Ihhai

Ihhai is a nation to the north of Paba that survived for around 21000 years. Historically it was part of Nama, but today it is part of the Moonshine Crown, which itself part of Pusapom but is self-gvoerning. Thus ity could be said thatIhhai is more independent today than it was at the apex of its power as one of the major nations of Nama. However, that was around the year 2700 AD when the rest of the world was erupting with so much war that even Ihhai at its best could barely hold on to its own territory.

Culture

Paba began as a fishing colony in Tamusur Bay in the year 633 AD and worked its way northward, killing many aboriigns as they went. They stopped at Ihhai and did not try to advance into Ihhai territory. The Ihhai people did not threaten Paba, and at the same time, Ihhai people seemed to be much more powerful than the aboriginal coimmunities that Paba had dealth with in the past. Paba thus admired Ihhai and wanted to form an alliance. Thaoa did likewise.

The Ihhai were largely enemies of Paba's old aboriginal Ahekuqhi people anyway, and even though Ihhai was very strong it was a pacifist nation and did not want to fight a war against even a weak, insect-like nation such as Ahekuqhi. Paba's soldiers had cleared out the Ahekuqhi people, save for a few Ahekuqhi who chose to convert to Yiibam, the Pabap religion, and mostly marry into Pabap families. Paba was now friendly to Ihhai, which meant that Ihhai for the first time in 21000 years had an ouutlet to the south coast, and could be enriched by trade with not only Paba, but the rest of the world.

Ihhai-Paba relations

Many Ihhai people moved into Paba in the 1900s,

Language

Phonology

Phonology is similar to Babakiam at its classical stage. In some ways, it could be said that Ihhai made Babakiam what it was. That is, Ihhai is a toneless language that killed the tones of the Gold language and its descendnats in a graident from east to west. Only Khulls remaind tonal. Ihhai resembles Thaoa all in all.

Consonants

/p b m t s n l r č š ž k ŋ x q ħ ʔ h/ 

Note that /b/ and /ž/ persist, as the only voiced non-sonorants, as in both Thaoa (except Palli dialect) and early Babakiam. However, these can be explained as being simply more forcefully pronounced variants of /w/ and /j/, since those sounds are both missing in Thaoa (but reappeared in Baba).

Vowels

/a e i o u/ No diphthongs, which is common for this area. Thaoa actually has diphthongs, meaning it resisted the pressure of Ihhai and its neigfhbors. the diphonthons of Ihhai and Baba are better analyzed as vowel sequences, whereas those of Thaoa cannot be.

Doubled consonants are common, as are clusters of nasal+stop, but there are few consonant clusters other than that. Thus Ihhai could be said to sound a lot like modern Japanese, except that it lacks eve nthe pitch accentof Japanese and has simply word-initial stress unconditionally.

The phonology is thus almoset exactly that of Thaoa, except that Thaoa has phonemic aspiration and allows more consonant clutsrers. Also, Ihhai has /r/ whereas Thaoa retained its parent language's /r/-lessness, borrowing in all Ihhai words with /r/ as being with /l/.