Add Language Evolution Engine (diachronic family generation)

[Insider77Circle]

Summary

• Adds LanguageEvolutionEngine.js — a new module that simulates realistic diachronic language change to produce language families from any generated proto-language
• 12 sound change types: lenition, final devoicing, palatalization, vowel raising/lowering, nasal assimilation, syncope, rhotacism, monophthongization, metathesis, fortition, h-loss — each with environment conditioning (intervocalic, word-final, before front vowels, etc.)
• 5 grammatical drift patterns: case erosion, word order shift, analytic drift, tense-aspect drift, agreement simplification — all respecting typological universals
• Swadesh-calibrated lexical replacement (~86% core retention per 1000 years) with differential resistance for core vs. cultural vocabulary
• Cognate tracking with Levenshtein similarity + sound law explainability scoring
• Divergence metrics (lexical, phonological, morphological) between all language pairs
• Phylogenetic tree generation with ASCII visualization
• 3 new factory methods: evolveFamily(), diachronic(), dialectCluster()
• Zero external dependencies, deterministic via SeededRandom, browser + Node.js compatible

Why this is novel

No existing conlang generator combines full procedural generation with multi-generational evolutionary simulation. Existing tools either create static languages or apply sound changes to real historical languages. This is the first to generate entire language families from scratch with tracked cognates, divergence metrics, and phylogenetic trees — all from a single seed.

Research

Sound change rules, grammatical drift patterns, and lexical retention rates were researched via REDSTORM Research Platform (DeepSeek), grounded in:

• Grimm's Law and chain shift theory
• Swadesh lexicostatistics
• Typological universals (Greenberg, WALS)
• Neogrammarian regularity hypothesis

Test plan

• Verify Glossopetrae.evolveFamily(12345) produces deterministic output
• Verify Glossopetrae.diachronic(12345) generates 4 daughter languages with deep divergence
• Verify Glossopetrae.dialectCluster(12345) generates 5 closely related dialects
• Verify cognate database tracks proto-forms through sound changes
• Verify phylogenetic tree ASCII output is well-formed
• Verify zero new dependencies introduced
• Verify browser compatibility (ES module imports)

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