Proto-Gabrielt language

Proto-Gabrielt (often abbreviated as PG or P-G) is the theorized common ancestor of the Gabrielt languages. Its proposed features and reconstructions have been greatly influenced by the current grammars and features exhibited by the modern Gabrielt languages, as well as historic evidence of migrations and settlements of the Gabrielt region. There is no attested record of the language ever existing, and is purely a reconstruction made by linguists beginning in the early 20th century.

A great deal of work has been carried out in the reconstruction of the language. The reconstruction and research of the Proto-Gabrielt language mainly has been done by an over-arching organization funded by the Gabrielt government called "The Linguistic Reconstruction Comittee of Gabrielland." Starting from initial reconstructions done by previous linguists in the early 20th century, modern linguists have corrected and refined the features exhibited by the early linguists in accordance to the promulgation and spread of newer theories and laws affecting the language. Many reconstruction techniques such as the comparative method were applied in determining reconstructions and more importantly sound laws which affected the different branches of the language.

It has been thought that the Proto-Gabrielt language was not a static langauge, and is in fact a period in the language's development before the attested records. Linguists now classify four stages of the language's devlopment, namely Pre-Gabrielt (5000-4000 BC), old Proto-Gabrielt (4000-2500 BC), middle Proto-Gabrielt (2500-1000 BC) and new Proto-Gabrielt (1000-500 BC). It is also theorized that the language remained a single spoken language until what is now commonly known as the "Great Split", in which the modern branches of the Gabrielt language family began to take place. It has also been theorized that the original speakers of the Proto-Gabrielt language lived on the southern plains of the Granya mountain range, expanding outwards at a slow pace with the advent of farming and other domesticated animals.

The migration of the original Proto-Gabrielts caused communities to split up and become isolated from one another, causing gradual shifts in the structure and overall features of the language. Once dialects, these proto-languages eventually became the ancestors of the modern regional Gabrielt languages still spoken in Gabrielland alongside the Standard Gabrielt language as the lingua franca. In each of the branches, the mutations and how the shifts happened occured in different ways, resulting in different structures and features of differing branches. Today, the Gabrielt languages are the dominant language in Gabrielland and is one of the nine official languages of the Dokodo Union.

Contrary to popular belief, Literary Gabrielt and Proto-Gabrielt are completely different concepts, with Proto-Gabrielt predating Literary Gabrielt by several hundred centuries from the first attested records of Literary Gabrielt through carbon dating. Although the name implies that Literary Gabrielt is the ancestor of all modern Gabrielt language, this is not the case as Literary Gabrielt is the mere ancestor of one single branch of the Gabrielt language which happens to dominate the linguistic scene of modern Gabrielland as the other branches of Proto-Gabrielt have become extinct or have been sidelined. Most regional languages in modern Gabrielland and the Standard Gabrielt language is a direct descendant of Literary Gabrielt.

Promulgation of the hypothesis

There is no attestation nor record of Proto-Gabrielt ever existing. Linguists who notice the similarities of features and sound shifts in the early 20th century began to create several theories about a once unified language of the Gabrielts which became fragmanted, akin to the legendary Gabrielt epics which implied that the entire Gabrielt realm "was able to understand each other as brothers in perfect symmetry". The growng trend of reconstructions around Anteria and the new methods of reconstruction popularized elsewhere increased the popularity of the single language theory. Detailed analysis of the specific changes from the proto-language into its descendant languages have not yet been fully understood, with only similar sounding words being the rationale for lexical similarity for a once united language.

This effort was however rendered futile as most academics at the time believed that the Literary Gabrielt language which, according to the legendary epic of Giliyas, "has always existed since the beginning of time", and coupled with the complex morphology and derivation Literary Gabrielt possesses, was the original and unified Gabrielt language, and no other language could be older than the ones already preserved by the respective authorities. At this period, no concrete divisions of the Gabrielt languages have been made or even suggested.

In 1908, noted Gabrielt linguist Sadi V. Karyaman listed 1,381 words across the Gabrielt languages which "sound alike", and grouped them into several branches of the "unified Gabrielt language" based on how similar a set of words sound when compared to another language. He then compared the branches to Literary Gabrielt, which has always been preserved by monks and clergymen, and found regular sound shifts in different branches which occured in slightly different ways. Karyaman noted the existence of 7 major branches of the original Gabrielt language, and proposed several reconstructions based on the sound changes. However, one branch could not be directly derived from Literary Gabrielt. In his notes, Karyaman professed that he could not create accurate reconstructions of most words with upmost certainty as one branch, particulary the northern branch, could not be described as a sound shift from Literary Gabrielt and sounded radically different and "off" from the language. In accordance with the trends of that period, Karyaman proposed that Literary Gabrielt is not "Proto-Gabrielt" as has been believed by most for centuries, and proposed an even older language predating Literary Gabrielt in which Literary Gabrielt was merely a branch of the larger family.

Karyaman's ideas recieved very negative reviews and criticism from his fellow peers, and was eventually banished from the capital by his own former friends for "insulting the gods" and "creating unnessecary commotion" with his ideas. With him being banished, Karyaman, along with an acquaintance Haruza Kasagya, set to document and record the various Gabrielt languages and comparing them with one another and with Literary Gabrielt in order to produce consistent laws regarding the sound shifts which occured in each respective branch. In 1912, after four years of field research and analysis, Karyaman and Kasagya published their sound laws of Literary Gabrielt into the modern branches of its descendants. They also published a separate set of sound laws based on the northern branches and attempted to create the first laws and precedents regarding the shifts made from Proto-Gabrielt into the branches of Gabrielt. Most of what Karyaman and Kasagya have published became actual sound laws. In 1958, in honor of the Karyaman and Kasagya, the Karyaman-Kasagya laws was named after the two.