Subumpamese languages

The Subumpamese languages are the languages spoken in the eleven states of Subumpam. They split off from the parent language, called Tapilula, around 600 AD and continued to be spoken until the defeat of Subumpam in the Vegetable War of 2668 AD.

NEW IDEA. THERE WAS NO WESTERN SUBUMPAMESE AT ALL; THIS WAS ACTUALLY PART OF ANDANESE TERRITORY. THIS MEANS, HOWVVEER, THAT THERE IS NO SPREACHBUMND THERE. BUT THAT IS IN KEEPING WITH THE IDEA THAT THE "KALPTA" TERRITORY WAS IN FACT ANDANESE.

Tapilula (0) to Proto-Subumpamese (???)

The consonant inventory of Tapilula was

Rounded bilabials:                     hʷ  w
Spread bilabials:      p       m   b   f  (Ø)
Alveolars:             t       n   d       l
Rounded alveolars:     tʷ      nʷ  dʷ         
Velars:                k   ḳ   ŋ   ġ   h   g

1. The aspirated velar stop k became č before the vowel /i/. If another vowel followed, the /i/ disappeared. This happened even if the /i/ was accented.
2. When a "velaroid" consonant (/k ḳ ŋ h g l/) followed an accented high tone vowel, the vowel metathesized, leaving a closed syllable. Thus, for example, /àli/ > /ail/. These closed syllables were all high-toned, and are thus written without tone marks. Thus, for example, aa implies àa. Later, daughter languages introduced tone contrasts and independent sequences.
3. A schwa before another vowel in any syllable disappeared. Thus əa əe əi əo əu əə shifted to a e i o u ə. This happened in both open and closed syllables.
4. The sequences iu and ui shifted to ə̄.
5. The double-vowel sequences aa ee ii oo uu əə shifted to the single vowels a e i o u ə in closed syllables only.
6. The sequences ii uu əə (which now occurred only in open syllables) shifted to əi əu ə.
7. The sequences ie uo shifted to i u in open syllables only.
8. The remaining double-vowel sequences aa ee oo, which occurred only in open syllables, shifted to the long vowels ā ē ō.
9. The sequences ai ei oi merged as ei; the sequences au eu ou merged as ou.
10. The vowels /u i e/ caused adjacent consonants, in both directions, to become labialized, palatalized, and prepalatalized. The last shift applied only to velars. Labialization and palatalization could stack.
11. The sequences ìa ìo ìə shifted to ī.
12. The sequences ùa ùo ùə shifted to ū. ə̄ also shifted to ū.
13. The sequences ei ou, in both open and closed syllables, shifted to ē ō.
14. Syllable-final h shifted to x.
15. The three syllabic nasals ṁ ṅ ŋ̇ all merged to ən.
16. The velar ejective ḳ became q. Then kq qk shifted to qq.
17. The cluster xhʷ became xʷ.
18. The fricative śʷ s̀ʷ shifted to s. Then ś s̀ became š.
19. The nasals ń ǹ shifted to ň. Then mʷ nʷ ňʷ ŋʷ all merged as m.
20. Voiced palatal stops and fricatives all merged as y.
21. The sequences iy ey, on any tone, shifted to ī ē. <---QUESTIONABLE. most of this would have been from ĭg.
22. Labialized palataloids shifted to velar. lʷ łʷ > w.
23. The labialized alveolar stops tʷ dʷ shifted to pʷ bʷ.
24. Unaccented final short schwas were deleted. (In nouns, they were retained because they were not always final. Therefore, this shift applies mostly to inflections.)

Thus the proto-Subumpamese language had the consonants

Rounded bilabials:    pʷ  bʷ          w 
Bilabials:            p   b   m   f               
Alveolars:            t   d   n   s   l             
Postalveolars:        č   ǯ   ň   š   ł           
Palatals:             ć               y
Prevelars:            c̀        
Velars:               k   ġ   ŋ   x   g
Labiovelars:          kʷ  ġʷ      xʷ  gʷ
Uvulars:              q           h              
Rounded uvulars:      qʷ          hʷ 

Proto-Subumpamese (~1700) to Kava (3138)

1. The schwas ə ə̄ shifted to u ū.
2. The mid vowels e o rotated to i ə.
3. The high vowel i shifted to ə if touching a /q/ in either direction.
4. Primordial f shifted to p .
5. Primordial hʷ w shifted to f v.
6. All labialized consonants shift to bilabials.
7. The postalveolar affricates č ǯ ň š ł became c ʒ n s l unconditionally.
8. The palatals ć c̀ became č .
9. The voiceless uvular stop q changed to k when syllable-final.
10. Word-final č became s. čk čq etc > čč. Any other syllable-final č assimilates to the following consonant.
11. Any heterorganic stop/aff after a stop turned into a fricative.
12. The affricates c ʒ changed to s z when not after a high tone.
13. Voiced stops became voiceless when occurring before a high tone.

Changes unique to Central Subumpamese

1. gʷ hʷ > w f.
2. The high central vowel ə changed to i unconditionally.
3. Syllable-final ŋ changed to match the place of a following consonant, and changed to n if word-final. This probably also affects ǹ and ń.
4. the palatalized alveolar consonants č ǯ ň ł become plain alveolars c ʒ n l.
5. The palatal ć is shifted forward to č . Allophonically, velars become palatal before [e] or [i]. Prevelar must also.

Changes common to Eastern Subumpamese

No more than about 20 changes in any language are possible, and it should be more like 15. That is the total for the changes on this list and the individual language lists below. This branch is influenced heavily by Pabappa. It is spoken in Paba too, and the entire branch could perhaps be better named "Lenian languages" even though the much larger number of Pabaps who spoke Pabappa also considered themselves Lenians.

1. gʷ hʷ > w f.
2. The high central vowel ə changed to i unconditionally.
3. Syllable-final ŋ changed to match the place of a following consonant, and changed to n if word-final. This probably also affects ǹ and ń.

   pʷ bʷ mʷ w > p b m v. (Possibly /ə/ > /o/ when facing a labialized consonant before this shift.)

4. ai (on any tone) became ē (perhaps not always long).
5. Palatals č ć ǯ ň ł > c c ʒ n l.
6. Velars (but not labiovelars) shifted doubly forward:

   c̀ k ŋ x g > č č ň š ž. (Possibly velars remain in some positions, as in early Proto-Indo-European. This would best be explained as labialization.)

7. The uvular stop q shifted to k. /h/ became /x/ in most positions, but the spelling remained.
8. In syllable-final position, f c shifted to p t. (Thus /k/>/t č/, /h/>/s š/, even though the shifts were not related.)
9. gʷ > g.
10. The fricative h shifted to q after a high tone.

This is ~1900 AD or a little bit afterwards. The last few changes likely spread areally through the PES languages, however, so they can be treated as canonical for the sake of comparing words.

PES soon redeveloped phonemic /q/, due to Andanese influence, interpreting it as an allophone of /h/ after a high tone. This is the same process that occurred in early Thaoa. Likewise, the frequent Gold diphthongs ai əi were interpreted as a new vowel, /e/, while au əu were interpreted as /o/. These diphthongs occurred only on the long tone in Gold, since Gold did not contrast tone in diphthongs, but Old Andanese provided other tones for those vowels. Lastly, Old Andanese /i/ was pronounced [ə] in the vicinity of [q], and this practice was also borrowed (as it was in Thaoa). Thus for example, Old Andanese kòhi "flag, sign" was loaned as kòqy.

Later developments

All Subumpamese languages were submerged by the immigration of Merar (Tarpabappa) speakers in the year 2674 AD. Descendants of Kava survived only because they had earlier fled Subumpam.

Grammar

Kava was isolated from the Gold language for most of its history, and therefore took most of its influence from the grammatically dissilimar Old Andanese language. This caused Kava to develop a very simple grammar, losing most of the Subumpamese suffixes, while gaining no new prefixes or infixes from Andanese. A new part of speech called an auxiliary verb or weak verb appeared, which carried the meaning of inflections and behaved like verbs except that they did not carry the classifier prefixes that full verbs did.

These auxiliary verbs were suffixes, not separate words. Therefore, they functioned like case markers, and were just like those of Gold except that they were not fusional and never carried the word's stress. They included:

ADVERBIALS

1. si ~ ši (genitive)
2. su ~ hʷù (accusative)
3. hà to be changed by

LOCATIVES

1. -m(ə) (locative of place)
2. n(ə) (locative of motion)
3. ma on top of; used as a suffix after -m
4. mo on top of; used as a suffix after -m
5. pì supported by; used as a suffix after -m
6. ši underneath; used as a suffix after -m
7. ŋò with; next to; near
8. ga in front of
9. c̀e covering; standing over
10. tà to push on; used as a suffix after -n
11. là to pull on; used as a suffix after -n

There was also a new copula verb, tò.

Nouns

Subumpamese nouns have a true noun class system, not a gender system like that of the Gold language, and it is very similar to that of Andanese. Subumpam is a fairly diverse empire. The climate ranges from subtropical and nearly tropical in the south to the cold and rugged mountains of the north, whose people are much poorer than those of the tropics but also much better protected from foreign invasions. In the mountains, most people speak Andanic languages, a family which is related to Subumpamese but much more conservative.

The richer natural environment of the south has led its people to prosper and bring cultural innovations into the north, as well as a more diverse cuisine flavored with tropical fruits such as pineapples and coconuts as well as large, deep-water fish such as tuna.

Noun class prefixes are augmented to CVC before vowel-initial stems. Some of these have bled into the stems and created new roots beginning with the extra consonant, which then appear in other noun classes.

Note that /s/ appears whenever any primordial /h/ is bordered by /i~e/ and /u/ in either direction.

This page has been scrubbed in preparation for the introduction of a new set of languages descended from proto-Dreamlandic.

Later descendants

At least one Subumpamese language also survives to develop into Meromo.