Verse:Irta/Knench/Ancient
| Ancient Knench | |
|---|---|
| *hak-kana3nījō | |
| Created by | IlL |
| Setting | Verse:Irta |
Afro-Asiatic
| |
Ancient Knench, also called "Punic" in Irta (natively *hal-lašůn hak-kana3nījō 'the Canaanite language') is the earliest attested stage of Knench, first attested in the era of Biblical Hebrew. Post-Christianity it underwent drastic changes in mere centuries, thus ushering in the era of modern Knench. Ancient Knench was spoken in Iberia. Its premise is "Phoenician or Punic but a bit more Proto-Germanic".
Ancient Knench developed in isolation from Hebrew and was influenced by Azalic languages and Latin. It is a separate lineage from the dialect of Canaanite that eventually gave rise to Mishnaic Hebrew and the Jewish Hebrew reading traditions in Irta.
Todo
- When should matres lectionis be used?
- some a-priori roots
- Vowel reduction:
- final originally unstressed long > short
Phonology
Orthography
Ancient Knench was written in an abjad descended from the Proto-Hebrew script. Vowels are attested in Latin and Greek transcriptions.
Consonants
Out of the 25 consonants of Proto-Canaanite, Ancient Knench merged:
- /x/ with /ħ/ into /χ/
- /ʕ/ and /ɣ/ into /ʁ̃/
- /ɬ/ and /ʃ/ into /s̠/
[m f b~>v pˁ˭~>p˭ n t̪ʰ d̪~>ð t̪ˁ˭~>t̪˭ t͡sʰ~>s d͡z~>z t͡sˁ˭~>t͡s˭ s̠ ʁ̃ χ kʰ g~>ɣ k̠˭~>k˭ l̪ w j r~>ɹ ʔ~Ø ɦ~h~Ø] m f b π n t d ṭ s z ṣ š ʕ ḥ k g q l w y r ʔ h
/pˁ/ π was a loan phoneme from Indo-European languages such as Latin, Greek, and Azalic.
Emphatic stops were distinguished by being pharyngealized and unaspirated; however, pharyngealization was slowly lost and the distinction became not being aspirated unlike t k s. Word-finally they could be released in one of three ways:
- ejective release: [pˁʼ t̪ˁʼ t͡sˁʼ k̠ʼ]
- aspirated release: [pˁʰ t̪ˁʰ t͡sˁʰ k̠ʰ]
- voiced release: [bˁ d̪ˁ d͡zˁ g̠]
- Alternatively, π ṭ q could be unreleased word-finally: [p̚ˤ t̪̚ˤ k̠̚].
It is thought that Late Ancient Knench b d z g were in the process of fricativizing to /v ð z ɣ/.
Vowels
Ancient Knench retained Proto-Canaanite vowel length and developed overlong vowels. It had the chain shift ā > ō > ů, similar to our timeline's Punic, and developed a new ā from compensatory lengthening.