In the previous post, we had a look at some real world sound changes, namely those from Proto-Uralic to Hungarian. We now want to put this knowledge to use to derive Nyirvón, a conlang with Hungarian-like phonology, from Proto-Rykaic! But first, we have to think a bit about Nyirvón’s siblings…

Aligning the birth of Asiul and the death of Old Ryka

In the present state of my conlanging universe, where we still have two language families and one isolate (Quriil), Nyirvón forms the Konoic language family with Asiul and Siidde. Asiul and Nyirvón are supposed to be noticeably similar, but not mutually intelligible. Siidde and Nyirvón, while being more closely related (Siidde is considered to be a dialect of Nyirvón by many Dakiuzuiam), are also not really mutually intelligible. This is also because Siidde speakers are pretty isolated from Nyirvón speakers while in close contact with Quriil speakers, so the language has mutated rather drastically in a short period of time.

When we now want to place these three languages in one family with Ryka and Quriil, the question of time depth arises. When did all of these languages become separate, and in which order? We also need to regard the history of the Llof, the conflicts and migrations that caused new language areas to arise, and when contact situations could happen.

There is one event that’s particularly important here, namely the Asiuluam’s adoption of Asiul in favor of Ryka. At some point in time, the Asiuluiam dropped Ryka as a national language and began enforcing only Asiul to be spoken on their islands. This led to a rapid decline in Ryka native speakers and the evolution of the White Ryka dialect on the White Island, where people still preferred Ryka over Asiul. Later, the Asiuluiam reestablished Ryka as a national language. Instead of encouraging the island-wide use of White Ryka, they resurrected Old Ryka, i.e. the language in the state it was when they abandoned it. White Ryka can be understood by Old/Capital Ryka speakers, so the birth of Asiul must also have occurred rather recently, at a time depth at which two languages can still be mutually intelligible.

This creates a paradox: Asiul and Nyirvón must have split so long ago that they are not mutually intelligible. But Old Ryka, which was discontinued at the same point in time, must have died out so recently that it can still be understood by modern White Ryka speakers. Of course, Old Ryka is an ancestor of White Ryka rather than a sibling and has not undergone its own sound changes (at least not much since its reintroduction as Capital Ryka), so they are naturally more similar to each other than Asiul and Nyirvón. Still, it seems like these two events don’t align very nicely.

Alternative branching in the Konoic subfamily

How did the Asiuluiam even come to adopt a language spoken by Dakiuzuiam? And how did the Dakiuzuiam come to speak a descendant of the Asiuluiam’s code language, Proto-Rykaic? Somehow, the Dakiuzuiam must have become aware of the Proto-Rykaic code before they left the Asiulvesacam and adapted it for their own use as Konoic. Then, much later, there must have been a contact situation between Konoic speakers and the Asiuluiam. It is implausible that it involved Cloud Palace Dakiuzuiam, so the best solution I can think of is that the contact took place on the Isle of the Free Yelluam.

This opens up a new possibilty: That the Free Yelluam have their own Konoic language – let’s call it “Yellu-Kono” for now – which split off Nyirvón before Asiul, and that Asiul is actually a direct sibling to Yellu-Kono rather than Nyirvón and Siidde. It would also explain why the differences between Asiul and Nyirvón are far greater than those between Capital Ryka and White Ryka. While this idea adds yet another conlang to my backlog, I think it makes a lot of sense for the Free Yelluam to have their own language. The Rykaic language tree now looks like this:

In the beginning, we have Proto-Rykaic (PR), the very first symbolic language on the Llof, developed by the suppressed Asiuluiam as a code. The Dakiuzuiam decipher the code, are driven off the Asiulvesacam, and settle down in the Cloud Palace while starting to speak Proto-Rykaic as well, which now develops into Proto-Konoic there. The Asiulen branch of Proto-Rykaic meanwhile develops into Proto-Ryka-Quriil (PRQ), which splits when the remaining Dakiuzuiam leave the Asiulvesacam for some remote islands, where it develops into Quriil. On the Asiulvesacam, the language now evolves into Early Ryka. Many Yelluam leave the Cloud Palace to form their own nation on the unoccupied island in the middle of the Llof, taking Proto-Konoic with them and evolving it into what I will now call Kono. In the Cloud Palace, the language changes into Old Nyirvón. Later, some Asiuluiam leave the Asiulvesacam for the Balconian islands, where Early Ryka becomes Balconian Ric. On the Asiulvesacam, it evolves into Old Ryka. Meanwhile, the segregation between the inhabitants of the Upper an Lower Cloud Palace increases significantly, and the variant of Old Nyirvón spoken in the Lower Cloud Palace becomes its own language, Siidde, while the variant in the Upper Cloud Palace becomes Modern Nyirvón. Then, the Civilized Asiuluiam come into contact with Kono and adopt it as Asiul, at the same time discontinuing the use of Old Ryka in most places. Where Old Ryka continues to be spoken, it evolves into White Ryka. The Kono spoken by the Free Yelluam evolves into Yellu-Kono. Finally, Old Ryka gets reintroduced as Capital Ryka.

Which phonological features define each branch?

Having the new language tree in place now in its full glory, what are the key phonological features that distinguish individual member and branches of the Rykaic language family from each other? For Proto-Rykaic, the most marked (i.e. unusual) features are:

• The presence of retroflex consonants.
• The absence of labial consonants.
• The presence of a length distinction in vowels.
• The absence of rounded vowels.
• (The vocalic consonant, but we already know that this one has been lost in all modern languages.)

This table illustrates the presence or absence of these four features in all branches and languages of the Rykaic language family:

Language	Retroflexes	Labials	Long vowels	Rounded vowels
Proto-Rykaic	✓	✗	✓	✗
┣ Proto-Ryka-Quriil	✓	✓	✓	✓
┃░┣ Quriil	✓	✓	✓	✓
┃░┗ Early Ryka	✓	✓	✗	✓
┃░░░┣ Balconian Ric	✓	✓	(✓)	✓
┃░░░┗ Capital & White Ryka	✗	✓	✗	✓
┗ Proto-Konoic	✗	✗	✓	✗
░░┣ Kono	✗	✗	✓	✗
░░┃░┣ Yellu-Kono	✗	✗	✓	✗
░░┃░┗ Asiul	✗	✗	✗	✗ (?)
░░┗ Old Nyirvón	✗	✓	✓	✗
░░░░┣ Nyirvón	✗	✓	✓	✓
░░░░┗ Siidde	(✓)	✓	✓	✗

As we know, Proto-Ryka-Quriil still had the retroflexes and long vowels, but also introduced labials and rounded vowels. All of these features are still present in Quriil, while Ryka lost the long vowels and, eventually, the retroflexes as well. I think it would be fun for Balconian to still have the retroflexes, so their loss should only be introduced in the Old Ryka stage, not the Early Ryka stage. This means that the split between Old Ryka and Balconian must have occurred before the (ALV) sound change. Also, Balconian Ric has developed new long vowels from the diphthongs (this is something I already settled on when developing the language’s script).

Now we enter unknown terrain: I have not yet decided on any of the sound changes to the Konoic languages, so let’s settle on the general direction here! We know that Nyirvón still has the long vowels, but no retroflexes, and must introduce labials and rounded vowels as well. I imagine this to be a very Nyirvonic innovation though, as I really want the non-labial features of Proto-Rykaic to carry into a branch of the family.

Therefore, Konoic will initially only lose the retroflex consonants. Besides that, the Konoic branch is defined by the presence of long vowels in all languages except Asiul, where it is lost due to the influence of Ryka. Asiul might also borrow rounded vowels from Ryka, but I’m not sure about that yet. Labial consonants are an innovation of Old Nyirvón and are therefore present in Modern Nyirvón and Siidde. Only Modern Nyirvón also has rounded vowels, though. Siidde, on the other hand, reintroduces retroflexes via contact with Quriil.

Conclusion

Taking a break from the sound changes to have a closer look at the structure of the Rykaic language tree has definitely been very useful! Not only can we now be sure that the branching aligns with the history of the Llof, we also know the general direction and order of some key sound changes of the Konoic branch. With that inspiration, we can finally bring Nyirvón to life in the next part of this series…