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:''Not to be confused with [[Meromo]].''
:''Not to be confused with [[Meromo]].''
'''Merar''' was a nation of people who had immigrated from [[Babakiam|Paba]] to [[Subumpam]] during the late stages of the [[Vegetable War]] after they had pushed the battlefronts westward out of Paba.  After the war they stayed in Subumpam and married Subumpamese women.  THey set up a new government stating that only military officers were allowed to hold government posts. 


Some Tarpabaps may have also spoken [[Paleo-Pabappa]].
:''NOTE ALSO THAT THE SAME PEOPLE CALLING THEMSELVES MERAR LIKELY ENCOMPASSED THE    FERN MIGRANTS AND THEREFORE SPOKE AT LEAST ONE FERN LANGUAGE. THESE PEOPLE WOULD HAVE OUTNUMBERED THE TARPABAPS EVEN AFTER MANY  FERNS MIGRATED A SECOND TIME.''


'''Merar''' was the language of Paba's military caste, which consisted mostly of Tarpabaps and other ethnic minorities.


==Language==
Merar was a nation of people who had immigrated from [[Babakiam|Paba]] to [[Subumpam]] during the late stages of the [[Vegetable War]] after they had pushed the battlefronts westward out of Paba.  After the war they stayed in Subumpam and married Subumpamese women.  THey set up a new government stating that only military officers were allowed to hold government posts.  Some Merari people claimed that they had created the '''Third Star Empire''', named after the dark-skinned [[Star languages|Star]] tribes of the far southwest; however, though the geographical boundaries were similar, the Merar empire was governed from its north, not its south.
The Merar language was also known as '''Tarpabappa'''.  It was identical to standard Pabappa at the time of the war; the language had not yet dropped the intervocalic non-labial voiced fricatives /ð z g/, which meant that the number of syllables in Merar words was usually the same as their ancestral forms in the [[Gold language]].  After the split, Pabappa underwent this change and Merar did not, leading to an unusually early loss of mutual intelligibility between the two languages.  Thus, what became of Merar resembled later Pabappa very little.


Common Central [[Subumpam]]ese (i.e. Bipabumese) remained the common language of the Subumpamese people after the conquest. Later on, many Merar people learned [[Khulls]], [[Pabappa]], or both; and thus Tarpabappa monolinguality came to be associated only with people who were ethnically Merar but locked out of access to the ruling class and its power.
In 3041, [[FILTER]] took over Subumpam, and therefore the branch of Merar that was spoken in Subumpam went extinct early on. This was an ironic change of fate, since FILTER was originally a Subumpamese language, and Merar had earlier swept out all of the original Subumpamese languages.


===Phonology===
==Languages==
This is a branch of [[Paleo-Pabappa]], not Gold. 


====Consonants====
This is the indigenous language of Paba, before its people switched to speaking Gold under the influence of Nama and AlphaLeap.  Its population was about 90% Pabaps and 5 to 10% Tarpabaps (the same people later called Merar).  The Tarpabaps were the military caste of Paba  and were much taller and stronger than the Pabaps.
Merar had a fairly large consonant inventory, but was unusual in that it lacked both /l/ and /r/ sounds.  However, there was a distinction between a true /w/ and a pharyngealized rounded approximant, often spelled ''ʕʷ'', but which in foreign words is often transliterated ''r''.  However, this sound had begun to lose both its rounding and its pharyngealization early on, and some speakers did not distinguish it from the otherwise rare sound /v/.


                    PLAIN                             
Originally, the Tarpabaps came from the same port of origin as the Pabaps, despite their greatly different body  types.  They thus spoke the same language.  However, even from the   very beginning, new migrants were patrolling the coast, and later migrations to Paba brought different tribes of people who joined the Tarpabap caste.  These had their own languages, but in order to rise in rank in the military, they had to learn the main language of Paba.   
Bilabials:        p  ṗ      m  f  v      w                           
Alveolars:        t      d  n  s  z  dʰ
Rounded alveolars: tʷ      dʷ  nʷ
Palataloids:                      š  ž      y
Velars:            k  ḳ      ŋ  h  g
Postvelars:                        ħ  ʕ                         
 
The unusual voiced aspirate ''dʰ'' arises from the consonant cluster /hd/ in the [[Gold language]]; there was no corresponding bʰ or ġʰ because in the Gold language, both of those stops were restricted to word-initial position and to unstressed syllables directly following a long vowel, which meant that there could not be an /h/.  
 
The voiced stop  ''  d  '' was pronounced as a fricative, [ ð], between vowels. 
The vowel system was the same as Gold.
 
The language divides into East and West branches, with the East branch covering occupied [[Thaoa]] and the West branch [[Subumpam]].  The Subumpamese adult male population was almost eliminated, so the surviving Subumpamese language was the speech of women. Since both the Tarpabaps and the Subumpamese had been primarily male-led, Subumpamese fell out of use.  Thaoa's population survived mostly intact, but their language was also suppressed in its homeland and survived only as [[Palli]] and [[Sakhi]], both spoken outside Thaoa;s original honme territory/.
 
==Proto-Merar (2674 AD) to Western Tarpabappa==
                             
This language replaced all of the [[Subumpamese languages]].
 
Bilabials:        p  ṗ      m  f  v      w                           
Alveolars:        t      d  n  s  z  dʰ
Rounded alveolars: tʷ      dʷ  nʷ
Palataloids:                      š  ž      y
Velars:            k  ḳ      ŋ  h  g
Postvelars:                        ħ  ʕ                         
 
#The labialized alveolars ''tʷ dʷ nʷ'' shifted to '''kʷ ġʷ m'''.
#The voiced alveolar stop ''d'' shifted to '''ð''' between vowels. Then ''dʰ'' became '''d'''.
#The ejectives ''ṗ ḳ'' shifted to '''b q'''.
 
==Proto-Merar (2674 AD) to Eastern Tarpabappa==
This language is the superstratum of [[Thaoa]].
                           
Bilabials:        p  ṗ      m  f  v      w                           
Alveolars:        t      d  n  s  z  dʰ
Rounded alveolars: tʷ      dʷ  nʷ
Palataloids:                      š  ž      y
Velars:            k  ḳ      ŋ  h  g
Postvelars:                        ħ  ʕ                         
 
#The voiced stop ''d'' shifted to '''l'''.  Then ''dʰ'' shifted to  '''d'''. <sup>?</sup>
#The velar fricative ''h'' came to be spelled '''x'''.
 
==History==
:''see [http://www.frathwiki.com/index.php?title=Merar&oldid=118619#History here].''
Thaoa's consoinant inventory in 2674 AD was
 
Labials:        pʰ  p  b  m  f  v  w
Alveolars:      tʰ  t  d  n  s  z  l
Palataloids:        č  ǯ  ň          y
Velars:        kʰ  k      ŋ  x  g
Postvelars:    qʰ  q          h
 
Eastern SUbumpamese was
 
 
Bilabials:      p  b  m  f             
Alveolars:      t  d  n  s      l  c  ʒ           
Palataloids:    č  ǯ  ň  š  ž  y                 
Velars:          k      ŋ   
  Postvelars:      q          h


By around 2100 AD, the small-bodies Pabaps could no longer control the Tarpabaps, and left them to use their own languages.  Thus the Tarpabaps who had learned the main language no longer had a special avenue to power.
Many of these new migrants moved right through Paba and settled [[Tarwas]], but some people in Tarwas later moved back to Paba.


''THIS COULD MEAN THAT THIS LANGUAGE IS A DEAD END  AND THAT THE MERAR WHO OCCUPY THAOA, LOBEXON, AND SUBUMPAM ARE ALL SPEAKING VARIOUS LANGUAGES OF THE FERN AND PABAHAIS FAMILIES.''


===Paleo-Pabappa to Raspara===
This branch reduces its vowel system due to Gold influence, even though the shift took place more than a thousand years after Gold's. It may even end up with /a i u/ instead of /a i u ə/.


==Notes==
==Notes==

Latest revision as of 03:17, 31 March 2021

Not to be confused with Meromo.
NOTE ALSO THAT THE SAME PEOPLE CALLING THEMSELVES MERAR LIKELY ENCOMPASSED THE FERN MIGRANTS AND THEREFORE SPOKE AT LEAST ONE FERN LANGUAGE. THESE PEOPLE WOULD HAVE OUTNUMBERED THE TARPABAPS EVEN AFTER MANY FERNS MIGRATED A SECOND TIME.

Merar was the language of Paba's military caste, which consisted mostly of Tarpabaps and other ethnic minorities.

Merar was a nation of people who had immigrated from Paba to Subumpam during the late stages of the Vegetable War after they had pushed the battlefronts westward out of Paba. After the war they stayed in Subumpam and married Subumpamese women. THey set up a new government stating that only military officers were allowed to hold government posts. Some Merari people claimed that they had created the Third Star Empire, named after the dark-skinned Star tribes of the far southwest; however, though the geographical boundaries were similar, the Merar empire was governed from its north, not its south.

In 3041, FILTER took over Subumpam, and therefore the branch of Merar that was spoken in Subumpam went extinct early on. This was an ironic change of fate, since FILTER was originally a Subumpamese language, and Merar had earlier swept out all of the original Subumpamese languages.

Languages

This is a branch of Paleo-Pabappa, not Gold.

This is the indigenous language of Paba, before its people switched to speaking Gold under the influence of Nama and AlphaLeap. Its population was about 90% Pabaps and 5 to 10% Tarpabaps (the same people later called Merar). The Tarpabaps were the military caste of Paba and were much taller and stronger than the Pabaps.

Originally, the Tarpabaps came from the same port of origin as the Pabaps, despite their greatly different body types. They thus spoke the same language. However, even from the very beginning, new migrants were patrolling the coast, and later migrations to Paba brought different tribes of people who joined the Tarpabap caste. These had their own languages, but in order to rise in rank in the military, they had to learn the main language of Paba.

By around 2100 AD, the small-bodies Pabaps could no longer control the Tarpabaps, and left them to use their own languages. Thus the Tarpabaps who had learned the main language no longer had a special avenue to power. Many of these new migrants moved right through Paba and settled Tarwas, but some people in Tarwas later moved back to Paba.

THIS COULD MEAN THAT THIS LANGUAGE IS A DEAD END AND THAT THE MERAR WHO OCCUPY THAOA, LOBEXON, AND SUBUMPAM ARE ALL SPEAKING VARIOUS LANGUAGES OF THE FERN AND PABAHAIS FAMILIES.

Paleo-Pabappa to Raspara

This branch reduces its vowel system due to Gold influence, even though the shift took place more than a thousand years after Gold's. It may even end up with /a i u/ instead of /a i u ə/.

Notes

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