Proto-Ňursumerian Language

**Proto-Ňursumerian** (**PNGR**) is the hypothetical ancestor of the Ňursumerian languages. It is believed to have been spoken between 1400 and 1000 BC (1155~755 TS) somewhere on the southeastern coast of Hyperborea Major by the Proto-Ňursumerian people, who then expanded south, west and north, dominating indigenous populations of the Kanyar Islands and the western peninsula of the mainland, spreading their language, which began to diverge into distinct dialects. By year 200 OC (445 AS) three main branches of the Ňursumerian languages (West, East and Insular Ňursumerian) were already fully developed.

## Descendants

### West Ňursumerian

* **Proto-West-Ňursumerian** (800-250 BC)
	+ Valley Ňulso (since 250 BC), the official language of Ianiǧžer and the Ňursumerian Commonwealth.

### Insular Ňursumerian

* **Common Kanyaric** (800-300 BC)
	+ Fóraźen Ňúrsox (300 BC - 1300 OC), the official language of Wersār and the Ňursumerian Commonwealth.
		- Vessaric (since 900 OC)
		- Oshezic (since 900 OC)

### East Ňursumerian

* **Proto-Tezeyaric** (800 BC - 200 OC)
	+ Gheverite (50-900 OC), the *lingua franca* of southern Eghursó tribes since the Ghever Queendom's creation.
	+ Old Khafeneic (200-750 OC)
		- Khafeneic (since 750 OC)

## Phonology

### Vowels

 Long
 Overlong

Overlong vowels can also be viewed as *nasalized long vowels*, due to their possible origin from illegal clusters of long vowels and nasal consonants, which were already lost by the time of the first Ňursumerian expansion. Additionally, some older reconstructions indicated an existence of two diphthongs (or even mid/open-mid monothongs), conventionally written as \**ya* and \**va*, denoting [ɪ̯a] and [ʊ̯ɑ] (or [ɛ] and [ɔ]) respectively. However, in this article these are regarded as simple [ja] and [wa] instead.

### Consonants

There is some debate surrounding the exact values of certain PNGR phonemes, such as the dental fricative \**þ*, proposed to have been pronunced as the alveolar affricate [ts] instead - in this case, [θ] would be only an allophone of [tʰ], similarly to [pʰ~f] and [kʰ~x]. Moreover, the realisation of emphatic plosives is not specified - they might have been ejectives, judging by nativization strategies of apparent Proto-Naguna loanwords, or pharyngealized (along with \**q* and \**ř* standing for pharyngeal [ħ] and [ʕ] rather than conventional uvulars), as can be seen in some East Ňursumerian languages, which preserved them in that way (this could, however, be a result of contact with pre-Ňursumerian languages of the Red River Valley). The above are often regarded as the major dialectal differences of PNGR, which gave rise to a distinction of daughter languages evolving either from the **quth (western) dialect** or the **ħus (eastern) dialect**.

### Lenition

One of the characteristic features of PNGR phonology is its intervocalic consonant lenition, which was then grammaticalized in a number of its descendants. It was caused by the presence of \**ya*, \*i, \*ī or \*ā before the consonant. Curiously, this process was not limited to word-medial environments and a final vowel of a previous word could affect the initial consonant of the next, thus being a kind of sandhi effect.

 Weak Form

### Stress & Pitch Accent

Proto-Ňursumerian used a right-bounded moraic pitch accent system, where nuclei of a syllable carried a set amount of morae. Primary stress of a word fell on the syllable containing the antepenult (third from the right) mora and the following vowel received a high pitch. Monomoraic roots were considered *weak*, in opposition to bimoraic and trimoraic roots, regarded as *strong*. This distinction was commonly observed in some parts of PNGR grammar and morphology, such as the aspectual and tensal markers on verbs or semantic role markers of patient nouns.

### Syllable Structure

The rules for constructing valid syllables in PNGR were rather complex - all required a nucleus (either a vowel or a syllabic consonant), with the onset consisting of at most a single consonant followed by \**v* or \**y* and the coda allowed to be a sequence of a sonorant and any other consonant, except emphatic plosives, which could only be followed by the nucleus (or a provocalic glide). Thus, the longest possible disyllabic word could be described as **CGVP-CGVSP**, with *C* standing in for any consonant, *G* for glides, *V* for nuclei, *S* for sonorants and *P* for consonants except emphatics. One apparent exception to these rules is the root \**magd*- "be fortunate, lucky, happy", but the reason for this is unknown.

## Morphology

### Roots & Stems

Proto-Ňursumerian roots were affix-less morphemes, most of the time reffering to a vague but distinct lexical concept or a group of related ideas. They were classified as strong or weak based on accentual patterns and then were given a thematic marker, which specified the exact meaning and formed the verbal stem. Roots were inherently marked for simple non-past tense, forming a past form by the means of vowel lengthening (in strong roots) or nasal infixes and various irregular forms (in weak roots). Additional affixes did not interfere much with the root's structure, though some were influenced by it - this changed in numerous of PNGR's descendants, however.

### Nouns

All PNGR nouns were derived from combinations of verbal stems and a number of affixes used for nominalization. They were declined only according to number (singular, plural and collective), but also distinguished different degrees of animacy (animate, inanimate or abstract). The lemma of most nouns was the inanimate plural form (such as \**lukan* "men" or \**panuř* "eyes"), though some were inherently singular (eg. \**dišąq* "world, land", \**manun* "father"). As the animacy markers were placed after the singular ending, it is possible they were derived from some kind of lexical clitics, making the animate (marked by -ŗ) and abstract (marked by -il) nouns a fossilized form of *phrasal nouns* or that earlier strategies for marking animacy on the nominal stem were lost, but the distinction itself wasn't.

### Pronouns & Determiners

#### Personal, Interrogative and Relative Pronouns

In PNGR's pronominal system one could distinguish:

* Four distinct forms of **personal pronouns** for 1st and 2nd persons in the singular (\**nļp*, \**viř*) and plural (\**pļnas*, \**quþ*).
* Two **interrogative pronouns** replacing animate (\**byaš*) and inanimate/abstract (\**miš*) nouns, placed after the main verb.
* A **relative pronoun** (\**miš*) following the verb.

#### Demonstrative Pronouns

Proto-Ňursumerian possessed a quite large set of demonstratives - there were seven commonly used 3rd person pronouns, which did not change based on number. Rather, they were distinguished by *class* of the noun they replaced, which depended on the perceived importance of the noun, it's role, environment or origin. Overall, these noun classes could be categorized as follows:

* **Deic (God Class)** - names and avatars of gods and clan patrons (eg. \**Bīstran* "Sun Goddess", \**Kapąsran* "God of Traiding"). The lemma is always singular.
* **Spiritual (Spirit Class)** - sentient beings, mythical creatures, some animals and things thought to be alive (eg. \**bīstąm* "fire", \**lugīyan* "leader, ruler").
* **Lignumic (Wood Class)** - trees, inventions, tools and other (eg. \**iburkat* "fleet", \**þāsvař* "beds", \**tilkąt* "trees").
* **Ventic (Wind Class)** - language, sound, birds, wind and atmospheric phenomena (eg. \**dalahil* "end goal", \**sāguhŗ* "birds").
* **Terran (Stone Class)** - most terrestial animals, body parts, solid materials, stone, metal, armor and weapons (eg. \**nŗtak* "roots", \**mītaq* "bodies").
* **Aquatic (Water Class)** - water and sky-related nouns, fish, plants, high-flying birds (eg. \**sāgulŗ* "ducks", \**valav* "waves").
* **Nocturnal (Night Class)** - night and darkness-related nouns, nocturnal animals, mysterious and unknown things (eg. \**uma* "stars", \**luksiň* "shadows").

In some cases pronouns different than the ones associated with the nouns could be used to describe the speaker's opinion about the object, such as using the deic pronoun when talking about one's own queen or the nocturnal pronoun in reference to a stranger.

#### Article

The PNGR language had no indefinite articles and a single definite article, \**ša*. It followed the noun it described and in usage largely corresponded to English *the*.

### Verbs

Proto-Ňursumerian featured an expansive and complex system of verb conjugation, though the inflections were rather regular and agglutinative in nature. Both the finite and non-finite forms were derived directly from verbal stems with the use of affixes. PNGR verbs were inflected for tense, aspect, mood and exhibited polypersonal agreement. Thanks to this, entire sentences in English could be translated as a single conjugated verb, such as \**syaňamyakdinkūvās*, which means "Have I not been following it?".