I have a much less strong idea of the phonaesthetic of language 1b as possible. As such, most of the sound changes I’ll make will be trying to differentiate this language from language 1a. We’ll see what comes out once it’s done, and I can go back and tweak things if something needs to be changed for the phonaesthetic.
I already stated that I didn’t like voiced plosives for language 1a. While that is true, it’s probably more accurate to say that I don’t like voiced plosives in general. (Of course, they can be nice-sounding in some contexts, but I often find myself trying to get rid of them.) Fortunately, they’re easy to dispose of! This process will occur differently in language 1b from 1a, which will further differentiate them.
C{+obstruent,+voiced} → C{+obstruent,-voiced} / _ C{-voiced}, C{-voiced} _
C{+obstruent,+voiced} → C{+obstruent,-voiced} / _ #
b, d, dʑ, g → β, ð, ʑ, ɣ
β, ð, ɣ → β̞, ð̞, ɣ̞
Now, we have something that looks like Spanish, where voiced stops are often realized as approximants. But unlike Spanish, the “voiced stops” are never realized as voiced stops – they’re always either voiceless stops or voiced approximants. Because of this, I think it’s more reasonable to treat the approximants as proper phonemes.
Like the voiced stop shifts in language 1a, this change will create some fun alternations when it’s applied to things that can both prefix and suffix. In addition, these forms will look really different from the ones in language 1a. An affix that could take the form d- or -d in Protolanguage 1 will take the form t- or -z in language 1a, but ð̞- -t in language 1b!
The rest of the shifts are fairly simple:
ɕ, ʑ → ʃ, ʒ
∅ → A / $ C _ C
Note the use of A in the second rule. This is a symbol representing the underspecified low vowel, which could be ɜ, ɞ, ɑ or ɒ, depending on the vowel harmony of the word. (This rule is also written horribly – I believe this is how you’re supposed to write epenthesis, but it feels really clunky.)
And with that, the sound changes for language 1b are done! Our final table looks like this:
| Lang 1b | Labial | Dental/Alveolar | Palatal | Velar | |
| Stop/Affricate | p | t | tʃ | k | |
| Fricative | Voiceless | f | s | ʃ | x |
| Voiced | v | z | ʒ | ɣ̞ | |
| Approximant | β̞ | ð̞ l | j | ||
| Taps | – | ɾ | – | – | |
| Nasals | m | n | |||
| Vowels | Front | Back | ||
| Unrounded | Rounded | Unrounded | Rounded | |
| Close | i iː | y yː | ɯ ɯː | u uː |
| Open | ɜ ɜː | ɞ ɞː | ɑ ɑː | ɒ ɒː |
Next installment, I’ll begin to tackle morphology!