Old Brevian language

Old Brevian was one of the three Human languages in the aftermath of the split-up of Proto-Human, a sister-language to Old Etrandish and Old Hulran, albeit much more poorly attested than either of them. While Old Brevian is extinct and didn't leave behind any direct descendants, it contributed substrate influence to Eastern Etrandish and the Copperport dialect.

Some linguists and historians question the status of Old Brevian as a separate language, and instead consider it a transitional dialect between Old Etrandish and Old Hulran, sharing features of both while having relatively few unique quirks of its own (such as the retroflex consonants that were allegedly inherited by the Copperport dialect).

Consonants
Old Brevian had largely went through the same consonant shift that Old Etrandish did during its evolution from Proto-Human. One notable difference from "standard" Old Etrandish was the fate of the Proto-Human : in all dialects of Old Etrandish (save for Old Southern Etrandish), after the palatalization of  to, any remaining un-palatalized word-initial  hardened to , making  the main phoneme and  the allophone - finally, around 400 BEKE, any remaining {IPA/narrow|ɣ}} vocalized to  or  depending on the vowels that surrounded the former phoneme. In contrast, in Old Brevian - just like in Old Southern Etrandish - word-initial remained. In fact, some dialects of Old Brevian seemed to have exhibited the same shift as Old Southern Etrandish later, debuccalizing to.

An additional difference from Old Etrandish was the early lost of voiceless nasals and voiceless approximants.

Vowels
Old Brevian had an identical vowel system to that of Classical Hulran's, and thus went through the same vowel shifts that Classical Hulran did during its evolution from Proto-Human.

Consonants
Old Brevian had largely an identical consonantal system to that of Old Etrandish's, though there were a few notable differences.


 * had voiced allophones intervocalically and between voiced sounds, just like in Old Etrandish.
 * was not an independent phoneme, but rather an allophone of before the velar consonants.
 * The phoneme had the following allophones:
 * - or in some dialects - word-initially and intervocalically before back vowels, central vowels and front rounded vowels that originated from the I-umlaut of Proto-Human back vowels, as well as postvocalically after the aforementioned types of vowels.
 * word-initially and intervocalically before front unrounded vowels and front rounded vowels that originated from the U-umlaut of Proto-Human front unrounded vowels, as well as postvocalically after the aforementioned types of vowels.
 * after, before back vowels, central vowels and front rounded vowels that originated from the I-umlaut of Proto-Human back vowels.
 * after, before front unrounded vowels and front rounded vowels that originated from the U-umlaut of Proto-Human front unrounded vowels, as well as postvocalically after the aforementioned types of vowels.
 * when geminated, before back vowels, central vowels and front rounded vowels that originated from the I-umlaut of Proto-Human back vowels.
 * when geminated, before front unrounded vowels and front rounded vowels that originated from the U-umlaut of Proto-Human front unrounded vowels, as well as postvocalically after the aforementioned types of vowels.
 * was most likely an apico-alveolar trill
 * The consonant clusters were respectively pronounced either  or . The only evidence for the latter pronounciation is spellings that suggest  in words where the Old Etrandish or Old Hulran cognates clearly have.
 * This feature was said to have carried over into the Copperport dialect.

Vowels
Old Brevian had an identical vowel system to that of Classical Hulran's: this meant having 10 short monophthongs, 10 long monopthongs and 6 diphthongs. The exact pronounciations of these vowels was ambiguous.

Grammar
Old Brevian was a subject-verb-object and synthetic language.