This is a project I've been working on for a few years, though really sporadically; thus the thread is more of a scratchpad than a fully presentable result. It's a large language family, spoken in a version of the present day. The name comes from Proto-Kuzitic *kuz "person, human being."
In universe, the Kuzitic Languages are one of the world's largest families, dominating 2/3rds of the continent of Pacifica, located between Asia and North America in the North Pacific. They are all descended from Proto-Kuzitic, which was spoken around 5,000 years ago, vaguely contemporaneously with PIE, likely somewhere in the Hagash Mountains in western Pacifica. Proto-Kuzitic and its descendants are characterized by a system of four semantically-assigned noun classes (masculine, feminine, neuter, and inanimate), which have distinct number marking; the plural animate is marked by a tone change, while the inanimate class has singulative marking instead, with an unmarked plural. Other distinctive features of PK include tone, a fairly complex system for marking posession (including multiple possessive classes), polypersonal agreement (including with indirect objects), a desiderative mood which causes ablaut, and mostly head-final syntax. Although PK was nominative-accusative, many (most?) descendants have developed ergativity, which is an areal feature of western Pacifica; those which retain a nom-acc. alignment tend to be outliers from the core areas of the family. Notable languages include the historical Classical Darnic/Odanite, Old Penau, Sewaqli, Deligian, and Classical Arroe and Guywana, as well as the modern languages of Odanite, Modern Arroe, Modern Standard Penau, Wikkaynese, Llapoyan, and Ozavakve.
Aesthetically, I'm kind of aiming for something with its own unique feeling for Proto-Kuzitic, rather than aping a specific natlang (although I am trying to be naturalistic.) I'm putting in features that I tend to think of as "ugly" or "cludgy," like lots of voiced obstruents, ejectives, tone, and copious consonant clusters. The aesthetic was also inspired by Rot13, a cipher, which naturally produces some of these features when metabolizing English text. These features are maintained to varying degrees in the descendants.
Here are some notes on phonology.
Vowels: *i *e *a *u
Stops: *p *b *p’ *t *d *t’ *ṭ *ḍ *ṭ’ *k *g *k’ *q *ʁ *q’ *ʔ
Fricatives: *s *z *s’ *h
Nasals: *m *n *ñ *ŋ
Approximants: *l *l’ *j *w
Note that I haven’t used IPA in all cases, because it makes it feel more realistic to a protolang to me; for example *ṭ *ḍ *ṭ’ *ñ have an uncertain value; they may have been retroflex, palatal, or palatalized coronal consonants. Similarly, the exact nature of the distinction between *l and *l’ is not certain, though the latter was probably glottalized or velarized, and *l may have been palatal or palatalized. Others are more definitive; the ejectives were definitely ejectives, and *ʁ was almost certainly [ʁ], though it patterned as a voiced stop (a la Inuktitut).
The syllable structure is (C)(C)V(C)(C); clusters follow the sonority hierarchy generally, but also permits consonants with the same MOA to co-occur in a cluster; i.e. *mnañ “mouth” *gḍíʁ- “wipe.” However, obstruents in clusters (except *ʔ) must agree in voicing, so **bt **sz are illegal while *bd *sh are permitted. Clusters of ejectives sort of follow this rule, in that voiced obstruents become voiceless before ejectives, but it appears the first element in such a cluster was unreleased so I write what was likely */t’k’/ as *<tk’>. These rules apply to compounds, but not inflectional morphology.
Proto-Kuzitic had two tones, low and high; the high tone is indicated with an acute.
Anyway, gonna put my notes on the different branches in another post.
Kuzitic Family Scratchpad
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DorotheaBrooke
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Kuzitic Family Scratchpad
Last edited by DorotheaBrooke on Tue Sep 02, 2025 10:52 am, edited 1 time in total.
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DorotheaBrooke
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Re: Kuzitic Family Scratchpad
Here's a very rough map of subfamilies of Kuzitic:
The Kuzitic languages are typically divided into eight branches (Arroe, Lusoberian, Deligic, Darnic, Abo-Llapo, Penautic, Nachtol, and Todosic), which are more questionably grouped together in three nodes (Paleo-Western, Western, and Eastern).
Paleo-Western is the smallest node, both by number of languages and number of speakers. It consists of two branches, Arroe and Lusoberian.
Arroe (blue) is the largest of the two; it’s the official language of the Arroe Republic, a small, mountainous country along Odan Bay. It has an extremely deep written history, with the earliest attestations from the late 700s BCE. The Arroe have traditionally been a middle power in Western Pacifica, maintaining their political independence and a strong cultural identity in all but the worst times thanks to their mountainous homeland. The early Arroe were highly oriented around militarism and self-defense, a legacy which has been drawn upon throughout history. The deep history and continuity of Arroe means that there are not only one but two classical Arroe varieties – Classical Arroe proper, which was in written use from the 400s BCE to the 300s CE; and Guywana, which was in use from the 600s CE to the 1100s CE.
The Lusoberian languages (purple) have no such heavy attestation; they are a small group of endangered languages spoken in the Lusoberian desert, and are barely even attested before the late 1800s, though toponyms and descriptions from outside sources suggest that these languages were dominant in the central and eastern Lusoberian desert until the early modern period, when they were overwhelmed by neighboring Deligic languages.
Despite their differences, these two branches have some commonalities, most notably preservation of the historic palatal stops as stops, retention of Proto-Kuzitic applicatives, and a “vowel crunch” at some point in their early history which saw the loss of the phoneme /e/.
There are also a few ancient inscriptions and toponyms in southeastern Pacifica which suggest that languages with these characteristics may have had a broader distribution in the ancient past. Most of these inscriptions predate the Deligic conquests of the 100s BCE. The only variety which is even moderately attested is the Old Laawanic, spoken by the invaders of the Lidan islands (which I forgot to add to the map) from the 300s to the 1st century AD, when they were invaded themselves by the Deligi. Old Laawanic is sparsely attested, but what is available of it suggests a weak affinity with the Lusoberian languages, albeit with some very odd features, like the absence of the desiderative mood (otherwise totally unheard of).
Western is a tighter grouping than Paleo-Western, with a lot of common phonological, morphological, and even lexical changes. This node contains three branches: Deligic, Darnic, and Abo-Llapo. Some linguists have hypothesized that Proto-Western Kuzitic was a dialect continuum, with the Deligic languages being one end of the continuum and Abo-Llapo the other.
Deligic (red) is the largest branch of Kuzitic languages, both by number of speakers and by number of languages. It’s spoken up and down the west coast of Pacifica.. The spread of the Deligic family is a bit of a historical accident; the Deligi, who were nomadic pastoralists in the Hagash mountains, were one of the first cultures to integrate the horse into their lifestyle and military after it was introduced to Pacifica in the 300s BCE. They used this to their advantage in the 100s BCE and 00s CE through a campaign of large-scale conquest along the west coast. The Deligi were never politically unified, and the conquerors were rival clans who quickly collapsed into infighting, but the conquests spread the Deligic language as a lingua franca. When the area was later conquered by the Odanite empire, the empire continued to use Deligic as a lingua franca for its western territories (much like Greek in the Roman empire), which cemented its position.
The Deligic language family is large enough to have two large subbranches, confusingly named after the historic directionally named clan groupings – so Northern Deligic is not necessarily spoken in the north, instead being named after the Northern Deligi clans. The Northern Deligic languages are spoken on the southwest coast, from the Lusoberian desert to just south of the Keslangas River, as well as in the southern and northern Hagash Mountains. Southern Deligic is spoken on the northwest coast of Pacifica, as well as in the central Hagash Mountains.
Notable features of the Deligic languages include a more complex vowel system and a tendency towards morphological simplification. The languages of the southwest coastal plain form a sprachbund with several common features, including quotative forms and a perfective auxiliary derived from “to do.”
The Darnic Languages (orange) are close relatives of Deligic. The Darnic languages are another variety, like Arroe, with tremendous antiquity, dating back to the Darnic civilization. The ancient Darnic city states in eastern foothills of the Hagash Mountains conquered various downhill principalities in the early Common Era, and spread their language there; these Darnites called themselves and their new state Yadine, or in English Odan. They established a massive and long-lasting empire, which spread Darnic religion westward, and entrenched the Darnic family as dominant in the Odan Bay region. Presently, the Darnic language with the most speakers is Odanite (Odanite: Yadinek’e), the official language of the Republic of Odan, but there are other important languages too, including Modern Darnic and Siyawa.
The Abo-Llapo languages (brown) are a small family of languages, spoken in eastern Llapoya and Petina. They are attested, mainly in Episanist inscriptions, from the 200s CE onward. Most are endangered as a result of language shift to Llapoyan and other languages in the contemporary period. They have some unique features, like a split-ergative alignment in most languages, strong traces of applicatives, and heavy influence from outside languages, including Deligic and Darnic.
The Eastern languages are a much more dubious group, and some linguists reject this entirely, though it has tended to stick around a useful if not entirely accurate label. For a time, the most robust feature linking these branches together was a loss of historical tone distinctions – total loss in some Penautic languages and Nachtol, and partial loss in the rest of Penautic and Todosic – but one common development does not a family make. This node includes Penautic, Nachtol, and Todosic.
Penautic (yellow) is the largest family, dominant in the populous altiplano of Penau in the northern Akar Adidi Mountains. It includes three major classical languages of antiquity: Sewaqli, a sacred liturgical language of Episanism (the primary religion of eastern Pacifica), Old Penau, and Old Andandese; closely related sister languages. In the present era, major languages include Modern Penau, Cheretori (descended from Old Penau), Modern Andandese (descended from Old Andandese), and Metlan (descended from an unattested sister language). The Penautic languages lost Proto-Kuzitic tonal distinctions early on, first developing a pitch accent system and then eventually stress accent in some descendants. Many of the current languages, notably Metlan, have redeveloped tone from coda consonants.
Nachtol (lime green) is a regional language spoken in the Hetun Basin of the Akar Adidi Mountains. It has never been a literary language, with its speakers always using either Penau or Andandese as a prestige variety; consequently it was never written down until the late 19th century. As its speakers are ethnically Penau, and the language has massive influence from surrounding Penautic languages, it took linguists a while to realize that Nachtol was its own branch of the Kuzitic family, one which took a very different course of development to Penautic but which converged with it through massive borrowing and sprachbund effects. Frustratingly, the relatively small number of robust native lexemes and lack of historical attestation mean that Nachtol’s story is not well understood.
The Todosic languages (dark green) are spoken in eastern Pacifica. As with the Abo-Llapo languages, speakers of the Todosic family were historically herders and subsistence farmers on the chilly northern periphery of Pacifica, with relatively little historical documentation, though there are some scanty records from the middle ages onward. Notable features include a pitch accent system derived from historic tonal contrasts, loss of ablaut (!), and retention of applicatives and the historical nominative-accusative alignment, a conservative trait which was lost in most descendants.
The language of these with the most speakers is Ozavakve, a historic trade language used along the northern Pacifican littoral.
The Kuzitic languages are typically divided into eight branches (Arroe, Lusoberian, Deligic, Darnic, Abo-Llapo, Penautic, Nachtol, and Todosic), which are more questionably grouped together in three nodes (Paleo-Western, Western, and Eastern).
Paleo-Western is the smallest node, both by number of languages and number of speakers. It consists of two branches, Arroe and Lusoberian.
Arroe (blue) is the largest of the two; it’s the official language of the Arroe Republic, a small, mountainous country along Odan Bay. It has an extremely deep written history, with the earliest attestations from the late 700s BCE. The Arroe have traditionally been a middle power in Western Pacifica, maintaining their political independence and a strong cultural identity in all but the worst times thanks to their mountainous homeland. The early Arroe were highly oriented around militarism and self-defense, a legacy which has been drawn upon throughout history. The deep history and continuity of Arroe means that there are not only one but two classical Arroe varieties – Classical Arroe proper, which was in written use from the 400s BCE to the 300s CE; and Guywana, which was in use from the 600s CE to the 1100s CE.
The Lusoberian languages (purple) have no such heavy attestation; they are a small group of endangered languages spoken in the Lusoberian desert, and are barely even attested before the late 1800s, though toponyms and descriptions from outside sources suggest that these languages were dominant in the central and eastern Lusoberian desert until the early modern period, when they were overwhelmed by neighboring Deligic languages.
Despite their differences, these two branches have some commonalities, most notably preservation of the historic palatal stops as stops, retention of Proto-Kuzitic applicatives, and a “vowel crunch” at some point in their early history which saw the loss of the phoneme /e/.
There are also a few ancient inscriptions and toponyms in southeastern Pacifica which suggest that languages with these characteristics may have had a broader distribution in the ancient past. Most of these inscriptions predate the Deligic conquests of the 100s BCE. The only variety which is even moderately attested is the Old Laawanic, spoken by the invaders of the Lidan islands (which I forgot to add to the map) from the 300s to the 1st century AD, when they were invaded themselves by the Deligi. Old Laawanic is sparsely attested, but what is available of it suggests a weak affinity with the Lusoberian languages, albeit with some very odd features, like the absence of the desiderative mood (otherwise totally unheard of).
Western is a tighter grouping than Paleo-Western, with a lot of common phonological, morphological, and even lexical changes. This node contains three branches: Deligic, Darnic, and Abo-Llapo. Some linguists have hypothesized that Proto-Western Kuzitic was a dialect continuum, with the Deligic languages being one end of the continuum and Abo-Llapo the other.
Deligic (red) is the largest branch of Kuzitic languages, both by number of speakers and by number of languages. It’s spoken up and down the west coast of Pacifica.. The spread of the Deligic family is a bit of a historical accident; the Deligi, who were nomadic pastoralists in the Hagash mountains, were one of the first cultures to integrate the horse into their lifestyle and military after it was introduced to Pacifica in the 300s BCE. They used this to their advantage in the 100s BCE and 00s CE through a campaign of large-scale conquest along the west coast. The Deligi were never politically unified, and the conquerors were rival clans who quickly collapsed into infighting, but the conquests spread the Deligic language as a lingua franca. When the area was later conquered by the Odanite empire, the empire continued to use Deligic as a lingua franca for its western territories (much like Greek in the Roman empire), which cemented its position.
The Deligic language family is large enough to have two large subbranches, confusingly named after the historic directionally named clan groupings – so Northern Deligic is not necessarily spoken in the north, instead being named after the Northern Deligi clans. The Northern Deligic languages are spoken on the southwest coast, from the Lusoberian desert to just south of the Keslangas River, as well as in the southern and northern Hagash Mountains. Southern Deligic is spoken on the northwest coast of Pacifica, as well as in the central Hagash Mountains.
Notable features of the Deligic languages include a more complex vowel system and a tendency towards morphological simplification. The languages of the southwest coastal plain form a sprachbund with several common features, including quotative forms and a perfective auxiliary derived from “to do.”
The Darnic Languages (orange) are close relatives of Deligic. The Darnic languages are another variety, like Arroe, with tremendous antiquity, dating back to the Darnic civilization. The ancient Darnic city states in eastern foothills of the Hagash Mountains conquered various downhill principalities in the early Common Era, and spread their language there; these Darnites called themselves and their new state Yadine, or in English Odan. They established a massive and long-lasting empire, which spread Darnic religion westward, and entrenched the Darnic family as dominant in the Odan Bay region. Presently, the Darnic language with the most speakers is Odanite (Odanite: Yadinek’e), the official language of the Republic of Odan, but there are other important languages too, including Modern Darnic and Siyawa.
The Abo-Llapo languages (brown) are a small family of languages, spoken in eastern Llapoya and Petina. They are attested, mainly in Episanist inscriptions, from the 200s CE onward. Most are endangered as a result of language shift to Llapoyan and other languages in the contemporary period. They have some unique features, like a split-ergative alignment in most languages, strong traces of applicatives, and heavy influence from outside languages, including Deligic and Darnic.
The Eastern languages are a much more dubious group, and some linguists reject this entirely, though it has tended to stick around a useful if not entirely accurate label. For a time, the most robust feature linking these branches together was a loss of historical tone distinctions – total loss in some Penautic languages and Nachtol, and partial loss in the rest of Penautic and Todosic – but one common development does not a family make. This node includes Penautic, Nachtol, and Todosic.
Penautic (yellow) is the largest family, dominant in the populous altiplano of Penau in the northern Akar Adidi Mountains. It includes three major classical languages of antiquity: Sewaqli, a sacred liturgical language of Episanism (the primary religion of eastern Pacifica), Old Penau, and Old Andandese; closely related sister languages. In the present era, major languages include Modern Penau, Cheretori (descended from Old Penau), Modern Andandese (descended from Old Andandese), and Metlan (descended from an unattested sister language). The Penautic languages lost Proto-Kuzitic tonal distinctions early on, first developing a pitch accent system and then eventually stress accent in some descendants. Many of the current languages, notably Metlan, have redeveloped tone from coda consonants.
Nachtol (lime green) is a regional language spoken in the Hetun Basin of the Akar Adidi Mountains. It has never been a literary language, with its speakers always using either Penau or Andandese as a prestige variety; consequently it was never written down until the late 19th century. As its speakers are ethnically Penau, and the language has massive influence from surrounding Penautic languages, it took linguists a while to realize that Nachtol was its own branch of the Kuzitic family, one which took a very different course of development to Penautic but which converged with it through massive borrowing and sprachbund effects. Frustratingly, the relatively small number of robust native lexemes and lack of historical attestation mean that Nachtol’s story is not well understood.
The Todosic languages (dark green) are spoken in eastern Pacifica. As with the Abo-Llapo languages, speakers of the Todosic family were historically herders and subsistence farmers on the chilly northern periphery of Pacifica, with relatively little historical documentation, though there are some scanty records from the middle ages onward. Notable features include a pitch accent system derived from historic tonal contrasts, loss of ablaut (!), and retention of applicatives and the historical nominative-accusative alignment, a conservative trait which was lost in most descendants.
The language of these with the most speakers is Ozavakve, a historic trade language used along the northern Pacifican littoral.
Last edited by DorotheaBrooke on Tue Sep 23, 2025 10:11 am, edited 1 time in total.
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DorotheaBrooke
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Re: Kuzitic Noun Class, Possession, and Adjectives
Proto-Kuzitic had four noun classes: masculine, feminine, animate, and inanimate. Gender assignment was quite regularly assigned based on semantic grounds; the masculine and feminine were reserved for human men or women (and likely a handful of other extremely high animacy entities, like deities and also the Hagash Monkey, known in PK as *kuzbu or *nuzbu depending on sex). The animate class referred to animals and plants, while the inanimate noun class referred to most inanimate objects as well as abstract concepts. There was also a much smaller class of variant nouns which will make more sense to cover later, but they aren't an exception to the rule of semantic gender assignment.
Noun class determined the specific form of number marking used:
Note that, because of the awkwardness of adding *-ñi over and over again, it's believed that inanimate possessive marking likely "exhausted" after the second *-ñi in more complex possessive phrases, and possibly not even that; two *-ñis are only attested in Darnic.
Notably, Proto-Kuzitic did not appear to distinguish between adjectives and nouns, and used these same possessive structures to indicate adjective-type relations; thus *ánjáw gi méṭé "the white franciscan [1]" and *ánjáw gi ʔénéq' "ʔénéq''s franciscan." It's not known to what extent the different forms of possession were used here, but several descendant languages use the distinction between the inalienable and alienable to express differences between nature and state (not unlike the different uses of ser and estar in Spanish). Light possession does not appear to have been commonly used for adjective-esque relations, though light possession was clearly on the way out in basically every descendant so it may have been more common in PK.
Finally, it bears talking about variance in noun class. A few nouns can vary between masculine or feminine without any additional marking, such as *ʔtu
"ancestor," which can either mean male or female ancestor depending on agreement. Similarly, animals which are used as foodstuff can sometimes appear in the inanimate when they are being eaten; *ánjáw in the animate is a franciscan cat wandering around and catching mice, while *ánjáw in the inanimate is franciscan meat on your plate. Finally, the most unusual form of variant nouns are body parts and a few other semantically similar words, which can be any noun class; for example *diʁdág "hair," can be masculine or feminine (if it belongs to a man or a woman), animate (if it is the hair or fur of an animal), or inanimate (for cut hair, or poetic descriptions, or the abstract concept of hair). This last group of nouns are obligatorily possessed, and always in the inalienable possessive class.
[1] Franciscans (Prionailurus aurisrotundae) are relatives of the domestic cat which were domesticated in much the same way and for similar purposes in ancient Pacifica; they are nevertheless somewhat distinct, with an appearance more like that of the flat-headed cat or the Pallas's Cat in colder regions. They also tend to be a bit heavier because they are sometimes bred for meat.
Noun class determined the specific form of number marking used:
- In the feminine, the singular was unmarked, and the plural was marked with the suffix *-nin. *néḍéñúb "sister" --> *néḍéñúb-nin
- In the masculine, the singular was similarly unmarked, and the plural was marked with *-ke. *kpáwdgi "killer" --> *kpáwdgi-ke
- In the animate, number was marked via tone; the singular form had a low tone on the final syllable, while the plural had high tone on the final syllable. This was so thoroughgoing that no animate noun with a high tone in the final syllable in the singular is reconstructable to the protolanguage, and only one irregular noun, *p’él’e "tree," retains the low tone in the plural. *bésli "dog" --> *béslí.
- In the inanimate, the plural was unmarked, and there was instead a singulative suffix -g(i), which only surfaced with the vowel when following a consonant cluster, or after a velar, uvular, or voiceless stop. *nujé "stars" --> *nujé-g "star," *bab "rain" --> *bab-g "raindrop" *ḍwejm "newness, new things" --> *ḍwejm-gi "a new thing," *kuweʔ "sands" --> *kuweʔ-gi "grain of sand."
Note that, because of the awkwardness of adding *-ñi over and over again, it's believed that inanimate possessive marking likely "exhausted" after the second *-ñi in more complex possessive phrases, and possibly not even that; two *-ñis are only attested in Darnic.
Notably, Proto-Kuzitic did not appear to distinguish between adjectives and nouns, and used these same possessive structures to indicate adjective-type relations; thus *ánjáw gi méṭé "the white franciscan [1]" and *ánjáw gi ʔénéq' "ʔénéq''s franciscan." It's not known to what extent the different forms of possession were used here, but several descendant languages use the distinction between the inalienable and alienable to express differences between nature and state (not unlike the different uses of ser and estar in Spanish). Light possession does not appear to have been commonly used for adjective-esque relations, though light possession was clearly on the way out in basically every descendant so it may have been more common in PK.
Finally, it bears talking about variance in noun class. A few nouns can vary between masculine or feminine without any additional marking, such as *ʔtu
"ancestor," which can either mean male or female ancestor depending on agreement. Similarly, animals which are used as foodstuff can sometimes appear in the inanimate when they are being eaten; *ánjáw in the animate is a franciscan cat wandering around and catching mice, while *ánjáw in the inanimate is franciscan meat on your plate. Finally, the most unusual form of variant nouns are body parts and a few other semantically similar words, which can be any noun class; for example *diʁdág "hair," can be masculine or feminine (if it belongs to a man or a woman), animate (if it is the hair or fur of an animal), or inanimate (for cut hair, or poetic descriptions, or the abstract concept of hair). This last group of nouns are obligatorily possessed, and always in the inalienable possessive class.
[1] Franciscans (Prionailurus aurisrotundae) are relatives of the domestic cat which were domesticated in much the same way and for similar purposes in ancient Pacifica; they are nevertheless somewhat distinct, with an appearance more like that of the flat-headed cat or the Pallas's Cat in colder regions. They also tend to be a bit heavier because they are sometimes bred for meat.
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DorotheaBrooke
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Re: Kuzitic Family Scratchpad
Proto-Kuzitic cardinal numerals between 1 and 10 have been robustly reconstructed; they were likely decimal.
1. *íws’ú
2. *píns
3. *lét'
4. *zí
5. *meʁí
6. *ʁibḍé
7. *í
8. *eg
9. *laŋ
10. *s’eze
Additionally, *ṭañqaʁu "eleven" and *lét'meʁí "fifteen" are well attested in descendants. The formation patterns for two-digit numerals are not reconstructable, with different branches having different tendencies. Larger numbers are even more doubtful. The Western languages have *sawgel "one hundred," and Darnic and Abo-Llapo have *tígel "one thousand," but these transparently seem to come from compound of the words for many (*saw) and all (*tí) with an unknown nominal, perhaps related to the very old Arroe word kʰi "thing."
Additionally, Proto-Kuzitic is reconstructed with ordinal and distributive numerals. Ordinal numerals are formed with the suffix -*zi, which assimilates to the preceding MOA of obstruents; i.e. *léts'i "third." Distributive numerals are formed by total reduplication; *egeg "eight at a time, eightfold." The forms of both of these for the numerals one and two are irregular; for one the ordinal is *ṭ’aṭis’ and the distributive is *ṭañṭañ rather than the expected **íws’úzi, íws’úíws’ú. For two it's a bit more regular; the ordinal is *pínzi and the distributive is *píspín. Technically, the distributive of seven *íjí is irregular as well, as a *j is inserted to repair the hiatus created by reduplication.
1. *íws’ú
2. *píns
3. *lét'
4. *zí
5. *meʁí
6. *ʁibḍé
7. *í
8. *eg
9. *laŋ
10. *s’eze
Additionally, *ṭañqaʁu "eleven" and *lét'meʁí "fifteen" are well attested in descendants. The formation patterns for two-digit numerals are not reconstructable, with different branches having different tendencies. Larger numbers are even more doubtful. The Western languages have *sawgel "one hundred," and Darnic and Abo-Llapo have *tígel "one thousand," but these transparently seem to come from compound of the words for many (*saw) and all (*tí) with an unknown nominal, perhaps related to the very old Arroe word kʰi "thing."
Additionally, Proto-Kuzitic is reconstructed with ordinal and distributive numerals. Ordinal numerals are formed with the suffix -*zi, which assimilates to the preceding MOA of obstruents; i.e. *léts'i "third." Distributive numerals are formed by total reduplication; *egeg "eight at a time, eightfold." The forms of both of these for the numerals one and two are irregular; for one the ordinal is *ṭ’aṭis’ and the distributive is *ṭañṭañ rather than the expected **íws’úzi, íws’úíws’ú. For two it's a bit more regular; the ordinal is *pínzi and the distributive is *píspín. Technically, the distributive of seven *íjí is irregular as well, as a *j is inserted to repair the hiatus created by reduplication.
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DorotheaBrooke
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Re: Kuzitic Family Scratchpad
I've done a bit less work on Proto-Kuzitic verbs, and these are a bit more in flux -- so I'm posting this with the understanding that it will likely change.
PK verbs are exclusively suffixing, and appear to have been largely agglutinating. I'll describe the suffixes Proto-Kuzitic verbs receive, from left to right in the verb complex.
The reciprocal was formed via full reduplication of verbs.
*Kage emp'esemp'eskík.
3p.MASC.PL wash-RECP-3p.MASC.SBJ
"They wash each other."
Slight digression on reflexives:
After the reciprocal in the verb complex comes the desiderative. The desiderative is marked with the suffix *-(j)u, with *j only being inserted after vowels. The desiderative also causes raising and backing in the final vowel of the verb; *e becomes *i, while *i *a become *u. Because of the presence of both ablaut and an affix, the desiderative has been one of the most persistent features of most Kuzitic descendants.
Proto-Kuzitic had a range of applicatives: the benefactive *-ḍe, the comitative *-lu, the instrumental *-jénké, the locative *-ti (which may have also been used as a dative), and *-jé, which appears to have been a dummy applicative. These are retained as full pieces of morphology in only the Paleo-Eastern and Todosic languages (and in a very reworked form in Abo-Llapo) but these are retained in relict form abundantly as portions of words in other branches; c.f. PK *áma-ḍe "give away for," Deligic mainǧe "give."
After the applicative came the passive *-te. As passives tend to do, it reduced the valency of an otherwise transitive verb; demoted subjects could be reintroduced with the postposition *ʁu "at."
*Kage emp'estekík (áná kagmú ʁu) .
3p.MASC.PL wash-PASS-3p.MASC.SBJ (mother 3p.MASC.PL.POSS at)
"They were washed (by their mother.)"
Next in the verb complex came the mood markers: the subjunctive *-núg and the conditional *-ʁa, which could not co-occur. The subjunctive appears to have been used for hypothetical scenarios, the protasis of conditional sentences, future events, and in conjunction with the negative particle *gel'imak; this full range is attested in Darnic and (Classical) Arroe, suggesting this goes back to PK. The conditional appears to have been used for the apodosis of conditional sentences.
*Jéq mednúgmeqʔá, ádadán medʁaʔá.
fish eat-SUBJ-3p.ANIM.SG.OBJ-1p.SG.SUBJ, grape eat-COND-1p.SG.SUBJ
"If I eat the fish, I will eat the grapes too."
It also appears to have been used with a resultative sense, perhaps as part of serial verb construction.
*Ábdidálem pṭ’iṭ’na ʁbañq’úʁa ébásʁa.
stone paint-3p.FEM.SG.SUBJ black become-COND
"She painted the stone black."
Finally, Proto-Kuzitic had polypersonal agreement, with object marking coming before subject marking.
Object Suffixes:
Subject Suffixes:
You'll note that there isn't any agreement for inanimates. In Proto-Kuzitic, inanimate objects didn't receive agreement, while inanimate subjects were not permitted at all.
PK verbs are exclusively suffixing, and appear to have been largely agglutinating. I'll describe the suffixes Proto-Kuzitic verbs receive, from left to right in the verb complex.
The reciprocal was formed via full reduplication of verbs.
*Kage emp'esemp'eskík.
3p.MASC.PL wash-RECP-3p.MASC.SBJ
"They wash each other."
Slight digression on reflexives:
More: show
Proto-Kuzitic had a range of applicatives: the benefactive *-ḍe, the comitative *-lu, the instrumental *-jénké, the locative *-ti (which may have also been used as a dative), and *-jé, which appears to have been a dummy applicative. These are retained as full pieces of morphology in only the Paleo-Eastern and Todosic languages (and in a very reworked form in Abo-Llapo) but these are retained in relict form abundantly as portions of words in other branches; c.f. PK *áma-ḍe "give away for," Deligic mainǧe "give."
After the applicative came the passive *-te. As passives tend to do, it reduced the valency of an otherwise transitive verb; demoted subjects could be reintroduced with the postposition *ʁu "at."
*Kage emp'estekík (áná kagmú ʁu) .
3p.MASC.PL wash-PASS-3p.MASC.SBJ (mother 3p.MASC.PL.POSS at)
"They were washed (by their mother.)"
Next in the verb complex came the mood markers: the subjunctive *-núg and the conditional *-ʁa, which could not co-occur. The subjunctive appears to have been used for hypothetical scenarios, the protasis of conditional sentences, future events, and in conjunction with the negative particle *gel'imak; this full range is attested in Darnic and (Classical) Arroe, suggesting this goes back to PK. The conditional appears to have been used for the apodosis of conditional sentences.
*Jéq mednúgmeqʔá, ádadán medʁaʔá.
fish eat-SUBJ-3p.ANIM.SG.OBJ-1p.SG.SUBJ, grape eat-COND-1p.SG.SUBJ
"If I eat the fish, I will eat the grapes too."
It also appears to have been used with a resultative sense, perhaps as part of serial verb construction.
*Ábdidálem pṭ’iṭ’na ʁbañq’úʁa ébásʁa.
stone paint-3p.FEM.SG.SUBJ black become-COND
"She painted the stone black."
Finally, Proto-Kuzitic had polypersonal agreement, with object marking coming before subject marking.
Object Suffixes:
More: show
More: show
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DorotheaBrooke
- Posts: 21
- Joined: Thu May 15, 2025 10:06 pm
Re: Kuzitic Family Scratchpad
A few additional bits of information to add before I go on to descendants.
Proto-Kuzitic pronouns:
Inalienable possessive marking was identical to nouns.
Proto Kuzitic had three invariant demonstratives: the proximal *jes', the medial *gul, and the distal inú. These were also used as inanimate pronouns, taking expected singulative marking when used pronominally; *jezg *gulg *inúg. Notably, when used adnominally, the PK demonstratives, followed the noun phrase.
Proto-Kuzitic can also be reconstructed with a large derivational morphology.
Proto-Kuzitic pronouns:
More: show
Proto Kuzitic had three invariant demonstratives: the proximal *jes', the medial *gul, and the distal inú. These were also used as inanimate pronouns, taking expected singulative marking when used pronominally; *jezg *gulg *inúg. Notably, when used adnominally, the PK demonstratives, followed the noun phrase.
Proto-Kuzitic can also be reconstructed with a large derivational morphology.
More: show
Re: Kuzitic Family Scratchpad
I’ve enjoyed reading through this. I like the phonotactics, and I like the way you’ve presented the different cultural features of the different branches in a clear way (so I can see which languages are ancient literary languages, which are attested more recently etc) ‒ it’s giving me a good ‘feel’ for your setting and the languages and people in it. I also like the franciscans. They sound cute but scary.
Not got a lot of specific feedback, but I’ve enjoyed what you’re doing so far
Not got a lot of specific feedback, but I’ve enjoyed what you’re doing so far
Re: Kuzitic Family Scratchpad
I don't have a ton to say, but I really like the "vibe" you've captured here. Something about the phonotactics feels vaguely Native American, without being strongly reminiscent of any one specific family. I particularly like the gender/number system. I seem to include singulatives in every conlang I experiment with. For the section on derivational morphology, it would be cool to see examples of them in use. Look forward to reading more!
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DorotheaBrooke
- Posts: 21
- Joined: Thu May 15, 2025 10:06 pm
Re: Kuzitic Family Scratchpad
Aww, thank you! And the Franciscans are cutie pies, not at all scary.sasasha wrote: ↑Sun Oct 12, 2025 12:52 pm I’ve enjoyed reading through this. I like the phonotactics, and I like the way you’ve presented the different cultural features of the different branches in a clear way (so I can see which languages are ancient literary languages, which are attested more recently etc) ‒ it’s giving me a good ‘feel’ for your setting and the languages and people in it. I also like the franciscans. They sound cute but scary.
Not got a lot of specific feedback, but I’ve enjoyed what you’re doing so far
Thank you! I actually hadn't used singulatives before, so glad to see that they are coming off well. Will do wrt: derivational morphology, there are few example of them below actually.Skookum wrote: ↑Wed Oct 15, 2025 5:57 pm I don't have a ton to say, but I really like the "vibe" you've captured here. Something about the phonotactics feels vaguely Native American, without being strongly reminiscent of any one specific family. I particularly like the gender/number system. I seem to include singulatives in every conlang I experiment with. For the section on derivational morphology, it would be cool to see examples of them in use. Look forward to reading more!
-----------
I figured I'd talk a bit about the sound changes to the Deligic languages, which are what I'm feeling most motivated to work on right now. Here's the Grand Master Plan, with examples until I got too lazy.
Brettschneider’s Law
*ʁj *l’j *lj → jj
*ʁw *gw→ b
*l’w *lw → ww
PK *ʁwéjs "with" → bòis
This is shared across all of the Western languages
Preparatory Palatalization
*VC[+palatal] → VjC[palatal]
*ṭ’áṭ’i "sewing" → č'aič'i "sewing, intention"
This is another very common set of changes in many PK descendants, though not exclusive to the Western languages.
Glide Fortition
*jj → ʒ
*w → ɸ
*kpáwdgi "killer" → kàphdi "hunter"
Another quintessentially Western change, though Deligic fortites PK *w in all cases, not just sequences of *ww as in Darnic and Abo-Llapo.
tl-shift, part 1
*C[-coronal][+stop] → C[+alveolar]/_C[+lateral]
*eblig "ground sloth" → *edlig → lig
Note that this doesn't affect the palatals? of Proto-Kuzitic. Stops here include ejectives.
tl-shift, part 2
*t *t'→ tɬ tɬ’/_a
*tL *t'L *dl → tɬ tɬ’ l
*sL *s'L *zl → ɬ s' z
*l *l' → i u/C_V
*ʔútá "give" → ʔòtlà
*béslili "puppy" → bèhlili "child"
P-lenition
*p → f
*plúlp "tongue" → foòlf
Tone Chain Shift
Vʔ → V[+high tone]/_C, _#
V[+high tone] → V[+mid tone]
Note that this is a push chain shift, the high tones derived from a coda glottal stop do not become mid.
Uvular Loss
*i *e → u a/_C[+uvular]
*q *q’ *ʁ → g k’ x
u-dropping
*u → o
Another common Western change.
Apheresis
*V → 0/#_ (except monosyllabic words)
Western languages tend to dislike initial vowels, but while other branches insert glides Deligic clips them. Note that this results in some vowels disappearing when declining or deriving historically monosyllabic roots.
Obstruent Cluster Simplification
*C[+stop] → 0/C[+stop]
*C[+fricative] →0/C[+fricative]
Deligic Prenasalization
*b *d *ḍ *g *z *ʒ→ ᵐb ⁿd ⁿḍ ᵑg ⁿz ⁿʒ/ V_, C[+glide]_, #_
Diphthong Mergers
*ij *ej→ aj oj/_C, _#
Postalveolar Series Frication
*ṭ *ṭ' *ⁿḍ→ ʧ ʧ' ⁿʤ
Velar Frication
k ᵑg k’ x ŋ → ʨ ⁿʥ ʨ’ ɕ ȵ/_i,e,j
These are still phonemically velars in Proto-Deligic (and many descendants).
Which gives an inventory of (providing there are no errors):
/*i *e *a *o/
/*ai *oi/
/*p *(m)b *t *t' *(n)d *tl *tl' *č *č' *(n)ǧ *k *k' *(n)g *ʔ/
/*ph *f *s *s' *(n)z *hl *x *h/
/*m *n *ň *ŋ/
/*l *l’ *y/
I am using Deliginist transcriptions here rather than IPA, which should be mostly obvious; romanizations like this are used for all modern Deligic languages. Note that PD *p is PK *p'; its value is totally unknown and it could have plausibly been any of [p p' ɓ]. High tone, as in Proto-Kuzitic, is represented with an acute, while mid tone is represented with a grave accent.
Note that many of the features of modern Deligic, most notably the larger vowel systems, aren't present; these are largely modern innovations.
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DorotheaBrooke
- Posts: 21
- Joined: Thu May 15, 2025 10:06 pm
Re: Kuzitic Family Scratchpad
Although I ended my last post saying that I was more motivated to work on Deligic, that was actually not the case and I've gotten much more focused on the Penautic languages.
Penautic is one of the most ancient attested branches of the family, with the first attestations actually appearing in borrowings and correspondence in the courts of other civilizations, like the Begyačbe or Amoshi [1]. However, the earliest attestations are from Old Penau, whose speakers began writing in the 900s BCE. Old Penau's close sister language, Sewaqli, is first attested around the early 600s BCE. Both became extremely influential; first Old Penau became the language of the empire of Penaulazi, which controlled much of the northern Akar Adidi and the lowlands to the east. Their conquest of the city state of Episana (which spoke its own unrelated language, Episana'a) stimulated the political and spiritual ruptures which led to Episanism, a major world religion. The much smaller and weaker kingdom of Sewaqlior converted to Episanism later and conquered Penaulazi, which led to Sewaqli serving as a tremendous liturgical language in Episanism. In the long run, however, Old Penau speakers (albeit now devoutly Episanist) became geopolitically dominant, as did their language; Sewaqli's descendants are marginal unwritten languages in the modern state of Penaulazi, much like modern descendants of Aramaic.
Despite their historical political opposition, Old Penau and Sewaqli are quite closely related, much moreso than they look (both have experienced some rather "high impact" sound changes). This is has proven to be a problem in past reconstructions, as the next Penautic language with more than fleeting attestation is Old Andandese in the 6th century CE, and there are Penautic languages which are quite different from all three which were not attested outside of their valley until linguists came around with microphones and typewriters. (Of course, because this is entirely fictional, I know precisely what Proto-Penautic was like, but saying this sort of thing gives a little verisimilitude, doesn't it?) Thus, I give the Proto-Penautic reflex in my examples, as well as a Sewaqli or Old Penau example.
Here's the grand master plan:
Palatal Loss
*C[palatal] → C[alveolar] (except /j/)
PK *ḍmaʁkez "ash" --> Old Penau dmoakɐ́l (PP *dmaʁkéz)
E-Raising
e → i/_m,n,ng,l, l’
PK *ñelm "near" -->Sewaqli nīm "sensitive, tender" (PP *nîm)
A-Raising
a → e /#_
PK *ábdidálem "stone, rock" --> Sewaqli ebādayim (PP *ebdájim)
Alveolar Dissimilation
t d t’→ k g k’/_C[lateral]
PK *tutleg "clutter, sprawled out stuff" --> Old Penau tukúχ "divinatory, predictive" [2] (PP *tukjég)
Lateral Shift
*l l’ → j r
PK *lápwé(s)-sa-ṭebú "bleeding" --> Sewaqli yapweɹdo "blood soup" (PP *japwezadú)
PK *l’ím "fingernail" --> Old Penau rím (PP *rím)
Vowel Length Development
Vj → V:/_C, _#
PK *betul "water" --> Sewaqli bn̩dō (PP *bedû)
Nasal Assimilation
N → m/_C[+labial,+stop]
N → n/_C[+alveolar,+stop]
N → ŋ/_C[+velar, +stop]
N → ɴ/_C[+uvular,+stop]
PK *aḍéŋ-ṭebú "sleeping" --> Old Penau intú "sleep" (PP *intú)
Note that stop here includes the ejectives, as well as *ʁ. Also note that the uvular nasal is not attested in either Old Penau or Sewaqli writing, as it was not phonemic, unlike the other three nasals; it was generally written the engma, or any etymological nasal if it arose due to derivational morphology. However, it was retained all the way down into Modern Penau, as well as in Penautic languages not as closely related to Sewaqli or Old Penau, so linguists feel confident that assimilation to the uvular nasal occured in Proto-Penautic.
Penautic Consonant Shift
*b *d *g *ʁ → 0/V_V
*p *t *k *q *s→ b d g ʁ z/V_V
*p’ *t’ *k’ *q’ s’→ p t k q s
PK *napaga "neck" --> Old Penau nobó "front of the neck, throat" (PP *nabá)
PK *hñuṭ’ "think" --> Sewaqli hnot "thought" (PP *hnút)
Loss of complex hiatus
V → 0/_V
PK *meʁí "five" --> Sewaqli mi (PP *mí)
Note that this applies no matter how many vowels there are; a hypothetical PK *agegigu would become PP *ú.
Emergence of Pitch Accent
These changes are easier to describe with bullet points than typical sound change notation (I also don't give a Sewaqli or Old Penau reflex, as both descendants heavily reworked this system):
Glottal Assimilation
ʔ → p/_m
ʔ → t/_n,s
ʔ → k/_ŋ
PK *ʔs’él’ "to be able to" --> Old Penau tasír(PP *tsír)
Engma Deletion
ŋ → 0/#_, C_ (except l r j w). Note that this applies across morpheme boundaries.
PK *ŋás'up’s’ "river" --> Sewaqli asn̩pās (PP *ásups)
PK *ṭŋáz-alp "both eyes" --> Old Penau tólap "eye" (PP *tázāp)
Intrusive Engma
0 → ŋ/#_ (only after words ending in vowels, or in new compounds)
PK *al'a "needle" *zízí al'a "four needles each" --> Old Penau ɐró, lilí ŋɐró (PP erá, zizí ŋerá)
[1] The Begyačbe and Amoshi are both extremely ancient and long-extinct cultures which inhabited the southern section of the basin between the Hagash and Akar Adidi mountains. The Begyačbe spoke several unrelated languages across space and time, despite their shared culture and identity. These are designated with letters. Begyačbe-A and Begyačbe-D were a small, now extinct family, Begyačbe-B was probably faintly related to a (yet-unnamed by me) language family spoken across the Akar Adidi, Begyačbe-C, though poorly attested, was likely a faint relative of Episana'a, another much more robustly attested isolate of this region, and Begyačbe-E and Begyačbe-F are so faintly attested that they may simply be variants of any of the above. Amoshi was a member of the much less surprising/esoteric Amotio-Adidic family (name also sort of tbd), which includes many of the languages of the Akar Adidi.
[2] The etymology here is likely via the ancient Penautic practice of "wind divination," wherein light items, like grains of sand or dried petals, are placed in a long, shallow wooden basin and permitted to be blown by the breeze along the surface of the basin, thereby supposedly revealing secrets of the future to initiates.
Penautic is one of the most ancient attested branches of the family, with the first attestations actually appearing in borrowings and correspondence in the courts of other civilizations, like the Begyačbe or Amoshi [1]. However, the earliest attestations are from Old Penau, whose speakers began writing in the 900s BCE. Old Penau's close sister language, Sewaqli, is first attested around the early 600s BCE. Both became extremely influential; first Old Penau became the language of the empire of Penaulazi, which controlled much of the northern Akar Adidi and the lowlands to the east. Their conquest of the city state of Episana (which spoke its own unrelated language, Episana'a) stimulated the political and spiritual ruptures which led to Episanism, a major world religion. The much smaller and weaker kingdom of Sewaqlior converted to Episanism later and conquered Penaulazi, which led to Sewaqli serving as a tremendous liturgical language in Episanism. In the long run, however, Old Penau speakers (albeit now devoutly Episanist) became geopolitically dominant, as did their language; Sewaqli's descendants are marginal unwritten languages in the modern state of Penaulazi, much like modern descendants of Aramaic.
Despite their historical political opposition, Old Penau and Sewaqli are quite closely related, much moreso than they look (both have experienced some rather "high impact" sound changes). This is has proven to be a problem in past reconstructions, as the next Penautic language with more than fleeting attestation is Old Andandese in the 6th century CE, and there are Penautic languages which are quite different from all three which were not attested outside of their valley until linguists came around with microphones and typewriters. (Of course, because this is entirely fictional, I know precisely what Proto-Penautic was like, but saying this sort of thing gives a little verisimilitude, doesn't it?) Thus, I give the Proto-Penautic reflex in my examples, as well as a Sewaqli or Old Penau example.
Here's the grand master plan:
Palatal Loss
*C[palatal] → C[alveolar] (except /j/)
PK *ḍmaʁkez "ash" --> Old Penau dmoakɐ́l (PP *dmaʁkéz)
E-Raising
e → i/_m,n,ng,l, l’
PK *ñelm "near" -->Sewaqli nīm "sensitive, tender" (PP *nîm)
A-Raising
a → e /#_
PK *ábdidálem "stone, rock" --> Sewaqli ebādayim (PP *ebdájim)
Alveolar Dissimilation
t d t’→ k g k’/_C[lateral]
PK *tutleg "clutter, sprawled out stuff" --> Old Penau tukúχ "divinatory, predictive" [2] (PP *tukjég)
Lateral Shift
*l l’ → j r
PK *lápwé(s)-sa-ṭebú "bleeding" --> Sewaqli yapweɹdo "blood soup" (PP *japwezadú)
PK *l’ím "fingernail" --> Old Penau rím (PP *rím)
Vowel Length Development
Vj → V:/_C, _#
PK *betul "water" --> Sewaqli bn̩dō (PP *bedû)
Nasal Assimilation
N → m/_C[+labial,+stop]
N → n/_C[+alveolar,+stop]
N → ŋ/_C[+velar, +stop]
N → ɴ/_C[+uvular,+stop]
PK *aḍéŋ-ṭebú "sleeping" --> Old Penau intú "sleep" (PP *intú)
Note that stop here includes the ejectives, as well as *ʁ. Also note that the uvular nasal is not attested in either Old Penau or Sewaqli writing, as it was not phonemic, unlike the other three nasals; it was generally written the engma, or any etymological nasal if it arose due to derivational morphology. However, it was retained all the way down into Modern Penau, as well as in Penautic languages not as closely related to Sewaqli or Old Penau, so linguists feel confident that assimilation to the uvular nasal occured in Proto-Penautic.
Penautic Consonant Shift
*b *d *g *ʁ → 0/V_V
*p *t *k *q *s→ b d g ʁ z/V_V
*p’ *t’ *k’ *q’ s’→ p t k q s
PK *napaga "neck" --> Old Penau nobó "front of the neck, throat" (PP *nabá)
PK *hñuṭ’ "think" --> Sewaqli hnot "thought" (PP *hnút)
Loss of complex hiatus
V → 0/_V
PK *meʁí "five" --> Sewaqli mi (PP *mí)
Note that this applies no matter how many vowels there are; a hypothetical PK *agegigu would become PP *ú.
Emergence of Pitch Accent
These changes are easier to describe with bullet points than typical sound change notation (I also don't give a Sewaqli or Old Penau reflex, as both descendants heavily reworked this system):
- If there is one high toned syllable, that remains high (H).
- If there are multiple high toned syllables, the rightmost syllable becomes H and the rest become L. PK *nánjáw "franciscan" --> PP *nanjáw "woman"
- If there are only low toned syllables, the rightmost syllable becomes H and the rest L. PK *bgeñehi "sopping wetness" --> PP *bginehí "downpour"
Glottal Assimilation
ʔ → p/_m
ʔ → t/_n,s
ʔ → k/_ŋ
PK *ʔs’él’ "to be able to" --> Old Penau tasír(PP *tsír)
Engma Deletion
ŋ → 0/#_, C_ (except l r j w). Note that this applies across morpheme boundaries.
PK *ŋás'up’s’ "river" --> Sewaqli asn̩pās (PP *ásups)
PK *ṭŋáz-alp "both eyes" --> Old Penau tólap "eye" (PP *tázāp)
Intrusive Engma
0 → ŋ/#_ (only after words ending in vowels, or in new compounds)
PK *al'a "needle" *zízí al'a "four needles each" --> Old Penau ɐró, lilí ŋɐró (PP erá, zizí ŋerá)
[1] The Begyačbe and Amoshi are both extremely ancient and long-extinct cultures which inhabited the southern section of the basin between the Hagash and Akar Adidi mountains. The Begyačbe spoke several unrelated languages across space and time, despite their shared culture and identity. These are designated with letters. Begyačbe-A and Begyačbe-D were a small, now extinct family, Begyačbe-B was probably faintly related to a (yet-unnamed by me) language family spoken across the Akar Adidi, Begyačbe-C, though poorly attested, was likely a faint relative of Episana'a, another much more robustly attested isolate of this region, and Begyačbe-E and Begyačbe-F are so faintly attested that they may simply be variants of any of the above. Amoshi was a member of the much less surprising/esoteric Amotio-Adidic family (name also sort of tbd), which includes many of the languages of the Akar Adidi.
[2] The etymology here is likely via the ancient Penautic practice of "wind divination," wherein light items, like grains of sand or dried petals, are placed in a long, shallow wooden basin and permitted to be blown by the breeze along the surface of the basin, thereby supposedly revealing secrets of the future to initiates.
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DorotheaBrooke
- Posts: 21
- Joined: Thu May 15, 2025 10:06 pm
Re: Kuzitic Family Scratchpad
Some quick and dirty notes on morphological change in Penautic:
Nouns have seen some restructuring. The biggest difference is the emergence of the Proto-Kuzitic feminine collective suffix *-az (which is identical in PP) as a morphological plural marker. Its use for the feminine plural rather than the earlier *-nin is rather perplexing (but is paralleled by a Deligic development of extending the PK masculine plural *-alp in much the same way.) Less surprising is the fact that *-az was also extended for use in the animate plural; since Proto-Kuzitic animate plurals were marked by raising tone, the loss of tone and emergence of pitch accent surely destabilized this kind of tone change. This extension led to the total loss of the animate plural in verbal agreement, with the only trace of it in the PP animate plural pronoun *táz (which is derived from PK *ti-az, and thus takes feminine plural verbal marking). Unsurprisingly, most descendants have eviscerated the animate as a noun class, totally merging it into the feminine.
Proto-Penautic greatly simplified the Proto-Kuzitic possessive system. The distinction between alienable and inalienable possession was entirely lost, with the structures for the former being fully jettisoned. Instead, Proto-Penautic used two possessive particles: *gí for masculine, feminine, and animate possessed items (derived from PK *gi) and *ʁwês for inanimate possessed items (derived from PK light possession structures with *ʁwéjs, but generalized). As in Proto-Kuzitic, adjectival senses were marked in the same structure, and there was no formal distinction between adjectives and nouns.
Proto-Penautic verbs underwent more restructuring. The biggest shift was the extension of the passive. Constructions with the passive plus a reintroduced subject were reanalyzed as a transitive marker plus an ergative marker, thus shifting the morphosyntactic alignment of the Penautic family to ergative. This structural change also led to a reinterpretation of the postposition used to reintroduce the subject as an ergative postposition, though frustratingly the precise postposition used here actually varies wildly across the family; Old Penau uses one derived from *ʁwês "with," while Andandese uses one from *éteʁ "along, via." Sewaqli uses one from *ʁú "at," but curiously uses forms which are derived from *ʁwês in most of its highly cliticized pronoun ergative forms.
Another important change in Proto-Penautic was the development of the inanimate absolutive agreement marker *in(u)- from Proto-Kuzitic *inúg, inú, which in Sewaqli and Old Penau was further clipped to n(u)-. This form, which was invariant for number, likely came from either the 3rd person inanimate pronouns or the related demonstrative.
Proto-Penautic also generally simplified the verbal system, losing Proto-Kuzitic applicatives (except in some fossilized forms) and the subjunctive. The conditional exists in Proto-Penautic, but has an extended use -- as the apodosis of conditionals and a resultative, but also in relative clauses, as the marker of lexical verbs in auxiliary constructions, in utterance complement clauses, etc. Thus the traditional term in the grammatical tradition for this suffix is the participle.
Below are the PP verb affixes:
Proto-Penautic can also be reconstructed with two auxiliary verb constructions: the auxiliary *ihwú-, which marks the future (and is derived transparently from an identical verb meaning "love,") and the auxiliary *ásti, which has an uncertain meaning, but probably marked either a perfect or perfective (and is derived from PK *ébás- "to succeed, to achieve," plus an applicative -*ti). Proto-Penautic auxiliary verb complexes, in all likelihood, were doubly marked on both the lexical and auxiliary verb; the former also always received participle marking.
More to come!
Nouns have seen some restructuring. The biggest difference is the emergence of the Proto-Kuzitic feminine collective suffix *-az (which is identical in PP) as a morphological plural marker. Its use for the feminine plural rather than the earlier *-nin is rather perplexing (but is paralleled by a Deligic development of extending the PK masculine plural *-alp in much the same way.) Less surprising is the fact that *-az was also extended for use in the animate plural; since Proto-Kuzitic animate plurals were marked by raising tone, the loss of tone and emergence of pitch accent surely destabilized this kind of tone change. This extension led to the total loss of the animate plural in verbal agreement, with the only trace of it in the PP animate plural pronoun *táz (which is derived from PK *ti-az, and thus takes feminine plural verbal marking). Unsurprisingly, most descendants have eviscerated the animate as a noun class, totally merging it into the feminine.
Proto-Penautic greatly simplified the Proto-Kuzitic possessive system. The distinction between alienable and inalienable possession was entirely lost, with the structures for the former being fully jettisoned. Instead, Proto-Penautic used two possessive particles: *gí for masculine, feminine, and animate possessed items (derived from PK *gi) and *ʁwês for inanimate possessed items (derived from PK light possession structures with *ʁwéjs, but generalized). As in Proto-Kuzitic, adjectival senses were marked in the same structure, and there was no formal distinction between adjectives and nouns.
Proto-Penautic verbs underwent more restructuring. The biggest shift was the extension of the passive. Constructions with the passive plus a reintroduced subject were reanalyzed as a transitive marker plus an ergative marker, thus shifting the morphosyntactic alignment of the Penautic family to ergative. This structural change also led to a reinterpretation of the postposition used to reintroduce the subject as an ergative postposition, though frustratingly the precise postposition used here actually varies wildly across the family; Old Penau uses one derived from *ʁwês "with," while Andandese uses one from *éteʁ "along, via." Sewaqli uses one from *ʁú "at," but curiously uses forms which are derived from *ʁwês in most of its highly cliticized pronoun ergative forms.
Another important change in Proto-Penautic was the development of the inanimate absolutive agreement marker *in(u)- from Proto-Kuzitic *inúg, inú, which in Sewaqli and Old Penau was further clipped to n(u)-. This form, which was invariant for number, likely came from either the 3rd person inanimate pronouns or the related demonstrative.
Proto-Penautic also generally simplified the verbal system, losing Proto-Kuzitic applicatives (except in some fossilized forms) and the subjunctive. The conditional exists in Proto-Penautic, but has an extended use -- as the apodosis of conditionals and a resultative, but also in relative clauses, as the marker of lexical verbs in auxiliary constructions, in utterance complement clauses, etc. Thus the traditional term in the grammatical tradition for this suffix is the participle.
Below are the PP verb affixes:
More: show
More to come!
-
DorotheaBrooke
- Posts: 21
- Joined: Thu May 15, 2025 10:06 pm
Re: Kuzitic Family Scratchpad
Raphael's thread on calendars made me want to post the Episanist Calendar in common use in much of Pacifica (including among Penautic speaking peoples).
The origins of the Episanist calendar (and in fact most calendars in use in this part of the world) come from the calendars used by the Amoshi culture in what is modern-day Odan, which itself had roots and commonalities with those used by preceding cultures like the Begyačbe. They used a solar calendar with 365 days and 10 months, each of 36 days. The New Year began on the Summer Solstice, and started with five intercalary days which were used for the Nyurash Apoh, or the Summer Festival, the largest celebration among the Amoshi.
The months were called thus (I give the names in English translation because I have not properly developed Amoshi).
0. Days of Summer/Summer Festival
1. Month of the Rains
2. Month of Corvée Labor
3. Month of the Gintapan [1] Harvest
4. Month of the Tileri [2] Harvest
5. Month of the Short Sun
6. Month of the Auspicious Births
7. Month of the Foot of Winter
8. Month of Goosefoot
9. Month of the Great Duck
10. Month of the Prince
These months were named after environmental patterns and cultural practices -- the summer monsoon, patterns of harvesting, the winter solstice, the idea that babies born in the winter were a symbol of good luck and status, goosefoot harvests, seasonal constellations, and the historical practice of naming an heir the day before the summer solstice all appear in these month names.
Like many Solar calendars, the early Amoshi calendar drifted out of alignment with the actual year due to the absence of an additional leap day. However, the idea of presenting one's heir the day before the summer solstice was an entrenched one in earliest Amoshi culture, and so when that was necessary it became common practice include one or even more likely several intercalary days to stretch a shortened year to that day. These "days of the king" were unexpected but much appreciated gestures of beneficence by monarch, as they coincided with a large feast and bacchanal. Their popularity was such that a leap day became universally expected, and its absence was cause for popular anger -- this was a big enough issue that the Amoshi kings were forced to allow the months to drift later and later, and also to present their heirs before the summer solstice but also before the end of the year. (This was to much consternation from the priestly class.)
Thus, when the Amoshi calendar was exported to other cultures, such as Episana or Sewaqlior, it was with names that were calqued from the erroneous/delayed months of the Amoshi. The Episanist Calendar, created by the religion's founder, Pam Terta, tidied up these northern calendars, and fixed the New Year as once again beginning on the Summer Solstice.
Here are the months and intercalary days of the Episanist calendar, given in Episana'a, Sewaqli, and English calque. The equivalent dates are also provided, though note that this is only accurate for years where neither the Gregorian or Episanist calendars have a leap day.
0. Vrinax/Dwēngkaprye “New Year” (June 21st-25th)
1. Vārmox, Vārsimox/Dwēmāpāp “New Month” (June 26th-July 31st)
2. Ky’ēmox/Babāqāpāp “Rainy Month” (August 1st-September 5th)
3. Kēlantisimox/Asopn̩sāpaɹ “Kelanti’s Subsequent Month” (September 6th-October 11th)
4. Tapannox/Tapanāpāp “Gintapan Month” (October 12th-November 16th)
5. Tīlerisimox/Sōrāpāɹ “Subsequent Tileri Month” (November 17th-December 22nd)
6. Ēpetmosanēmox/Aswogaɹādmagāpāp “Month of the Growing Sun” (December 23rd-January 27th)
7. Mapaunsedzesimox/Sedōdāpaɹ “Subsequent month of Mapaunsedze/Sedōdo [3]” (January 28th-March 4th)
8. Darā’amox/Erkerkāpāp “Month of the friend of a friend” (March 5th-April 9th)
9. Da dinānte kekenakyā mox/Bāχimagākekenakāqāpāp “Month of the great duck and goosefoot” (April 10th-May 15th)
10. Jautsōmox/Igormāpāp “Month of the King” (May 16th-June 20th)
As you can see, the names are changed and adjusted somewhat. Some months have merged, and others have been added. The names vary heavily between cultures as well, much as the names of months in the Gregorian calendar vary tremendously. Note that mox/āpāp and simox/āpaɹ both translate to month, but they aren't synonyms. This is because, in addition to seasons and months there are a couple times of the year known as pēnnax or periods -- the Kelantipēnnax or "Time of Kelanti" in Ky’ēmox and Kēlantisimox, the Utsupēnnax or "Harvest Time" in Tappanox and Tīlerisimox, and the Dzēvēlmopēnnax or "Birthing time" in Ēpetmosanēmox and Mapaunsedzesimox. The months of the spring and summer stand outside these, though some speak of a Vripēnnax which groups Vrinax with Vārmox, thus the use of Vārsimox. Thus a mox is a standalone month, or the first month of a pēnnax, while a simox is the second month of a pēnnax. Pēnnax is pēnah in Sewaqli; the names are identical otherwise except Dzēvēlmopēnnax which is Sēwērmopēnah and Vripēnnax which is Uripēnah.
The intercalary day in the Episanist calendar is called Nakuda/Kyibāχāban. It is the final day of the Death festival of the winter solstice, celebrated on the first day of the 6th month (Ēpetmosanēmox/Aswogaɹādmagāpāp). During leap years, the 1st day of the 6th month occurs twice. For example, in 2025, December 23rd and December 24th were both Aswogaɹādmagāpāp 1, with the first "extra" day denoted as Aswogaɹādmagāpāp 1dwē, from dwēm "new." The normal following Aswogaɹādmagāpāp 1 is not celebrated as Nakuda in those years.
The extra Aswogaɹādmagāpāp 1 is added once every four years, as in the Gregorian calendar, but the leap year is different, as it's the subsequent year from the Gregorian. As a result, one must subtract a day from the Episanist calendar when converting to the Gregorian between February 29th of Leap Year and December 23rd of the subsequent year, and one must add a day when converting from the Gregorian calendar to the Episanist calendar in the same period. The assignment of leap days was traditionally just every four years, but this of course leads to some inaccuracies with occasional awkwardly deleted days in a few cases. As a result of colonialism, clerics in the 1898 agreed to "hitch" their leap days to the Gregorian calendar, always following the Gregorian schedule of leap days from one year behind from that point forward.
Years are a different matter. In the traditional Episanist view of cosmology, time is divided into 10 epochs (jugēnax), at the end of which the world will either fall to the forces of evil and disorder or emerge in eternal harmony. We are currently in the 9th jugēnax. These jugēnax are divided into eras, or ottit. With each new ottit, the count of years resets. The determination of ottits varies between different branches of the faith, and is often quite political. The most common year numbering system, followed by most Eastern Episanists, is that we are in the "Era of Falling Leaves," which began in 426 CE, making this year 1599, notated in English as 1599 KTs (from Episana'a kētmo tsoudir, "falling leaves"). The Baturi Dynasty of Penaulazi fell in that year, marking the end to the last "holy empire" and beginning of a modern era of political fragmentation and decline.
A few other year schemes are used. Western Episanists use a reckoning which dates from an eclipse in 200 BCE; their religious practice has no rooting whatsoever in Penautic culture and thus the kings of Penaulazi and Sewaqlior are of no significance. The Episanists of Odan, who have always been a brutally persecuted minority in that country and have consequently been cut off politically and culturally from the rest of the Episanist world, date from 113 CE with the fall of the Penowtowri Dynasty of Penaulazi. And many cultures historically have used these systems in conjunction with a system of era names linked to the ruler, similar to those used by Japan, though these are not common in modern democratic states.
Today's date, in Eastern Episanist reckoning and in my timezone, is Igormāpāp 16, 1599 KTs.
[1] Eragrostis chetankensis (Common name: Gintapan or Tapan) – Cereal crop, similar to teff, but bred to have larger seeds. Major staple crop historically, drought resistant. Annual. Historically ill-suited to tropical regions, though bred in the early modern period for wider use.
[2] Sagittaria tilerantis (Common name: Tileri) – Aquatic plant, closely related to the wapato. The most crucial crop in many areas. Perennial. Flower spikes are edible as well. Less drought resistant, thus requiring irrigation in drier areas.
[3] Terms for the practice of having children in this month for good fortune.
The origins of the Episanist calendar (and in fact most calendars in use in this part of the world) come from the calendars used by the Amoshi culture in what is modern-day Odan, which itself had roots and commonalities with those used by preceding cultures like the Begyačbe. They used a solar calendar with 365 days and 10 months, each of 36 days. The New Year began on the Summer Solstice, and started with five intercalary days which were used for the Nyurash Apoh, or the Summer Festival, the largest celebration among the Amoshi.
The months were called thus (I give the names in English translation because I have not properly developed Amoshi).
0. Days of Summer/Summer Festival
1. Month of the Rains
2. Month of Corvée Labor
3. Month of the Gintapan [1] Harvest
4. Month of the Tileri [2] Harvest
5. Month of the Short Sun
6. Month of the Auspicious Births
7. Month of the Foot of Winter
8. Month of Goosefoot
9. Month of the Great Duck
10. Month of the Prince
These months were named after environmental patterns and cultural practices -- the summer monsoon, patterns of harvesting, the winter solstice, the idea that babies born in the winter were a symbol of good luck and status, goosefoot harvests, seasonal constellations, and the historical practice of naming an heir the day before the summer solstice all appear in these month names.
Like many Solar calendars, the early Amoshi calendar drifted out of alignment with the actual year due to the absence of an additional leap day. However, the idea of presenting one's heir the day before the summer solstice was an entrenched one in earliest Amoshi culture, and so when that was necessary it became common practice include one or even more likely several intercalary days to stretch a shortened year to that day. These "days of the king" were unexpected but much appreciated gestures of beneficence by monarch, as they coincided with a large feast and bacchanal. Their popularity was such that a leap day became universally expected, and its absence was cause for popular anger -- this was a big enough issue that the Amoshi kings were forced to allow the months to drift later and later, and also to present their heirs before the summer solstice but also before the end of the year. (This was to much consternation from the priestly class.)
Thus, when the Amoshi calendar was exported to other cultures, such as Episana or Sewaqlior, it was with names that were calqued from the erroneous/delayed months of the Amoshi. The Episanist Calendar, created by the religion's founder, Pam Terta, tidied up these northern calendars, and fixed the New Year as once again beginning on the Summer Solstice.
Here are the months and intercalary days of the Episanist calendar, given in Episana'a, Sewaqli, and English calque. The equivalent dates are also provided, though note that this is only accurate for years where neither the Gregorian or Episanist calendars have a leap day.
0. Vrinax/Dwēngkaprye “New Year” (June 21st-25th)
1. Vārmox, Vārsimox/Dwēmāpāp “New Month” (June 26th-July 31st)
2. Ky’ēmox/Babāqāpāp “Rainy Month” (August 1st-September 5th)
3. Kēlantisimox/Asopn̩sāpaɹ “Kelanti’s Subsequent Month” (September 6th-October 11th)
4. Tapannox/Tapanāpāp “Gintapan Month” (October 12th-November 16th)
5. Tīlerisimox/Sōrāpāɹ “Subsequent Tileri Month” (November 17th-December 22nd)
6. Ēpetmosanēmox/Aswogaɹādmagāpāp “Month of the Growing Sun” (December 23rd-January 27th)
7. Mapaunsedzesimox/Sedōdāpaɹ “Subsequent month of Mapaunsedze/Sedōdo [3]” (January 28th-March 4th)
8. Darā’amox/Erkerkāpāp “Month of the friend of a friend” (March 5th-April 9th)
9. Da dinānte kekenakyā mox/Bāχimagākekenakāqāpāp “Month of the great duck and goosefoot” (April 10th-May 15th)
10. Jautsōmox/Igormāpāp “Month of the King” (May 16th-June 20th)
As you can see, the names are changed and adjusted somewhat. Some months have merged, and others have been added. The names vary heavily between cultures as well, much as the names of months in the Gregorian calendar vary tremendously. Note that mox/āpāp and simox/āpaɹ both translate to month, but they aren't synonyms. This is because, in addition to seasons and months there are a couple times of the year known as pēnnax or periods -- the Kelantipēnnax or "Time of Kelanti" in Ky’ēmox and Kēlantisimox, the Utsupēnnax or "Harvest Time" in Tappanox and Tīlerisimox, and the Dzēvēlmopēnnax or "Birthing time" in Ēpetmosanēmox and Mapaunsedzesimox. The months of the spring and summer stand outside these, though some speak of a Vripēnnax which groups Vrinax with Vārmox, thus the use of Vārsimox. Thus a mox is a standalone month, or the first month of a pēnnax, while a simox is the second month of a pēnnax. Pēnnax is pēnah in Sewaqli; the names are identical otherwise except Dzēvēlmopēnnax which is Sēwērmopēnah and Vripēnnax which is Uripēnah.
The intercalary day in the Episanist calendar is called Nakuda/Kyibāχāban. It is the final day of the Death festival of the winter solstice, celebrated on the first day of the 6th month (Ēpetmosanēmox/Aswogaɹādmagāpāp). During leap years, the 1st day of the 6th month occurs twice. For example, in 2025, December 23rd and December 24th were both Aswogaɹādmagāpāp 1, with the first "extra" day denoted as Aswogaɹādmagāpāp 1dwē, from dwēm "new." The normal following Aswogaɹādmagāpāp 1 is not celebrated as Nakuda in those years.
The extra Aswogaɹādmagāpāp 1 is added once every four years, as in the Gregorian calendar, but the leap year is different, as it's the subsequent year from the Gregorian. As a result, one must subtract a day from the Episanist calendar when converting to the Gregorian between February 29th of Leap Year and December 23rd of the subsequent year, and one must add a day when converting from the Gregorian calendar to the Episanist calendar in the same period. The assignment of leap days was traditionally just every four years, but this of course leads to some inaccuracies with occasional awkwardly deleted days in a few cases. As a result of colonialism, clerics in the 1898 agreed to "hitch" their leap days to the Gregorian calendar, always following the Gregorian schedule of leap days from one year behind from that point forward.
Years are a different matter. In the traditional Episanist view of cosmology, time is divided into 10 epochs (jugēnax), at the end of which the world will either fall to the forces of evil and disorder or emerge in eternal harmony. We are currently in the 9th jugēnax. These jugēnax are divided into eras, or ottit. With each new ottit, the count of years resets. The determination of ottits varies between different branches of the faith, and is often quite political. The most common year numbering system, followed by most Eastern Episanists, is that we are in the "Era of Falling Leaves," which began in 426 CE, making this year 1599, notated in English as 1599 KTs (from Episana'a kētmo tsoudir, "falling leaves"). The Baturi Dynasty of Penaulazi fell in that year, marking the end to the last "holy empire" and beginning of a modern era of political fragmentation and decline.
A few other year schemes are used. Western Episanists use a reckoning which dates from an eclipse in 200 BCE; their religious practice has no rooting whatsoever in Penautic culture and thus the kings of Penaulazi and Sewaqlior are of no significance. The Episanists of Odan, who have always been a brutally persecuted minority in that country and have consequently been cut off politically and culturally from the rest of the Episanist world, date from 113 CE with the fall of the Penowtowri Dynasty of Penaulazi. And many cultures historically have used these systems in conjunction with a system of era names linked to the ruler, similar to those used by Japan, though these are not common in modern democratic states.
Today's date, in Eastern Episanist reckoning and in my timezone, is Igormāpāp 16, 1599 KTs.
[1] Eragrostis chetankensis (Common name: Gintapan or Tapan) – Cereal crop, similar to teff, but bred to have larger seeds. Major staple crop historically, drought resistant. Annual. Historically ill-suited to tropical regions, though bred in the early modern period for wider use.
[2] Sagittaria tilerantis (Common name: Tileri) – Aquatic plant, closely related to the wapato. The most crucial crop in many areas. Perennial. Flower spikes are edible as well. Less drought resistant, thus requiring irrigation in drier areas.
[3] Terms for the practice of having children in this month for good fortune.
Re: Kuzitic Family Scratchpad
Impressive! I find it especially interesting to see a calendar based on the astronomy of our Earth, but still with references to conworld plants. Is there a connection between the division of all time into 10 epochs and the division of each year into 10 months?
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DorotheaBrooke
- Posts: 21
- Joined: Thu May 15, 2025 10:06 pm
Re: Kuzitic Family Scratchpad
Wrt: the latter, there's no particular connection other than the fact that these cultures use base 10 counting and consequently are likely to think of it as a simpler, rounder number.Raphael wrote: ↑Mon Jun 01, 2026 7:12 am Impressive! I find it especially interesting to see a calendar based on the astronomy of our Earth, but still with references to conworld plants. Is there a connection between the division of all time into 10 epochs and the division of each year into 10 months?
Wrt: ag, since this is set on a fictional continent in the North Pacific, I tried to make up a fictional agricultural package for these cultures which was realistic for the time and place -- so near cousins of various real world crops, etc. Gintapan and tileri are the two foundational crops and provided most of the nutrients from agriculture in the region. (These eventually would be supplemented by Eurasian crops, which were introduced the last few centuries before the common era, around the same time as the emergence of Episanism). But some other natively domesticated crops include:
Chenopodium album (White Goosefoot) – An actual irl Goosefoot plant, native to much of the northern hemisphere. Leaves and grain are eaten. Cultivation coexisted with foraging for wild instances as well, especially for leaves (thus the reference to goosefoot in the spring months, when the leaves are best). Annual. It's a common allergen, so after the introduction of Eurasian crops like wheat it is no longer commonly grown or eaten outside of a few random cultural enclaves. The common name for them in almost every Pacifican language is some variation on the word kekenak, and archaeology suggests they were an especially early domesticate.
Castanea wicayeni (Witkay Chestnut) – Chestnut tree related to Japanese Chestnut; source of nuts and lumber.
Prunus amarga (Yellowbitter) – Fruiting tree distantly similar to apricots, with a distinct yellow color and bittersweet taste. Can survive in quite arid climates, but ill suited to the tropics.
Vitis yadadaria (Yadadar grape) – Drought-resistant Grapes, dark blue in color, with a sweet, slightly sour taste. Often grown for their bright red leaves in autumn; a common topic of Odanite (non-Episanist) religious aestheticism.
Vitis kuakua (Kuakua grape, Pink Jewel Yadadar) – Less drought resistant grape species, grown in rainy areas and higher elevations. Smaller and sweeter. Renowned for their pink color. Ill suited to the tropics.
Gossypium lusoberia – A species of cotton domesticated for the usual purpose. Usually light green or red rather than white.
Ilex hagashensis, Ilex rufa, Ilex fsame (Snow Bagmo, Bagmo, Fsame) -- Three species of holly, all which produce caffeine and which are prepared in a variety of ways. The bagmo and snow bagmo produce less caffeine, while fsame is a major source of caffeine.