Proto-Himalo-Auspik

Proto-Himalo-Auspik is the supposed beginning of a vast array of languages that covers most of the population of Himalia, about half of its area, along with a great number of languages to the south in Snavwxniik-Nakwn, Wyverncliff, and Auspikitan.

Phonology

The reconstructed consonant inventory of Proto-Himalo-Auspik contains seventeen distinct consonants. Phoneticians also often note a separate series of geminated fricatives which occurs on all of the fricatives except for /ɕ/, as the geminate versions of the fricatives are rarer than their short counterparts with the exception of /vv/. They are unusual compared to most language's geminated consonants in that they act almost identical to the short version in the phonotactics of the language.

Consonants
		Labial	Alveolar	Palatal	Velar	Uvular	Glottal
Stops	Plosives	p b	t d		k g	q	ʔ
	Affricates			tɕ dʑ
Fricatives		f v	s z	ɕ	x
Nasals		m	n
Sonorants			l	j

The reconstructed Proto-Himalo-Auspik vowel system has eight vowels. Unclear realizations of the two sounds notated here as u¹ and u² exist, especially of u² which has been proposed as being /y/, /ʉ/, a lax /u/, or even /u/ with u¹ being /uː/. The current most accepted theory is the /ʉ/ realization.

Vowels
	Front	Central	Back
High	i	ɨ u²	u¹
Mid	ɛ	ə	o
Low		a

Orthography

The orthography of Proto-Himalo-Auspik is entirely phonemic and follows closely the IPA, but has a few minor differences outlined in the table below.

Orthographic Representations
IPA	Spelling	IPA	Spelling
a	a	m	m
ɛ	e	n	n
i	ii	l	l
u²	w	j	y
u¹	u	f	f
o	o	v	v
ə	ë/é	s	s
p	p	z	z
b	b	ɕ	ć
t	t	x	h/x
d	d	tɕ	c
k	k	dʑ	j
g	g	ɨ	i
q	q	ʔ	ʔ/'

The alternate variations of ë/é as well as h/x are in free variation, the former being more common than the latter. However, the system for representing the glottal stop uses ʔ as its majuscule version and ' as the minuscule version in most texts. Some will use ɂ for the minuscule version instead.

Grammar

Nominal and modifier morphology

bleak

Possession

Basic head marked possession is more common, but juxtaposition, that is, simply placing them beside each other, is common in more complicated sentences, especially when the possessor is not a pronoun.

Verbal morphology

Himalian contains agreement for the main two participants in the sentence, which act in a tripartite system, containing separate affixes for subject, agent, and patient, as well as a separate location in the verbal complex for the intransitive agreement prefixes, located closer to the verb stem than the agent and patient prefixes.

Verb template

A variety of verbal categories exist. For the most part, they are prefixed before the stem. They are split into three major categories, the functional group, the effective group, and the suffixes. One other minor category also exists, incorporated words. Both nouns and a small set of adverbs can be incorporated into the verb root, and under some circumstances this incorporation becomes mandatory. The suffix group appears on every verb, although the realization of either one or both of its suffixes may be null.

Verb Template
Functional group					Effective group			Semantic root			Functional suffixes
1a	1b	2	3	4	5	6	7	8	root		1s	2s	3s
Agent	Patient	Tense	Mood	Subject	Voice	Locatives	Applicatives	Adverbs	Nouns	Verb root	Aspect	Negation	Evidentiality

The functional suffixes as well as person agreement are the only mandatory parts of the verb, that is, mandatory categories. All others can be left out, and while many more categories could be construed to be mandatory, just with a null realization for their default function, they are not regarded this way because their presence as a null morpheme or total lack of presence would impart the same meaning, whereas aspect, evidentiality, and person agreement's presence does change the meaning.

An additional category of evidentiality separate from the 3s slot in the verb template above also exists, however, nearly 70% of its common forms are irregular. All other suffixes and prefixes are entirely regular with the exception of changes to the forms through phonetically interacting with the surrounding morphemes. They are either suppletive or existing as a variety of prefix, suffix, or circumfix around the root.

Syntax

SOV

Noun Incorporation

Himalian is relatively free with noun incorporation, incorporating the object or other part of the sentence into the verbal complex. The main uses of incorporation in Himalian are to express an object or what in less synthetic languages would be expressed with a prepositional phrase.