Ancient Meó
Ancient Meó is the oldest attested form of the Meó language, the earliest attested form being on the writings in the Meó Shell Script (so named for being written on shells), whose earliest inscriptions can be dated back to the 73rd century. It is the ancestor of the modern day Meó language, and of an additional 800 languages/dialects (the nature of whether these constitute "dialects" or "languages" is of much political controversy within the Meó nation and abroad, especially in the region of Post-Succlythia and within The Shattered Islands). Due to the way in which the Meó Scripts work, it is hard to derive the exact pronunciation of early Meó words outside their initial consonants (or, in some less common cases, vowels). This is overcome through the rigorous comparison of dialectal/linguistic differences, as well as through the use of the Lesser Meó Script, an abugida form which dates from approximately the 79th century.
Phonology
Consonants
| Consonants | Bilabial | Alveolar | Retroflex | Laminal | Velar | Labiovelar |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| m | n | ɻ̃ | j̃ | ŋ̟ | ŋ̠ʷ~ɴ | |
| p b | t d | ʈ ɖ | t̪ d̪ | k̟ g̟ | k̠ʷ~q g̠ʷ~ɢ | |
| v | l | ɻ | j | ɰ | w |
/k̟ g̟/ are herein represented as "k g" respectively, and /k̠ʷ~q g̠ʷ~ɢ/ as "q ɢ" for simplicity's sake, although in many people's speech they were post-velar as opposed to uvular, and exhibited labialisation and this is still prevalent in some modern dialects.
Vowels
| Vowels | Front | Back |
|---|---|---|
"ɯ" is a very unstable vowel and is typically found as a glide significantly more often than where it stands alone. It is the ancestor of h [x] in Modern Meó.
Pitch
Ancient Meó features two tones/pitches, the level tone, and the "emphatic" tone, whose pronunciation varies greatly, but a final glottal stop on the syllable is common (this is reflected in Modern Meó's falling tone). It is theorised the emphatic tone ultimately derives from final stops that were lost at an earlier stage in the language, or homorganic nasal-stop clusters that lost their stop component.
Syllable structure
Meó syllables almost exclusively follow a (ɰ-)(C(G))V(C) pattern (C = consonant, V = vowel, G = j, w, ɻ, ɰ). The ɰ- that precedes the syllable is reflected as [h~x] or has a tonal effect in almost every Modern Meó dialect, with only one dialect recorded as still pronouncing it as [ɰ].
Words
qɻɑː "wheel" - kiá
ɰqɪ "Haki" - Hké
æɻɰᵊkuː "Ahko" - Ahko
kɻʊɻnɪ "family" - śioeine
1-12 in the base twelve system:
qɑː
t̪ɰɑː
ɑːtɑː
vɪn
ɢɰɪ
ɑːtuː
bɻɑː
t̪ɑːn
ɢɪɻiː
qɪt̪
lɑːqɪt
mɻʊw
ɰɪ