 3pl. *-r Interestingly, these are split between prefixes, suffixes, and one circumfix for 1...

Descendant A: Sound Changes Stage I The first two changes probably happened early around the same time, as part of a of chain-shift. These two sets of changes are reflective of the main initial split of the proto-lang. 1a. Lenition and voicing of plosives between vowels. *p *t *k *kʷ > β ð ɣ ɣʷ. 1b...