Awloyan languages

[_Just_A_Sketch]

The Awloyan language family is a group of languages in a world I've been developing for a story of mine. The ancestral language and namesake for this family is Awloya, spoken in a large forest region at the base of a mountain by bipedal bee-like creatures called the Awlo. Awloya has several descendents, one spoken in the mountains, one spoken in the forest (which for the time being is Olwöa), and one spoken in plains somewhere east of the forest. The only descendant with any development so far is Olwöa, though the mountain descendent would likely be quite similar and possibly mutually intelligible with Olwöa. I may also evolve Olwöa further in the future, but at the moment I'll be keeping it as is.
Both Awloya and Olwöa are being developed as part of Jessie Peterson's conlang year.
As of this post, I have mostly complete phonologies for both as well as about 60 root words. For this post I'll be focusing on the phonologies of Awloya and Olwöa.

Awloya Phonology

Spoiler:

Consonants:
/m n ɲ/ m n nh
/p b t d c ɟ k g/ p b t d c j k g
/s z/ s z
/w l j/ w l y
- I had originally include /ŋ/, but I find it quite ugly so it is restricted to being an allophone of /n/ and /ɲ/ before velars
-/l/ becomes [ʎ] after palatals and front vowels and [lʷ] after rounded vowels

Vowels:
/i u/ i u
/e o/ e o
/ä/ a

It is very weird looking back at this inventory and seeing how small it is compared to Olwöa.

Awloya has a maximal syllable structure of (C)V(S), where S is any sonorant. Stress falls on the penultimate syllable unless the final syllable has a coda. Awloya has several restrictions in word internal consonant clusters:
- /n/ cannot precede /ɲ/.
- /m/ cannot precede /s/ or /z/.
- /ɲ/ cannot precede /m/, /n/, /s/, /z/, or /j/.

Vowel hiatus is not allowed within words, how this is resolved depends on the vowels involved:
- If the second vowel is /u/ or /o/, /w/ is inserted between the two vowels.
- If the second vowel is /i/ or /e/, /j/ is inserted between the two vowels.
- If the second vowel is /a/, /l/ is inserted between the two vowels.

Sound changes from Awloya to Olwöa

Spoiler:

The sound changes from Awloya to Olwöa occur in 11 different groups.
1. /i/ /u/ > /e/ /o/ before nasals
2. Vowel-glide sequences are reduced to long vowels and diphthongs.
/ew/ /ey/ /ow/ /oy/ /iw/ /iy/ /uw/ /uy/ /ay/ /aw/ > /ø:/ /e:/ /o:/ /ø:/ /y:/ /i:/ /u:/ /y:/ /ai̯/ /au̯/
- /y:/ and /ø:/ may be more centralized to [ʉ:] and [ɵ:] respectively
3. Deletion of /s/ through various shifts
/s/ > /z/ intervocalically
/s/ > /t/ after any consonant
/s/ > /h/ > ∅ elsewhere
4. Consonant clusters become geminates of second consonant
5. A chain shift reminiscent of grimm's law
/b/ /d/ /ɟ/ /g/ > /β/ /ð/ /ʝ/ /ɣ/
/p/ /t/ /c/ /k/ > /b/ /d/ /ɟ/ /g/
/b:/ /d:/ /ɟ:/ /g:/ > /β:/ /ð:/ /ʝ:/ /ɣ:/
6. Vowel reduction in unstressed syllables
/ai̯/ /i:/ /i/ /e:/ /e/ > /e/ (written as <e>)
/y:/ /ø:/ > /ø/ (written as <ö>)
/ɑu̯/ /u:/ /u/ /o:/ /o/ > /o/ (written as <o>)
/a/ > /ə/ (written as <a>)
7. A chain shift of the glides
/w/ /j/ > /b/ /ɟ/
/w:/ /j:/ > /w/ /j/
8. Multiple of one vowel on hiatus collapse into a single long vowel
9. /ð/ /ð:/ > /z/ /z:/
10. Alveolars become palatals when the following syllable begins with a palatal consonant
- /z/ and /z:/ become [ʑ] [ʑ:]
11. Obstruents devoice word initially

These last two changes are not phonemic (yet).

Olwöa Phonology

Spoiler:

Due to the sound changes above, Olwöa's inventory has grown significantly larger than Awloya. While I was making the sound changes it was even larger, but I have trimmed it down to a more manageable size.

Consonants:
/m m: n n: ɲ ɲ:/ m mm n nn nh nnh
/b p: d t: ɟ c: g k:/ b p d t j c g k
/β β: z z: ʝ ʝ: ɣ ɣ:/ bh bb z zz jh jj gh gg
/lʷ l l: ʎ ʎ:/ lw l ll lh llh
/w j/ w y
- Geminates and glides are restricted to medial position
-/lʷ/ cannot follow front vowels
-/ʎ/ cannot follow back vowels (however /ʎ:/ can)

Vowels:
/i i: y:~ʉ: u u:/ i ii ü u uu
/e e: ø:~ɵ: o o:/ e ee ö o oo
/ai̯ ä au̯/ ai a au
- /ai̯/ and /au̯/ are analyzed front and back vowels respectively

Olwöa has a syllable structure of (C)V in initial and medial syllables and (C)V(S) in final syllables. Stress is unchanged from Awloya.

I've been writing this for about an hour by now so I'm gonna go get some rest. The next post will probably be a list of words and maybe numbers too if I get those done by then.

Thank you for reading <3

[Khemehekis]

Thanks for sharing Jessie Peterson's link! I had never heard of her Conlang Year idea before -- and now I know what it is! Brilliant idea!

[_Just_A_Sketch]

Thanks for sharing Jessie Peterson's link! I had never heard of her Conlang Year idea before -- and now I know what it is! Brilliant idea!

You're welcome! I haven't seen much word of it outside of tumblr (and even there it's still quite unknown), so I'm glad I could get more people participating!

[Arayaz]

Thanks for sharing Jessie Peterson's link! I had never heard of her Conlang Year idea before -- and now I know what it is! Brilliant idea!

Oh yeah, I've been posting my daily prompts on tumblr, I don't think I talked about it here though.

A whole month has gone by, but perhaps we could still make a thread for it here on the CBB!

My Conlang Year language is called Izre. It's a register tone language with a phonology loosely inspired by some Native American languages.

[_Just_A_Sketch]

A whole month has gone by, but perhaps we could still make a thread for it here on the CBB!

We do still have 11 months left, there's plenty of time for catchup. I say we should make one.