Are there any scholarly reconstructions of Meṫaiun? Are Almeans in general aware of its existence, and the relationship between it and Monkhayu? Are there any reconstructions of proto-Monkhayic out there anywhere?
Additionally, which came first (in real world terms) Kebreni or Meṫaiun? Or were they both developed at the same time?
UPDATE: OK, I should have checked the Almeopedia for the answer to the first part, whoops. But what about the out-of-universe part?
Knowledge of Meṫaiun
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zompist
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Re: Knowledge of Meṫaiun
The RW history of most Eretald languages is that I had wordlists and geographical names dating back to the '80s or earlier, then reworked them pretty extensively after I learned historical linguistics in the 1990s. Generally I would try to keep words I'd been using for a long time (e.g. "Kebri"). In the case of Meṫaiun, one little thing that helped was noticing how many unexplained toponyms I had that included an initial mV-.
So, as far as I recall, I worked on Meṫaiun and Kebreni at the same time. Since I have a full set of sound changes, the Meṫaiun vocabulary mostly came first.
Monkhayu was intended as an analogue of Khanty or Mansi-- a language of a remote, "uncivilized" people that turns out to be related to a major language. Sadly, there's really very little on it, not least because it depends on many other languages, not all of which are done...
So, as far as I recall, I worked on Meṫaiun and Kebreni at the same time. Since I have a full set of sound changes, the Meṫaiun vocabulary mostly came first.
Monkhayu was intended as an analogue of Khanty or Mansi-- a language of a remote, "uncivilized" people that turns out to be related to a major language. Sadly, there's really very little on it, not least because it depends on many other languages, not all of which are done...