Ancient Xi language

Ancient Xi (Çi' Ma'e, meaning "human language"), also known as Proto-Xi, is the common ancestor of the Xi language family. It was first attested in the start of the 59th century and went extinct by the end of the 7th millenium. The Xi Urheimat (homeland) is located in North 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 around the 7th millenium. Few is known about the origins and ancestry of the Ancient Xi people, and the total civilizational collapse is only described through the Tombstone Road left during later migrations.

Descendants
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 Northwest Soco, where Continental Piduru people lived, Ancient Xi developed into Proto-Ak.

After the migration of Xi peoples to Noco arround 6200, Ancient Xi evolved into Xhí', a very conservative macrolanguage that is part of the Nocoan sprachbund.

Consonants

 * {| class="wikitable" style="text-align: center;"

! ! Bilabial ! Alveolar ! Palatal ! Velar ! Glottal ! Nasal ! Stop ! Fricative ! Approximant ! Tap
 * + Consonant phonemes of Ancient Xi
 * m || || || ||
 * p || t || || k || ʔ ⟨'⟩
 * || s || ç || x ||
 * || l || j || w ||
 * || ɾ ⟨r⟩ || || ||
 * }

Vowels

 * }
 * }

Grammar
Ancient Xi is a highly agglutinative language.

Gender
Ancient Xi has four grammatical genders: human, animal, (non-human, non-animal) animate and inanimate. Ancient Xi's genders are very 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 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.

The older genitive suffix -çi'ol was shortened to -çi, since the suffix -'ol was a non-productive possessive animate marker.

Verbs
Verbs are conjugated for person, tense, aspect, mood and voice. Ancient Xi has the exterior aspect. The conditional is formed with the prefix paç-. Passives are formed with the suffix -kul.