Munja'kin Historical Linguistics

Munja'kin Language Navigation: Home, Phonology, Grammar, Vocabulary, Dialogue

Proto-Munja'kin underwent a small number of sound changes, but they resulted in many alternations in modern Munja'kin.

Raising of *o

After *g and *ŋ, *o merged with *u:

*ŋori → nuri

*o merged with *u before a syllable-final *ŋ:

*toŋ → tun

Voicing

Stops, affricates and sibilants voiced after a nasal:

*nompu → nombu

Before voiced consonants, *s voiced:

*rusma → ruzma

Nasal assimilation

Nasal consonants assimilated in place of articulation with a following stop, affricate or fricative:

*bonpu → bombu

Epenthesis

A homorganic voiced stop was added after nasals when they preceded a liquid or a sibilant:

*amro → ambro

Loss of hiatus

*ai and *au merged with *i and *u respectively:

*marai → marí

If the first element of the sequence was stressed, the resulting vowel is also stressed.

Loss of *e

*e merged with *i when it was stressed, otherwise it merged with *a:

*were → wira

Debuccalization

The first elements of all geminates debuccalized to merge with *ʔ:

*sappo → sa'po

Fortition of *w

*w became v before *u and *o:

*wuwu → vuvu

Loss of *ŋ

*ŋ merged with *n:

*naŋi → nani