Yuubi
This post contains what I came up with for dewrad's 48-hour challenge. I came up with some things but it's nothing functional. I hoped I would have a vocabulary of at least 50 words, but I didn't end up having time for that.
The orthographic depth is vaguely inspired by that of Tibetan (it's a lot milder than Tibetan's though). "Yuubi" is spelled YÓ:PI and pronounced [ˈju:bi] for example (the acute accent on Ó represents what used to be a high tone).
The grammar is inspired by that of Mandarin, although very vaguely and twisted with the addition of some inflectional morphology.
External History
Summary of the periods:
Oyduba (-320 to 0)
Teyniba (1 to 192)
Raaduba (192 to 522)
Kipiba (522 to 686)
Oukiba (686 to 1027)
Sheisiba (1027 to 1358) (current)
The history of written Yuubi starts with the large-scale internal turmoil of neighboring Baawey (RBA:WAY, called RIBAWAJ in Baawey's language), an urbanized literate civilization contrasting with the Yuubi-speaking illiterate tribes and their rudimentary agriculture. Yuubi here simply means "clear-tongue", the language these peoples have in common. Baawey ends up splitting in four warring factions, and the leadership of the faction close to the tribes of Yuubi speakers decides to exile an important minority of its priests, in a particularly shameful and cruel way, having been deemed traitors due to being in favour of reunification with one of the other warring factions.
The Yuubi tribal warlord Miira Oydu (MI:RA XOYTO, literally Arrowman the Tree, "the Tree" being a nickname in reference to his height), gives refuge to the expelled priests with interest in their knowledge of the turmoil and the terrain (making the priests true traitors indeed). Miira succeeds in uniting a large fraction of the Yuubi tribes and attacking the neighbouring Baawey warring faction, conquering 2/3 of it (another Baawey faction takes the remaining 1/3).
The Yuubi alliance does not disintegrate but rather continues to expand, not towards the rest of Baawey but towards its neighbouring underdeveloped tribes, and establishes governance by inheriting knowledge from its conquered Baawey lands. The Baawey abjad (often treated as an abugida by the Baawey at this point in time) is adapted as a written medium for Yuubi. Its civilization develops and becomes Baawey's main headache. It refers to itself as Yuura (YÓ:RA), "the clear people".
About 300 years later, Teyni (DÉYNI), a Yuura warrior-official, carries out a revolution with the counter-narrative that Miira Oydu and his line had corrupted the people by accepting too many foreign ideas (from foreign traitor priests, worst of all), and it was time the true Yuura took power back. The blessing of Teyni at the capital by the rural shamans he named the new official priesthood marks the first day of the first month of the first year of the calendar, beginning the Teyniba (DÉYNIBA) period. (The period between Miira Oydu's crossing of Baawey's river border and the blessing of Teyni is called Oyduba XOYTOBA.)
In 192, Teyni's descendant is killed and a new period, Raaduba (RWAATOBA), is declared where military leaders name a line of succession. This period comes to be seen as the Yuura's classical artistic and philosophical age in the realms of poetry, the prose-poem essay, law and governance, mathematics and music (a good notation is developed early), and last but not least achitecture and the aesthetics of gardens and parks. It continues until 522, when collapse brings about the split of the lands, the Broken Period Kipiba (KÍPHIBA).
The lands are then reunited in 686, in a very swift manner by the sword and only in a few parts by treaty, marking the beginning of the Oukiba (AWKHIBA) period. This period is characterized by the grandiose competition of the religious strands developed in the Broken Period, as different strands are favoured by the aristocracy at different times, to the point that current religious writings are always presented as "commentaries" of works from this time. The development of a kind of printing technology brings about the record of popular oral works of theatre.
The year 1027 marks the beginning of the current period, Sheisiba (XYÉNSIBA), after the sublimation of a horrendous disease deemed punishment from the Spirits. Prose literature starts being published in what was so far a poetry-heavy culture. The present year is 1358.
Phonology
I'm too lazy to make it convenient to type the few IPA symbols I need, so to avoid copy-pasting characters I'll make use of an orthography to write down pronunciation.
<p t ts k> [p t ts k]
<b d dz g> [ b d dz g]
<n s sh w r y> [n s ʃ w ɾ j]
<a e i o u> [a e i o u]
<aa ei ii ou uu> [aː eː iː oː uː]
<ey oy> [ei̯ oi̯]
Stress always falls on the initial syllable of a content word. The syllable structure is (C(r))V for the initial syllable, and otherwise (C)V.
Orthography
To understand the orthography we must first discuss the pronunciation of the ancient Yuubi dialect of Miira Oydu's tribe.
<PH TH KH> [pʰ tʰ kʰ]
<P T K> [p t k]
<B D G> [ b d g]
<N Ŋ S X W R Y> [n ŋ s x w ɾ j]
<A E I O> [a] or [aː], [ɛ] or [eː], [ɪ] or [iː], [ɔ] or [oː]
<AW EW EY AY OY> [aʊ̯ eʊ̯ eɪ̯ aɪ̯ uɪ̯]
Six tones were distinguished in the stressed initial syllable, but post-initial syllables were toneless. Neither vowel length nor the tones were distinguished in writing in the Oyduba period.
Spelling has not been zealously conservative. Similarities may be drawn with the history of Spanish spelling before the RAE's early reforms: old consonant distinctions in Yuubi have generally been kept, but vowels have been continuously updated. Just as Old Spanish mesmo and sos became mismo and sus by the early 18th century in our world, Oyduba-period Yuubi XNATI [ˈxnatɪ] 'bird' became modern Yuubi XNETI [ˈnedi].
Early on in the Teyniba period, the orthography was reformed adding a distinction for vowel length and tone using diacritics. At this time, the prestigious dialect made use of four (not six) tones, and these four were the ones that were recognized: <Á A Á: A:> [a˥ a˨ aː˥˧ aː˨] (short high, short low, long high-falling, long low).
As an example of the consonant conservation I'm talking about, the R- and X- of initial clusters in words like RBA:WAY and XNETI were not pronounced at all anymore already in the Teyniba period, but were maintained nevertheless. The notable exception would be the fate of <Ŋ>, which was dropped, the reason being that /ŋ/ was often not pronounced even in the Oyduba period when the Yuubi language started being written and so was the source of many accepted variant spellings (with or without it).
During the Raaduba period, the prestigious dialect began undergoing a process that would ultimately completely restructure the stops by manner of articulation, based on the tone of the following vowel. If the following vowel started with a high tone, the stop became voiceless, and if the tone was low, the stop became voiced. However, if a high-tone vowel was followed by a coda -n, it was treated as low-tone. Tones were then lost. Before a toneless vowel (in post-initial syllables), the aspirated stops became the new voiceless, and the unaspirated stops became voiced. This created the following correspondences:
INITIAL SYLLABLES
[k]: KHÁ, KÁ, GÁ
[g]: KHÁN, KHA, KÁN, (KA), GÁN, GA
(KA is in parentheses as such initial syllables are rare)
POST-INITIAL SYLLABLES
[k]: KHA
[g]: KA, GA
The vowel <O> is read [o] in an initial syllable and otherwise [ u], i.e. modern Yuubi does not have distinct /o u/ phonemes, only a single phoneme that is pronounced as either. <O:> is [uː]. The diphthongs <AW EW EY AY OY> are read [oː eː ei̯ ei̯ oi̯].
Besides this, it may be important to note that coda -N is pronounced by elongating the previous vowel, as in XYÉNSI sheisi 'sprout' or PHÁNTA baada 'wing'. Also, RR is pronounced [d], e.g. RRÉNA dena 'flag'.
Grammar Notes
Alright, it took a few hours to solidify all the ideas above in my mind and to then type them. Since making up words takes both time and quite a bit of mental energy too, I'm going to write down my ideas regarding the grammar of the language in an abstract way (i.e. without actually creating the word-forms).
Morphological Distinctions
Nouns: three cases (nominative, accusative, instrumental), two numbers (singular, plural). There is syncretism between the accusative singular and instrumental singular, and between the nominative plural and accusative plural, so nouns really only have four surface forms.
Some nouns of entities that are often talked about in groups (grains such as peas, some animals like ants, soldiers) as well as entities that strongly suggest being composed of two or more parts (clothes, scissors) form the singular with a singulative suffix (which can then take plural morphology on its own). Noun-noun compounds exist, and the modifying noun appears in the unmarked nominative singular
Adjectives do not inflect, but are usually distinct from nouns with particular derivational suffixes. Adjective-noun compounds exist, of the "snow-white", "spring-green" type.
Verbs inflect for transitivity (intransitive, transitive, compound) and aspect (unmarked, perfective, imperfective, irrealis). Verb-noun compounds exist, and the verb takes the simple "compound" form in these.
The transitive form of a verb is often the causative of the intransitive, e.g. "to grow (up)" becomes "to grow [plants], raise [children, animals]". The "compound" form takes the semantics of the transitive form. Many verbs are missing an intransitive form, such as "to destroy [sth]" which only appears with transitive/compound morphology. The semantic changes involving transitivity may run into the idiomatic, e.g. "to fly" becomes "to scare [somebody] away" when transitive.
In terms of word classes, sentence-final particles exist, and to express many relationships of location, a noun phrase is "sandwiched" between a preposition and a "locational" (relational word), e.g. "around X" is literally "through X around".
Basic Word Order
SVO, but SOVX where the X is an indirect object, a location, an adverb or an instrumental complement that receives pragmatic focus. That is, if one of these things is the important new information to communicate (as opposed to the direct object), the direct object is generally moved to pre-verbal position.
1.NOM kill-PRF friend-ACC-3SG with poison-NOM
'I killed her friend with poison.'
(SVO, so "her friend" is part of the new information. This sentence could be answering the question "Who did you kill with poison?", or the more unmarked "What happened?".)
1.NOM friend-ACC-3SG kill-PRF with poison-NOM
'I killed her friend with poison.'
(SOVX, so "with poison" must be the new information. This sentence could be answering the question "What did you kill her friend with?".)
The typical word order of a noun phrase is:
[demonstrative] [definite quantifier] [noun]-[pronominal possessive suffix] [adjectives] [indef. quantifier] [possessor noun phrase] [relative clause]
"Definite quantifiers" refers to quantifiers used in a definite NP, e.g. "those three pigs" or "the many pigs there" (as opposed to "(he saw) three pigs" or "(she saw) many pigs").