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Modern Bokuchi linguists have reconstructed a proto-language, called Proto-Itrumi (Itrumi meaning 'of the gulf') from which Yivokuchi (and other seven languages of the Itrumi family) derive. This proto-language is supposed to have been spoken about 3000 years ago. For a survey of the daughter languages of Proto-Itrumi and their common features, refer to the Linguistic family page.
Proto-Itrumi showed a four-way contrast of stops: plain voiced and unvoiced, aspirated unvoiced stops, and so-called 'aspirated' voiced stops. In truth, voiced stops cannot be aspirated due to their phonetic quality, and the aspirated voiced stops of Proto-Itrumi are actually clusters of stop plus /h/; but the aspirated voiced series is functionally parallel to the aspirated unvoiced one.
Consonants: plain unvoiced stops p t k ? aspirated unvoiced stops p_h t_h k_h plain voiced stops b d g aspirated unvoiced stops b_h d_h g_h fricatives f s x h nasals m n N approximants w j lateral l trill/flap r Vowels: high i I U u middle e E O o low a
Besides /h/ and /?/ as onsets, the ancient language also had suprasegmental aspiration and glottalization. The presence of the glottal phonemes and their corresponding suprasegmental features was closely related to tone.
Suprasegmental aspiration produced a constriction on the vowels and the approximants /w/ and /j/. This also lowered the tone to a middle level.
Suprasegmental glottalization turned unvoiced stops in the onset into ejectives, and induced creaky voice in all other segments within the syllable. This was accompanied by a general fall of the tone to a low level.
The suprasegmental features must not be confused with plain /?/ and /h/. In this survey we will use the same symbols for the glottal stop and ss. glottalization, on one hand, and the glottal fricative and ss. aspiration, on the other, but there is no ambiguity since the phonemes in question are only found as onsets, while the suprasegmentals are marked as if they were codas.
/?a.dam/ vs. /de?.ka/ /hE:l/ vs. /?atIwh/
In any case, there is a correlation between the glottal phonemes and the suprasegmentals:
/hadI:?/ vs. /hadI:?ex/ - ? - - - /?atIwh/ vs. /?atIwha/ - h vs. - - - (- = plain voice, ? = creaky voice, h = aspiration)
The approximants interact with the glottal features yielding fricatives in the daughter languages. Note, for example, the alternation in Yivokuchi /atev/ ~ /atewa/, since /h/ is dropped in /?atIwha/ but remains as an aspiration in /?atIwh/, and /w{aspiration}/ becomes /v/ in modern Yivokuchi.