Central Civilization

Central Civilization, covering most of the Peninsula of Aipura and the Isles of Triconya, claims the Tag, Rimant, and Glindesan nations, the Artinaih empire, and the fractured nations left in their wake. There were several cultural centers of fluctuating importance, unlike Western Civilization which was anchored in Čila or Eastern Civilization which was anchored in Tepat.

Middle Civilization explains history through the dynastic cycle, and dates events according to the duration of dynasties: the ebb and flow of power from individual places and families. During the long postlude to the Artinaicanu power, scholars codified a system of "Five Ages," the ages of Tag, Rimant, Glindesa, Artinaih, and finally their own, the "Dark Age."

The threat of chaos emanates from the natural world as well. Although fertile, the region lies over the convergence of several fault lines and in the path of many tropical storms and blizzards. Being well-forested, most things are made out of wood, which brings with it fire hazards. Things are frequently destroyed and then rebuilt. This has encouraged a view of the physical world as impermanent, and taken with the dynastic and epochal cycles, has encouraged the view that everything recurs eternally. History is a cycle.

Mankind holds a small and uncertain place in the world, and so daily life retreated before the transcendence of art and religion. Philosophy prioritized the more abstract domains of epistemology and metaphysics.

Languages

The languages of Central Civilization are characterized by being inflectional, particularly with regard to nouns, which often have several declensions that encompass different genders and numerous cases. Verbs are also conjugated for several distinctions of voice / valency and aspect. Some languages have large inventories of vowel phonemes, a particularly pervasive distinction being between a low front vowel /æ/ and a low back vowel /ɑ/. Some more features:

• Strong preference for nominal negation over verbal negation. I.e., "I killed no one" over "I didn't kill anyone."
• Verbs indicate manner, not path, to the point some languages do not even distinguish simple "come" and "go."
• Spatial cases that mark direction of motion
• Noun gender
• Adjectives behave like nouns, and fall together in their inflectional patterns

My work on most of the languages of Sopih at the moment is very sketchy, so for now this page will be rather disorganized, reflecting my ideas about the languages without being definitive. I will edit these pages as the conception develops.

FROM PROTO-NORTHEAST ATONIC TO PROTO-AIPURAN
ai, au > æ
v > β
hl, xl, sl, lh, sw > ɵ
zl, zw > ð
hw, xw > ɸ
rw > βr
lw > ł > ɣ
h > Ø
q > ɣ
g > ɣ
ŋ > g
y > Ø after dentals, except n
w > Ø
ue, ui, iu > ü
oe > oi
eo, io > eu
ao, au > au
ae > ai

FROM PROTO-AIPURAN TO PROTO-CONIGIC
PCon sound schema: a, e, i, o, u, ü, au, ai, eu, ā, ē, ī, ō, ū, , āu, āi, ēu, p, b, hw, w, m, t, d, s, th, n, k, g, h, r, l, y
æ > a, > ā
ei, ēi > ī
oi > ai, ōi > āi
ou > au, ōu > āu
ɸ > ʍ
β > w
z > r
ɣ > x
ð > d

FROM PROTO-CONIGIC TO OLD COGRAF
ʍ > f
y > Ø
stops /_# > weakly voiced stops
A stop assimilates to an immediately following consonant
au > eo; āu > éo; ai, āi > á; eu > ua; ēu > úa
ua, úa > ui, úi respectively when followed by a front vowel in the next syllable
y, > diphthongize to io, ío when a or o occurs in the following syllable
y > i, > í when followed by a front vowel; > u, ú otherwise
rn > ln
V/_# > Ø
V:/_# > V

OCon sömpoh, sömpobu, sömpo, sömponi, sömpor, sömpai
OCog suampoch, suampob, suampo, suamponm suampá
Cog suampo, suampob, suampa, suampon, suampor, suampa
yokh > eo

TO OLD CONIGIC
ʍ > h
ɵ > s
ü > i
au, eu, ēu > ū; āu, āi > ā; ai > ī
kt > ć
h/V_ > Ø
i /_RC > ia, e / _RC > ea, a / _RC > ea, o / _RC > oa, u / _RC > ua
R/V_C > Ø
V/_# > Ø
w/_# > f

TO OLD DOEDDER
ʍ > f > v
ɵ > t
e > i, a > e, o > a, u > o, ü > u
ī > əi, ū > əu

In continental Conigic languages, new consonant phonemes arose from consonant clusters. In Cograf, stop clusters became geminate stops, with the first stop assimilating to the second. In Conigic, ć is pronounced as /ts/, and in some dialects is becoming /tʃ/.
*Lektu sekhoi milerarom.

PCon   Lektu sexai milerarom.

Con     Leć sechae milerar.

Cog     Lettu sechá milerad.

In Conigic, a vowel before a liquid and another consonant “broke,” and subsequently the liquid disappeared. A similar change occurred in Bobhzjis.
i > ia / _RC, e > ea / _RC, a > ea / _RC, o > oa / _RC, u > ua / _RC, l, r > Ø / V_C
terban > tearban > teaban > taeban <täban>, Cog. terban