Remembering that Minecraft protolang(https://www.verduria.org/viewtopic.php?t=1422), I did brainstorm ideas to evolve it. I thought of evolving the culture as well.
One aspect of worldbuilding and conlang creation is not just the evolution of a language's phonology and grammar, but also the evolution of the culture speaking the language. This is something that Biblaridion never touched upon in his Conlang creation tutorial, I wrote something on Wattpad that I still need to finish and perhaps revise as well, where I also tackle the evolution of a culture of a people speaking a protolang, with the invention and discovery of new things and items that would lead to new words and roots.
For the speakers of Proto-Junglecraftish(temporary name), I'm thinking of them creating new types of pickaxes and other tools and weapons leading to them mining and discovering new types of materials: gold, mineable redstone, and diamonds, for example. They could figure out the invention of carts and rails to travel large distances. They could figure out how to, over time, build rail networks. For the two languages to diverge, the speakers would probably have to spread out throughout different island areas.
I don't know what the timeline should be for the events to occur, especially since these events could occur with the rise of sound changes and grammar changes occurring. There could be some intertwining in some way. Yet, new words could emerge during the transition and divergence. And I'd like to sort of apply some differences between the two descendant cultures of the one speaking the protolang.
They could develop redstone machinery to harvest sugar cane, cocoa beans, etc, though they might not be able to venture into the Nether to discover it and quartz and gather it. Because of this, they might not grasp the concept of comparators or even observers. Maybe they could learn from foreigners like the series players to go into the Nether, gather mine for quartz and whatnot, maybe barter with the piglins(with the speakers coining a term "pig+person"), and perhaps create comparators and observers to improve their farms and transportation. Maybe it could lead to some English loanwords entering the language, similar to how English creoles like Hawai'ian creole and Tok Pisin exist, though other creoles exist, like Haitian creole between Haitian indigenous languages and French, or Chavacano between indigenous Philippine languages and Spanish. There might be a creole between English and the language with trilled affricates and pharyngealized consonants, or there might not. What do you guys think?
Also, those transportation methods could be invented independently by the two groups of people.
And there might need to be new words in advance, especially with my ideas for sound changes.
sixteen: tiraa
256: karo
4096: siohluu
minecart: quroo
furnace minecart: furnace+cart
chest minecart: chest+cart
TNT: creeper+weapon
TNT cart: (TNT)+cart
iron: 'ao
gold: qura
diamond: siehloo
button: tseoniha
slimeball: slime+stuff
piston: kiuli
sticky piston: (slimeball)+piston
hopper: kao
hopper cart: hopper+cart
rail: liarii
pressure plate: quihla
powered rail: redstone+rail
torch: pau'u
redstone torch: redstone+torch
harvester: harvest+person
detector rail: (pressure plate)+rail
ignite: hhietla
extinguish: ruo
activator rail: (redstone torch)+rail
machine: kuahqo
automatic farm: farm+machine
I might stop here for now.
Here are the two intended sets.
Phonology Evolution Set A:
One of them involves the lateral obstruents /hl/ and /tl/ delateralizing to their corresponding non-sibilant alveolar obstruents [θ̠] and [tθ̠]. Later on, clusters of [h] with [l] would lead to the emergence of [hˡ], which would then become [l̥], and later /hl/, bringing the sound back. At the same time, clusters of [s] and [l] would lead to the emergence of [sˡ], which would also weaken to /hl/. Also at the same time, clusters of [t] and [l] would lead to [tˡ] existing, that sound weakening to /tl/. With this sound change, the lateral obstruents return and are distinct from both the sibilant alveolar obstruents and the non-sibilant ones. And now that I think about it, a cluster with [ts] and [l] could lead to [tsˡ], which could also become /tl/.
Another sound change I want to experiment with is the rise of trilled affricates or post-trilled consonants. Examples of those in natural languages are Fijian with [ᶯɖʳ], Nias with [ⁿdʳ]/[dʳ], Avava with [ᵐbᴮ] and [ⁿdʳ], Kele with [ᵇʙ]/[bᴮ] and [ᵈr]/[dʳ](though those two certain realizations mean that pre-stopped trills could exist like how pre-stopped and post-stopped nasals could, and maybe post-stopped trills as well), whatever natural languages might contain [pᴮ̥] though none so far include it, Ngkoth with [tʳ̥], whatever natural languages might contain [ʡ𐞖](the missing symbol being the "modifier letter small capital h") despite none so far including it, Namuyi with [pʙ̥], [bʙ], [tʙ̥], and [dʙ], Haida with [ʡ𐞴](the missing symbol being the "modifier letter reverse glottal stop with stroke"), and the perhaps most popular example being Pirahã(and Wari', Oro, and three others) with [t̪ʙ̥]. Maybe such consonants of the uvular variety might exist, but I'm not entirely sure. Based on whatever sound changes I'd need to implement.
I also plan to include pharyngealized consonants alongside trilled affricates. Pharyngealized consonants are more common than those, and the Semitic languages are considered the most popular examples of languages with such consonants. Other examples of pharyngealized consonants in languages include but are not limited to, Ubykh, Taa, and various(but not all) Afroasiatic languages.
Another idea involves simplifying [ji] and [ij] into [iː], and [wu] and [uw] into [uː].
I also want to include the sound changes most likely to occur based on the protolang phonology, alongside my desired ones. Let me know your ideas in the comments and the annotations.
A new idea for the stress system, evolved from the protolang's one(in which stress is on the antepenult by default with the penult receiving the stress if it contains a long vowel), is one in which stress still falls on the antepenult by default, aside from the following two exceptions:
1. The penult is closed, in which that receives the stress.
2. The final syllable is closed and with a long vowel, in which that syllable receives the stress.
Any ideas, guys?
Phonology Evolution Set B:
Some ideas I intend involve getting rid of the pharyngeal consonants, though I'm keeping them on that one descendant. Compared to the desired inclusion of trilled affricates and pharyngealized consonants for that one language, I'm considering preglottalization and labialization. I might have ideas for sound changes leading to them.
A number of you reading this, if you classify as the type of person that would be interested, you might already know what labialization is. For those who don't, it's when a sound is produced with the lips involved. Labialized consonants are part of secondary articulation, and are common throughout several languages, including English(in which the rhotic is almost always labialized), other PIE languages like some of the Romance ones, Northwest Caucasian, etc. Although the glyph for the voiced bilabial fricative is written in the top-right corner of a glyph in IPA notation to signify labialization, a "w" is used in the top-right corner instead, even if there may be a velar quality in the pronunciation. That first-described transcription is used for something known as "voiced bilabial fricative release", which is another story.
Similar to palatalization, labialization could arise from consonants being followed by /u/ or [w], and I'm thinking of labialized velars like [kʷ] and labialized alveolars like [sʷ]. I could include more, but not too many.
Glottalization is when the glottis is used simultaneously when one pronounces a sound of a different place of articulation, leading to the sound having the quality of a glottal stop mixed in. This could lead to the rise of ejectives like [p'], [t'], [k'], and [q']. Voiceless affricates and fricatives are also susceptible to gaining ejective correspondents in a language. Transcribing glottalized resonants involves a glottal stop in the top-right corner, and the Yokut languages are rich in them.
Preglottalized consonants exist in other languages, and in place of glottalized ones as far as I'm aware. And maybe it's more common than that. I'm somewhat thinking of, alongside labialized and plain consonants, preglottalized ones. Maybe to pay homage to Wukchumni Yokut, I could include a preglottalized velar nasal, but maybe as an allophone of a preglottalized alveolar one in the proximity of velars, assuming I'd choose to delete vowels between nasals and other consonants in practical environments. Ejectives might also be possible.
I'm also thinking of [j] and [w], when bordering their corresponding vowels(and maybe each other's corresponding vowels as well), to fortify into their corresponding fricatives, [j] becoming [ʝ], and [w] becoming [β] and [ɣ] in various environments.
There's also the stress system, which, in the protolang, involves the antepenult being stressed by default, and the penult taking its place if it has a long vowel. That one descendant language's stress system is intended for stress still falling on the antepenult by default, one exception being if the penult is closed(that syllable receiving the stress if so), the only other one being if the final syllable is closed and contains a long vowel(leading to that one being the stressed one).
For this language, I intend for the stress system to transition into the same one as Classical Oqolaawak, which is based on morae. Open syllables with short vowels are each one mora, unless it's a closed one or has a diphthong(both vowels in it being short) or a long vowel, in which the syllable is two morae, or unless it's a closed one with a long vowel or diphthong(both vowels in it being short), in which it is three morae. And stress would always fall on the third morae from the end of the word.
I'll stop there for now.
Grammar Evolution Set A:
I'm thinking of the singular, plural, and distributive numbers evolving into something different while retaining the singular and plural. Should the distributive number be kept though?
For definiteness, I decided to use "one" and "this" to serve double duty as themselves and the indefinite and definite article respectively.
I don't know about augmentatives and diminutives, though comparatives, equatives, and superlatives could emerge. I'm thinking of the system being similar to that of Classical Oqolaawak.
For the TAM system, I have an idea, though I'd need to reconsider. The original derivations are "to finish" for the perfective aspect, "to stop" for the cessative aspect, and "to go" for the future tense, the present and imperfective being unmarked. Looking at the Oqolaawak and Nekāchti showcases, and remembering the Grammatical Evolution part of Biblaridion's old tutorial series, the cessative aspect could become a perfect tense, and the perfective aspect could become a past tense. But given my choice of words those aspects are derived from, I could switch their paths. Whatever the case, there could be a system with only the past, present, perfect, and future tenses, or English's tense system without the habitual tense. Yet, how long would this tense system even last without any aspectual distinctions? My three copulas, derived from "to exist", "to live/reside", and "to stand" could help out.
And there are those valency-changing operations to also do something about.
Finally, for this one descendant, I'm evolving a noun case system.
Grammar Evolution Set B:
Much like Set A, I still don't know what to evolve the grammatical numbers into, though I'd want a similar yet different path compared to Set A.
For definiteness, the indefinite article is out of the question, with the word for "that" being both itself and the definite article.
I still don't know which of the two descendants should get augmentatives and diminutives, though the comparatives system for this descendant language is intended to be the same as modern Taqva-miir(if any of you looked at enough of the Conlang Case Study series to know what I'm talking about).
For the new TAM system of this descendant, someone on the Discord server "Conlangerama", Kazu said this: "As a native speaker of a tenseless language, the "past cessative" just looks like imperfective, and the "past imperfective" just looks like plain perfective." I could make that second descendant a tenseless language like Ewe and Ilothwii are. But still...
And with the valency-changing operations...
And finally, rather than noun case, I'm evolving polypersonal agreement.
If you're wondering about my choices for noun cases and polypersonal agreement, those two rarely coexist in languages, and the coexistence doesn't last due to unneeded redundancy. Of course, there's also the taxonomic division of colors and the conceptual metaphors to take into account as well. But what do you guys think of these ideas? I could use the advice and clarity.