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Phonology

Babakiam is the parent language of Poswa and Pabappa and thus shares with these languages many characteristics.

Vowels

There are four vowels, /a i u ə/, spelled a i u e. The first three vowels can also be long. The schwa is the rarest of the three vowels, and words with schwa are usually cognate to words with no vowel in closely related languages such as Khulls.

In its classical stage, Babakiam was notable for allowing unrestricted vowel sequences, particularly of /a/, for example bāaaau "(park) bench", which is syllabified as bā-a-a-au (four syllables), and paaapa "dark-haired". Such words were rare, however, and almost always transparent compounds (as in the case of bāaaau) or loanwords (as in the case of paaapa). Nevertheless, Bābākiam does maintain the unusual distinction between long vowels and a sequence of two short vowels, and minimal pairs of this type are very common. Vowel sequences often result from the deletion of voiced fricatives between vowels (/ž/ is the only voiced fricative remaining in the language), whereas long vowels generally were long in the parent language and result from a series of much earlier sound shifts. Other words, such as taīū "maple leaf", exhibit both types of changes.

The vowels /i/ and /u/ become /j/ (spelled "y") and /w/ (spelled "v") before other vowels and in some positions also after vowels. Thus a word like patiyiyibis "bladder" is phonemically /patiiiiibis/, with five /i/'s in a row.

Babakiam was still called Babakiam as late as the year 6000, because the dialects were mutually intelligible (and indeed almost identical) to the language spoken in Paba (then called Baba). No phonemes were lost going from Babakiam to Poswa other than the vowel length, which was lost early on. On the other hand, Pabappa lost many of its phonemes.

Consonants

The consonant inventory is very simple: /p b m f w t n s š ž j k ŋ/, unless /w j/ are considered allophones of the vowels. It is unusual in that it lacks liquid phonemes entirely when all the languages around it have /l/ and most also have an /r/-like sound. Thus Babakiam sounds like children's speech. /b/ is the most common consonant, and in later stages of the language, it became even more common because /b/ was inserted to break up the monstrous sequences of /a/ and /ə/ that had existed in the parent language. Thus classical Babakiam taabābā "nest" became tabababababa and bāaaau became bababababar.

Most words end in vowels, but can also end in /p m s/.

Comparison of words:

4200 Babakiam peskavu sabayiuŋaus

6000 Babakiam pyskary šalergos

8700 Poswa pwaršalios

8700 Pabappa pospalerba "soap bubble wand"