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.

Phonology

Overall the language is "soft" and not intimidating, like its neighbor Kava, and to a lesser extent also like Pabappa and Poswa. It shifted all of its labialized consonants to pure labials, e.g. /kʷ/ > /p/, and then shifted its plain velars to palatals and sometimes on to coronals. Thus there are few dorsal consonants remaining in the language. However, the voiceless ejective /ḳ/ was immune to the second of these changes, and thus survived as a plain velar in the classical form of the language.

It is also unusual in that for most of its history, it had an /r/ but no /l/ sound, the opposite pattern to most og the languages around it. However, Babakiam had neither of these sounds (the 'r' in Poswa and Pabappa is a uvular approximant.)

Vowels

/a e i o u ā ē ī ō ū/ Tones have been eliminated, but the ā tone survives as vowel length. Macrons are also used to tell diphthongs like ūi (/uj/) from simple sequences like ui (/ui/, often [wi]).

NOTE RECAST THIS AS SPLITTING OFF C 1200 AD OR EARLIER. USE EXACTLY THE SAME SOUND CHANGES.

Consonants

/p b m f v w/ for labials; /t d n s z r c ʒ/ for dentals/alveolars; /č ǯ š ž j/ for postalveolars/palatals; and /k ŋ/ for the velars. The vowel /i/, be it short or long, palatalizes any alveolars before it, and therefore the palatal series can be considered to instead be /cj ʒj sj zj j/, reducing the number of consonants by four. Voiced stops and fricatives are fairly rare. In syllable-final position, the allowable sounds are /m n ŋ/, /t d n s z c ʒ/, and /k/. No vowels were deleted, so any final consonant in Subumpamese was a final consonant in Gold as well.