None of the languages of these two families have in regular use any numbers-based way of talking about particular times, although lengths of time are provided in numeral form.
We can find the common BDS system in all three of these languages,and when we look at Ćwarmin in a later post series, we will find that it too has adopted it but has some hold-outs from the ĆŊ system.
Words denoting particular times of the day in Bryatesle include the following list. The 'main' time spans, that any time of a day can be referred to as are in bold.
enys - dawn
vinas - morning
kunyb - early day
misk - midday (when the sun is at its highest, part of kunyb)
gemgas - late day
rimp - evening
xudsyn - sunset
tal - night
aink - a time during which both the sun and moon are visible, comes in two forms: ainkela vinasëta and ainkela rimpity, morning and evening sun-moon overlaps.
ehul - any dark time when the moon is not visible
srus - 24 hour period, counting from the usual time to go to sleep during the season
xsin - any aforementioned, bolded division of the day is a xsin. These can be counted, e.g. three or four xsin would be a measure of a span of time. These are obviously rather imprecise, and in more scientific contexts, a xsin is a sixth of a diurnal cycle, thus making the night be about two xsin long in such contexts. Otherwise, night is often counted as a single xsin.
All of these are unanalyzable roots in Bryatesle, but at least a few go back to compounds or derived forms in proto-DBS. We find cognates in Dairwueh:
inis - dawn
uniŋa - morning (u-inis + genitive)
kombod - early day
ameš - midday
xoŋod - late day
libod - evening
Not all terms are cognates, however:
koswə - night
kešer - a time in the evening during which both sun and moon are visible
muləm - a dark time when the moon is not visible
glest - any aforementioned bolded subdivision of the day; operates like the bryatesle xsin, but lacks plural forms - its case forms are the same in singular and plural.
curn - sunset
Sargaĺk, being spoken in a rather arctic region, has great differences in the spans of light and dark during summer vs. winter. To avoid a very cramped day-time during the shortest time spans, for a while (two months, roughly), the cognates of kunyb/kombod and gemgas/xoŋos moves to the night side, and can be prefixed with the adjective 'dark'. This prefix is mainly used when talking of such a time in other parts of the year, and one can also prefix the adjective 'light' to denote the regular version.
Sargaĺk also has some cognates, several of which form triplets with Dairwueh and Bryatesle:
neš - dawn
wuneštse - morning
geməgə - late day
As for cognates exclusively with Bryatesle, we find
ərip - evening
t'ol - night
and with Dairwueh, we find
k'isjən - a time during which both sun and moon are visible
nulwu - a dark time with no visible moon
Unique to Sargaĺk are
svərc' - sunset
A twenty-four hour period is formed by compounding neš and svərc, giving either svərc'neš or nešvərc', with no real semantic distinction between the two.
Reconstructions
Since I've basically sort of done a really terrible thing and not derived these through any sound changes, but instead just run with it and hope for the best, ... these may change in the future. This also leads to me just posting a few random speculative roots.
enys - inis - neš
*nəš
the e-/i- prefix in Bry and Dai probably originate with some kind of intensifier. *š > s is widespread in both Bry and Dai, *s > š does not happen unconditionally in Sar.
vinas - uniŋa - wuneštse
*uinjoš
*ui → vi in Bry, *ui → u in Dai, and ui → wu in Sar.
-tse and -ŋa are nominalizing suffixes.
kunyb - kombod
*konəb
o > u is common in Bry; bry y often comes from *ə. Dai often reduces trisyllabic roots to two by reducing the middle one, and here, -od probably is cognate to the word 'bud', time, thus having an intermediate *konəbbud
rimp - libod - ərip
*t'lip
whenever Dai /l/ corresponds to both Sar and Bry /r/ it usually originates with *t'l. The Sar ə- is probably the same intensifier as the e-/i- prefixes we find in Bry and Dai. Bry has probably randomly inserted the nasal. As for -bod, see the previous entry.
misk- ameš
*misk
sk → š in many positions in Dai, but at a rather late stage. a- is probably the same as i- in inis, but turns into /a/ before labials word-initially.
kešer - k'isjən
*k'eisier | *k'eisiən
k' → k universally happens in Dai, s → š /_iV happens widely in Sar.
tal- t'ol
*t'ol? *t'lo
t' → t is unconditional in Bry, KlV → kVl happens sometimes in open syllables, accounting for the difference from the outcome of *t'lip
muləm - nulwu
*mulɣm
xudsyn - xoŋod
*xoŋd
-dsyn appears in some particular times of some particular days in Bryatesle, viz. vedvedsyn - the time the sun is at its highest on an equinox, tadsyn - the time the sun is at its nadir on the midsummer solstice, mistsyn - the time the sun is at its zenith on the midwinter solstice.
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