Old Terminian

Old Terminian
Region	Terminian Isles, Akulanen and northern Ekuosia,
Ethnicity	Terms
Era	200 BCE – 400 CE
Language family	Ngerupic Termic Old Terminian
Writing system	Letso-Terminian script
CWS code	OTMN

Old Terminian is the earliest recorded stage of the Terminian language and all other varities of Termic, attested from the late 3rd century BCE onwards. After the conquest of Terminia by the Letsatians in the 2nd century BCE, written Terminian became more common, although it did not become a fully-fledged literary language until the 1st century CE. Confined geographically to the Terminian Isles for most of its lifespan, the language began to spread outside of the archipelago with the expansion of Terms into Akulanen and Baredina, a period which coincided with increasing autonomy and relative prosperity and prestige granted to Terminians within the Letsatian Empire. By the time Terminia gained independence in the 5th century CE, the Terminian language was already well on its way to its development into Middle Terminian. Outside of the Terminian Isles, Terminian varieties developed into other Termic languages.

Old Terminian originated from the language of Ngerupic settlers who migrated from Akulanen to the Terminian Isles during the second millenium BCE. Here they presumably coexisted alongside - and eventually subsumed - various pre-Termic peoples; the speech of these earlier inhabitants may still survive in the form of substrate vocabulary, which comprises a substatial proportion of Old Terminian's vocabulary. There were three main dialects: Old North Terminian, Old South Terminian, and Old Minor Terminian. Of the two, Old North Terminian is the best attested, and is the primary ancestral variety to Middle and Modern Terminian, as well as Amerhani. Old South Terminian, which was largely confined to the south-east of Terminia Major within the archipelago itself, is ancestral to the Baredinan Termic languages Baridus and Utoyyi.

Phonology

The phonological inventories of Old North and Old South Terminian are almost identical. The consonant inventory

Consonants

	Labial		Dental		Alveolar		Palatal		Velar		Pharyngeal		Glottal
Nasal		m				n
Plosive	p	b	t	d					k	ɡ
Fricative	(ɸ)¹				s	z			x²		ħ	ʕ	h
Affricate					ts ~ tʃ		dz ~ dʒ
Approximant		w				l		j
Rhotic						ɾ~r

1. Not attested in literary Old Terminian, but its existence can be inferred through reflexes in various Middle and Modern Terminian dialects.
2. Merges with /k/ in Old South Terminian.

Vowels

	Front		Central	Back
	unrounded	rounded
Close	i	y		u
Mid	e	(ø)		o
Open			a