Ancient Xi language

Ancient Xi or Proto-Xi (Ancient Xi: Çi' Ma'e, lit. 'human language') is the common ancestor of the Xi language family. It is spoken in the Xi Urheimat, the northernmost wildlands of Soco.

History
Ancient Xi is the oldest recorded form of the Xi languages, spoken in the Xi Urheimat and then throughout the continent of Soco after the beginning of the Xi migrations in circa 6000 AIA. Few is known about the Ancient Xi's origins and ancestry, and the total civilizational collapse is only described through the Tombstone Road left during later migrations.

After the Doqemba Ass Wars, substantial influence from the Doqemba slaves' language changed the structure of the Xi's common tongue, marking the beginning of Later Xi.

In north-central Soco, where Continental PDR people dwelled, Ancient Xi developed into Proto-Ak.

For the few Xi who crossed the ice bridge that allowed to reach Noco, Xi developed into Xhí', a very conservative macrolanguage that is part of the Noco sprachbund.

Grammar
Ancient Xi is a highly agglutinative language.

Gender
Ancient Xi has four grammatical genders: human, animal, animate and inanimate. Ancient Xi's genders are predictable.

If something is dead, it takes its original gender of when it was alive combined with the inanimate gender. If something is collective, it takes its original gender combined with the animate.

Plural
Ancient Xi has four plural markers depending on the noun.


 * -tak human plural
 * -maj animal plural
 * -saç non-human, non-animal animate plural
 * -sak inanimate plural

Plural suffixes can be stacked on eachother for gender marking:
 * tajmaj — horses
 * tajmajsak — dead horses
 * tajmajsaç — all the horses
 * tajmajsaksaç — all the dead horses

Cases
Ancient Xi inflects for eight cases: subjective, ergative, accusative, genitive, inalienable genitive, dative (also used for the locative), instrumental (also used for the comitative) and temporal.

-çi'ol is the older genitive marker. It was shortened to -çi as the suffix -'ol was a non-productive possessive animate marker.

Conditional
The conditional mood is formed with the prefix paç-.

Passive
The passive voice is formed using the suffix -kul.