Poswa

Poswa is a language spoken in the center of Rilola. It is spread over more territory than any other language. Poswa is in many ways similar to its closest relative Pabappa, but much more complex.

Phonology

See Poswa phonology.

Phonologically, Poswa sounds like baby talk with most of its consonants being labial or labialized, but with much denser consonant clusters than Pabappa. It is fairly conservative in phonology, e.g. Diʕì məstăləka "seaweed" becomes psōlč in Moonshine, with four syllables compressed into one, but Poswa still has mystaruwa, preserving the four syllables of the original (though usually the form in Poswa is just mystar). Nevertheless, due to the strong word-initial stress for 5000 years, examples of severe sound change compression do exist, such as "the sound change champions" below.

Consonants

There are 33 consonants, all in pairs of plain vs labialized, except /w/, which is considered a labialized version of silence. The others are /p b m f v t n s l tš dž š ž k g r/ and their labialized counterparts. Sometimes /tš/ and /dž/ are not considered proper consonants, instead being analyzed as clusters, which would reduce the number of consonants to 29. This is because they cannot occur in word-final position. Nevertheless, word-initial /tš/ and /dž/ have survived, whereas the other clusters /ps/ and /pš/ have been reduced to /p/ in word-initial and often also medial positions.

The consonants /f v/ are labiodental, but /fʷ vʷ/ are rounded and bilabial. /fʷ/ is very rare at the beginning of a word, except in loans, because the primeval /fʷ/ changed to a simple /w/. Likewise /g/ is rare in all positions because it changed to /dž/ in most environments and this change happened very recently. Presently most plain /g/ is either from /gʷ/ before a front vowel or is a loanword.

Labialization is robust and can be contrastive everywhere: rulpu "face" /rulpu/ and rulpu "bandage, napkin" /rulʷpu/ are not homophones and not even considered a rhyme.

Sound changes and vocabulary retention

Poswa does much better than Pabappa at retaining old monosyllabic vocabulary from the Babakiam language due to its larger phonology and slower rate of sound change. However, such words tend to be found mostly in compounds rather than as standalone morphemes.

With the Poswobs' strong knowledge of their written history, some words which would not be used in normal speech, such as i "bubble" and ti "dream" are nevertheless widely understood and can be used in abbreviations and poetic compounds. For example, mabem means soap, and mabemi is widely understood as meaning "soap bubbles, lather" without having to use the longer form mabempwar. Note also that i as a standalone word is still widely understood to mean "buoy", as it has for the last 4000 years.

Nevertheless, the ability to create all-vowel sentences is long gone, and most words in Poswa have at least two syllables.

The sound change champions

• pobbas "war", from pau babibup mibeas. Note that this was originally a euphemism meaning "to destroy unarmed people", replacing many other words for war which, however, still survive in compounds.
• pwubo "salary, rate of pay", from pepibu miaau "career value".
• polfwatos "vegetarian", from pauyau pabaa kataus, "able to eat fresh fruit".
• peffofapwa "red rose", from pipta babupte apusa
• povbia "to want to become pregnant", from pusmabaupubiba

Most of the extreme examples involve deletion of /b/ in unstressed syllables, resulting in vowel sequences which then contracted into single vowels. Some words in modern Poswa descend from forms that would have been rarely, if ever, used in Bābākiam but came to be selected over time because of the convenience of the results of the sound changes:

• pippem "wine, fermented juice", from pipu suibibim. Suibibim here is an inflected form of suei, but would not have been used by the speakers at the Babakiam stage.

Other grammar info

Nouns have tenses, e.g. purfupo "lobster" and purfubbi "cooked lobster" (served as food).

NOTE, THIS IS FALSE. THEY USE CAUSATIVES ETC

Length of words

Although I originally had intended Poswa's dictionary to consist mostly of two-syllable roots, leading most words to be two or three syllables long, as I've worked more on the language I've realized that the inflection system "damages" and "infects" roots so much that they will need to be much longer in order to not collide with each other. Thus, many noun stems are now compounds that are three or four syllables long, and many verb endings are two syllables long, leading the verbs themselves to average around four syllables but potentially reach five or six.

However, the tradeoff for this is that it takes fewer words to make a sentence than it does in English. For example, it might take four syllables to say

Polaputa.

(House) cat.

But the clause

Polapufem.

Because of your (house) cat.

Is also four syllables despite its much more complex meaning.

The situation with verbs is similar. Poswa speakers say

Wovbo.

I'm depressed.

But the Pabappa translation built from the same word roots is

Pom wadarmaba.

Spelling

Poswa is written with a very complicated syllabary, named Toppwe (or Pompoppwe to be more specific), in which some letters are drawn inside other letters. Not all possible syllables are represented, but all of the syllables that require two letters to spell are phonological reflexes of previously existing two-syllable sequences. Labialization, though not represented in the Romanized form of the alphabet, is distinguished in Toppwe. For instance the word pappa "medicine" contrasts with pappa "field" in that the second p in the second word is labialized. The first is spelled in Toppwe as pap-pa, the second as pabʷ-pa (because /bʷp/ is not a valid consonant cluster in the language, it is automatically read as /pʷp/). All in all there are about 1500 letters in Toppwe, including a small number of bisyllabic graphemes representing common sequences such as /bies/ and a few abbreviations.

Grammar

Poswa is the most grammatically conservative language in the world. In part this is due to lucky sound changes that just so happened to align well with the needs of the noun and verb inflection systems; e.g. the only five final consonants permitted in the parent language happened to also be the five that underwent a particular sound change that reduced the number of syllables in words derived from them by one; and these were the same five consonants that marked the six noun cases (the nominative case had a null ending). However, later sound changes essentially removed the "value" of this shift, so this is not the only reason for Poswa's grammatical conservatism.

Sample sentences

• Pwopwabum pisfa šuppsiap žaegvabi. "The children walked across the frozen river". (treating "frozen river" as a single noun)
• Pwopwabum pisfa šuppsiap žaegvabi nappufas. "The children walked across the frozen river (while) holding hands". (nappup i babas)
• Pwopwabum pisfa šuppsiap žaegvabi nappufes. "The children walked across the frozen river while they were holding hands". (nappup i bīs)
• Fam pabbubup. "The palm tree is tall."
• Ritfabo. "I hear you."
• Vebo. "I see you." (An example of a verb whose stem collapses to just a single consonant, v-, in all tenses)
• Pemwep ritfabo. "I can hear the sea."
• Piššapetwum pimbatwop mušaba. "The mice are playing with the boy."
• Papapatum twampo. "I'm afraid of snakes."

• Pwopwabum pisfap šuppsavas žaegvabi nappufas. "The children walked across the river while it was frozen, while they were holding hands." (šuppsadžebas. Note thast the tense marker actually disappears here, but is unnecessary, because this form of the word can only be used with a verb that already has a tense marker.)

Nouns

See Poswa nouns.

Poswa preserves the six noun cases of the parent language with almost no changes in meaning or form, apart from regular sound changes. The possessive has weakened into a genitive when used with definite nouns, however. e.g. teppiopwas mupawabub "the length of the rope". Poswa has not added any new cases; so there is still no dative case and the various uses of the locative case are not distinguished.

• Nominative: The default form of the word, used as the subject of a sentence and also in genitive phrases when not indicating possession; paslam "fire"; paslam boša "fire hearth; fireplace".
• Accusative: Always marked by -p, shows the object of a verb. Žazba pasliap blabwambi "The girl put out the fire".

Possession markers can be placed on any noun, e.g. papwopwa "dog"; papwopio "my dog"; pepwep "knife" ---> pepwetšo "my knife". The stem to which the possession marker attaches is called a soppu.

Verbs

See Poswa verbs.

Verbal morphology is the least conservative aspect of Poswa grammar.

Most transitive verbs have an omitted prefix wi which signifies that the preceding object is put into the accusative case. Any prefix other than wi is still omitted when the verb is used transitively, but requires that the object be not placed into the standard accusative case, but rather into an "exotic case" that in some cases is unique enough that the verb itself can be omitted.

For example, the morphemes in the sentence "the snake bit the boy" can be translated as follows:

• papapat "snake"
• pimbatup "teenage boy"
• piras "to bite aggressively"

The accusative case of pimbatup is pimbatwup, so one might expect the sentence to be Papapat pimbatwup pirašebi, and although that would be understood, the proper form is

Papapat pimbatwani pirašebi, but even in this sentence, the third word is merely for emphasis, since in most situations only verbs describing biting would be used with this particular exotic case, and that case is marked for tense, making the verb entirely unnecessary. Educated speakers would thus simply say

Papapat pimbatwani "The snake bit the boy." This is roughly equivalent to the English sentence The snake got the boy, or, with a bit of implied understanding, The snake snaked the boy, or even The snake boyed as if "boy" were, to a snake, a verb meaning "to bite a boy".

NOTE: THE ABOVE SECTION WITH THE EXOTIC CASES IS PROBABLY WRONG. SUCH THINGS WERE TRUE IN THE PARENT LANGUAGE, BUT EVEN POSWA IS NOT SO CONSERVATIVE AS TO HOLD ON TO FORMATIONS WITH SUCH A NARROW USE AS THIS FOR MORE THAN 4500 YEARS.

Obscene and profane language

Poswa's approach to obscene and profane language is unique and stands out even from its close relatives and neighbors. It could be said that Poswa has a strict dividing line between obscenity and profanity, or that obscenity simply doesn't exist and profanity is the only offensive language available to the Poswobs.

Obscene language

Poswa lacks offensive terms for body parts and bodily functions that most other languages have. Adults and toddlers use the same vocabulary for every conceivable construction in which one might expect an offensive mental image to arise. Obscene words are called waptipopo, derived from the irregular verb wapti "to face away; turn one's back to someone" and popo "words, speech, language". This can be used as a verb, to make sentences such as

Mampum waptipoparebe?

Why did you swear at me?

And like other verbs it can take the agentive suffix -ta, to form waptipopota "potty mouth".

Instead of relying on the words themselves, Poswobs who want to offend people often go for intense graphical imagery, far beyond what speakers of most other languages are willing to do. For example, one can say

Prabbo popabem!

My diarrhea in your mouth!

Speakers of other languages generally translate Poswa terms for obscene concepts using the least offensive possible word, partly because of the childish sound of the Poswa language in general and partly because among Poswobs, even the youngest children freely use such expressions whereas in almost every other culture there are dividing lines between terms acceptable for children and terms acceptable for adults, often with more than one gradation between the two extremes.

However, it would be wrong to equate the speech of Poswobs with that of toddlers in general. Angry toddlers and angry grownups in Pusapom use the same terms for the same things, but when they want to offend someone, adults pull on a diverse catalog of mental imagery, whereas toddlers rely heavily on the single word pobbop "poop" and its derivatives. More than a hundred derivations of pobbop are in common use; some are regular, others are irregular.

Water and wheel are not euphemisms.

Twub

Twub "urine" appears in few constructions because most of its noun forms are homophonous with those for water, and even though the true meaning of the word is usually clear, twub lacks even the mild mental association of many of Poswa's other words for obscene concepts. Many speakers use the word twop "pain; louse" as an intensifier for painful or unpleasant sensations, and this word also happens to be the accusative of twub. Thus one can say

Plefi! Šapio twop pobiba.

Whoa! My coffee is painfully hot.

While this may make some elementary learners giggle, few listeners would interpret a sentence such as this as something such as

*My coffee is piss hot.

Or anything similar.

References to sex and violence

As above, Poswa stands out even from its close relative, Pabappa, in lacking an established variety of obscene terms for bodily functions and activities. Poswa has quite a lot of words for "vagina", for example, including iši, lara, pal, pip, rubae, pumpi, valem, and warie. However, none of these words stands out as particularly obscene, and an angry Poswa speaker using one in a sentence such as

Pumpiže!

You're a vagina!

Would trigger a puzzled reaction from the listener similar to what one would expect from its literal English translation. Thus, it could be said that Poswa simply has no way to translate English slang terms such as "pussy" and its wide variety of meanings. A speaker seeking to trigger an angry reaction would be much more likely to use an expression such as

Pumpem!

Up your vagina!

Which can be directed at a listener of either sex. However, even this is context-dependent.

Terms for female anatomy

As above, there are many words for vagina, but they have little difference in meaning and, for the most part, any of the words can be used in any context, from the doctor's office to the bedroom. Although Poswobs do not consider talking about female genitalia to be obscene or offensive, one sometimes hears romba "womb" used instead of one of the words for vagina.

Many of the other words were originally slang terms whose original literal meaning faded after thousands of years of sound changes. The commonest word in general speech is pumpi, which ends with a wet syllable.

Terms for male anatomy

Terms for male anatomy are generally more descriptive than those for the female anatomy. Poswa has eight words for vagina with little difference in meaning. By contrast, although the commonest word for the penis is noppyp, there are other words available to describe the penis with finer precision.

Wider varieties of obscenities

Poswa more rarely uses terms and interjections involving whole sentences:

Bwaptwipši!

Get raped!

Which is the closest literal equivalent to the English "Fuck you!" and its equivalents in many other European languages.

Despite the presence of vocabulary such as the above, Poswobs are just as likely to use more childish-sounding substitutions for this interjection such as

Pobbwutši!

Get pooped on!

Twatwutši!

Get peed on a lot!

And for those who are really worried about offending someone

Myptalwutši!

Get slimed on!

Thus, the offensiveness of an expression is determined by the literal meaning of the words being chosen rather than by a word's belonging to a particular category of "adult" vocabulary despite sharing a literal meaning with some much less offensive word. Put another way, there is no way to make a sentence like "get pooped on" any more offensive in Poswa without changing its meaning.

Profane language

By contrast, blasphemy is strictly taboo, and this taboo has extended to other religions adopted by the Poswobs throughout time.

Slang vocabulary

Poswa also does not have a large corpus of slang terms that are confined to informal usage.

History

Poswa has been a fairly conservative language for all of its history. Classical Poswa is generally considered to have begun around the year 7300, and is still readable for most Poswobs in 8733. Most of the changes in the last 1400 years involve frication and fronting of velar consonants and deletion of fricatives occurring after stops, so that for example the word for "wand, key" has changed from šalergos into šalios and the word for "world" has changed from pupsipšu to pupipu.

Loanwords

Moonshine loans words to Poswa and a few Sakhi languages. Other languages, even those in close contact with Moonshine, do not borrow much because the phonology of Moonshine is so vastly different than its neighbors. The Poswa loans merge many words into one, for example, but this is okay because Poswa's Moonshine loans are generally for specific things and contexts where it is appropriate. e.g. čāc, čap, càt all merge in Poswa as tšap. Poswa generally loans c as /p/ at the edges of words (e.g. cē > pe "wheel") but as /ts/ in the middle of words unless an unacceptable consonant cluster would form. One might expect it to be /t/ at least word-initially, but in an earlier version of Poswa /ps/ was acceptable in word-initial position and it became /p/ in the later language. A few other very old sound changes are still obeyed, mostly because ignoring them would cause problems with noun inflection. Moosnhine pīp "icecap, large glacier" becomes pup in Poswa, because -ip never occurs at the end of native words (what is spelled -ip is actually /ipʷ/) and speakers would not agree on how to inflect it. In short-term loanwords that do use this ending, it is declined as if it were -up, so -up is what is used for long-term loanwords. As for why /ipʷ/ is not used, it is partly because -ip and -ipʷ are generally not cognate and partly because the writing system actually has -up and -ip more similar than -ipʷ and -ip (two letters versus one).

These words are not used in Poswa as everyday words. e.g. pobby is still the unchallenged word for wheel, not pe. Rather they used in Japanese-like compounds and abbreviations, such as petužu "wheel axle", mežom "soap dispenser".

Relationship to other languages

Poswa's phonology and general tendency towards shifting sounds forward in the mouth has led it to stand out sharply from its neighbors. Nobody would mistake a Poswa speaker for a Thaoa speaker or a Moonshine speaker.

In grammar, Poswa also stands out sharply from its neighbors, but in a different way: it is far more conservative than any other descendant of the Gold language. Even its close relative, Pabappa, has changed its grammar radically, whereas the only substantial changes in grammar in Poswa in the last 3200 years have been to revamp the verb system. Thus, Poswa has a huge number of irregular words, both nouns and verbs, due to the accumulation of sound changes over 3000 years and the lack of compensatory changes to make them regular again.

Culture

See Pusapom.

Poswobs historically descend from the lower class of Pabap society, who left the Pabaps to settle in the snowy pine forests of the much larger north. They are less pacifistic than the Pabaps but still very pacifistic. For example, more rabbits kill humans than vice versa, and rabbit vs human conflicts are considered to be a contest of equals, with each species hunting the other.

Poswob women are often taller than their husbands and take leadership roles in society at a proportion equal to or greater than males. This however varies significantly by region; Pusapom is a large empire and some areas of it are thinly settled or consist primarily of non-Poswob people who themselves are very diverse from each other.

The trait of women being taller than men is a foreign adoption from the Moonshine empire to the north, where it is nearly universal. Thus Poswobs living in the north are more likely to be tall-femaled; those living in the south or the far west are generally of "normal" human proportions, like their ancestors, the ancient Babakiam people. However the Poswobs, being of both types, do not see males being taller than females as normal, but merely a variation along the spectrum between tall and short women.