Proto-Peninsular
| Proto-Peninsular | |
| Period | c. -1500 YP or earlier |
| Spoken in | Peninsula (*mrisaŋfa) |
| Total speakers | unknown |
| Writing system | none |
| Classification | Peninsular languages Proto-Peninsular |
| Typology | |
| Basic word order | SOV |
| Morphology | agglutinating |
| Alignment | NOM-ACC |
| Credits | |
| Created by | Zhen Lin |
Proto-Peninsular was spoken by the Proto-Peninsular people (autonym: *marnaç-(xa)) in the southeasternmost peninsula (endonym: *mrisaŋfa) of the continent of Peilaš. It is the reconstructed ancestor of the Peninsular language family.
Features
Proto-Peninsular is reconstructed with 13 consonants (*p t k m n ŋ f s ç x h r l) and three vowels (*a i u). Of note among the consonants are the triplet *ç x h, which are fundamental to the three-vowel reconstruction: whereas five-vowel reconstructions may have had *he ha hʌ, under the three-vowel reconstruction, these are *ça xa ha. The nasals *m n ŋ and liquids *r l could (and frequently did) function as syllable nuclei.
Proto-Peninsular nouns did not have much inflection (although some descendants later developed an extensive case system). In contrast, the pronominal and verbal systems were fairly complex: The pronouns included a distinct reflexive root and seven full series of demonstratives, all of which distinguished animacy and several different genitives. Verbal morphology included up to six distinct aspectual stems per root, often formed in a rather unpredictable way, and inflection for five voices, six moods, two tenses, and an additional category traditionally called phase, the purpose of which is yet to be fully understood by linguists.
Descendants
Known descendants of Proto-Peninsular include the following languages:
- Proto-Peninsular (Mrisaŋfa, -1500 YP or earlier - Zhen Lin)
- Fmana-hŋ-Talam (Fmana-hŋ-Talam, -500 YP)
- Lotoka (Lotoka, -300 YP - Cedh)
- Gaadràmarneš (southwestern Mrisaŋfa, -100 YP - Vortex)
- Kibülʌiṅ (northern Mrisaŋfa, -500 YP - 4pq1injbok)
- Merneha (-500 YP - Nebula Wind Phone)
- Vylessa (Zhen Lin)