Proto-Baronh had every mark of being a constructed language, as it was an “ancient language” reconstituted by dogmatic nationalists. For its vocabulary, they made a point of excising all historically “recent” loanwords originating from the various tongues of Europe, as well as those of Chinese origin that entered the language alongside the writing system.
Of course, such radical restructuring was bound to come with its fair share of problems. They may have pruned the language, but they had no intention of abandoning civilization. As such, they faced the need to rely on the vocabulary of ancestors who lived during the dawn of the age of metals to express the fruits of the science and technology that had made space travel a reality (though that technology was still in its infancy in the eyes of their descendants).
Similarly, when the nation of Israel was founded, ancient Hebrew was revived by Jews; an arduous labor, but the nationalists were forced to expend even more effort. Many of the twists and concessions they made were more than a stretch. They expanded the meanings of archaic, long-forgotten words, coined neologisms based on mimetic words, and employed many other means besides to resurrect an ancient language as a tongue capable of expressing concepts in a scientific world.
Due to the strained, arbitrary nature of this venture, Proto-Baronh yielded a handful of weak points. At the outset, this language was riddled with large numbers of syllables. The raft of Chinese-origin loanwords had tipped the actual historical language toward fewer syllables, but since those words were also abolished, syllable counts became more and more unwieldy.
That was the ungainly language that the first generation of Abhs lived using. It was only natural for Baronh vocabulary undergo a rapid and drastic phenomenon of abbreviation. Another reason for this is the fact that the original Abhs didn’t have writing. The Abhs’ creators never wanted them to develop a civilization of their own. They were to simply carry out the repetitive tasks they were taught, and make easy, uncomplicated decisions if ever an emergency arose. That was all that was desired of the Abh.
In accordance with the idea that the written word was not just unnecessary but an active hindrance, the first generation of Abhs were instructed without text or letters of any kind. The only forms of information storage bestowed to them were video and audio. They were not permitted the method of information transmission with a deeper pedigree. Letters, glyphs, text: all were banned.
It is well known that languages without orthographies shift at a quick pace, and Baronh is no exception. Yet another reason behind its rapid change must be that the Abhs numbered so few and coexisted in an enclosed environment. After all, whenever any one person affected a change, that change would immediately make it to the entire group and take root.
It follows, then, that the upheaval that laid waste to all of the phonological rules would progress at an extremely accelerated rate. Going by the precious little extant data left, it seems vowels were the first to shrink in number. That straightforward vowel reduction led, however, to the proliferation of homophones. They must have noted that was occurring, and in order to prevent it, the remaining vowels got tugged to different places by the vowels that had dropped out. Consequently, the variety of vowels had sprung back from its brief low point.
In addition, (though it’s far from certain how exactly this relates to the vowel shifts), the transition of consonant pronunciation (such as the denasalization of certain formerly nasal sounds) also transpired, and it’s reasonable to assume that that played a part in the fusion of word-ending inflections and case-marking particles.
Given the intensity of these changes, they must have taken place over an exceedingly short span of time — that is, within two or three generations. Afterward, the Abh declared independence, discarded the restrictions placed on them by the birth city, and designed letters for their own use.
Shifts in Baronh became much slower once a writing system was established. Moreover, the founding of the Empire accompanied the codification of the standard language. Not much of note changed after that, owing to their heightened awareness that, in order to keep communication between their brethren on separate ships or orbital cities smooth, they had to work to preserve a singular, “correct” Baronh.
As such, though the grammar of Baronh is more complex than its bygone parent language, it is kept the way it is. The most striking example of increased complexity would have to be the introduction of noun declension.
(Kindly refer to the declension tables included in the author’s notes in Vol. I.)