Proto-Oqolaawak

Proto-Oqolaawak is the language that the members of the Oqolaawak language family are descended from.

Phonotactics
Proto-Oqolaawak had an exclusively open syllable structure, and allowed neither consonant clusters nor word-final consonants. Notably, the only consonant not phonemic word-initially was the glottal stop /ʔ/.

Classifiers
Proto-Oqolaawak had a set of isolated particles that would later develop into Classical Oqolaawak’s noun class system. These classifiers were used in numeral-noun constructions, but could be used without numerals as articles and independently as pronouns.


 * we: generic classifier
 * ma: mass noun/substances classifier
 * po: small/handheld object classifier
 * hlaa: natural pair classifier
 * ka: animal classifier
 * yu: human classifier