Subumpam

Subumpam is an exonym. Subum is actually a Pabappa word meaning "because of (military) victory", and -pam is Pabappa for "state" (though it was borrowed into Subnumpamese). It served as the capital territory of the Gold Empire around the year 1950. This was an alliance of states situated around the coasts of the Golden Bay intending to keep Nama, the largest state, from controlling the right of way of all the other states. Nama itself was invited to join the union but did not.

Subumpam is a culture and language spoken just to the west of the ancestral Pabap homeland. They built cities such as Wabula Pipem. The culture died out in this area fairly early, crushed by Khulls and Pabap expansion, but by then they had already explored much of the interior of the continent (reaching 39N in the east) and became the substratum in the territory of Goga. They lived in the vicinity of the area of Blop, but did not settle Blop because there were at the time many other rivers and lakes nearby. The planet was still much colder then, with glaciers quickly retreating but still present in many areas which were much warmer than 32°F. Thus they found that by moving west they could easily find warmer territories, with mild summers but winters just as warm as their original homeland in the south.

The modern name of their territory is Subumpam, but the borders do not correspond very well. Today Subumpam is mostly populated by Poswobs rather than Pabaps, and in its western part there are many Khulls speakers as well.

In the northeast, they settled in what are now the Poswob states of Tuppy, Wawiabi, and Fweb.

In the northwest, they settled in Goga.

Between Goga and Wawiabi they settled all across the north coast, but here they were otunumberd by aboriginals to a much greater extemnt and therefore did not actually create "Subumpamese" settlements, but merely made the existing aboriginal settlements a bit more diverse.

To the southeast of Subumpam, along the coast, is the Pabap state of Pipapi. Its borders today include some land that was originally within Subumpam. In fact the name Pipapi is simply Pabappa's reflex of the original name Pipaippis.

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]).

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.

Government

Subumpam originated as an alliance of 11 states. Some of these names are given as code words taken from the numbers 1 through 11 in Subumpamese: Bipabum, Nī, Manīa, Vuʒi, Yūez, Yūenan, Pipaippis, Vuʒinī, Tacarapi, Tacī, and Nańavū. Technicakllky these wouldbntr bew used even as codenames though because they are the cardinal numbers instead of the ordinal numbers.

Subumpam is unusually ethnically diverse internally, even for a nation founded by recent immigrants from the islands of Laba. It is not just an alliance of eleven cultures that are different from each other but monolithic inside; they are actually diverse even down to the level of towns. This is due to various factors:

1. Whereas most other settler nations either killed off their aboriginal population or pushed them to a tiny reservation that was excluded from mainstream society, the Subumpamese were peaceful and did not try to wipe out the aboriginals.
2. The Subumpamese happened to settle in an area that was at the meeting points of two very different aboriginal cultures, who were hostile to each other and did not generally mix, so they ended up with both of them.
3. The Subumpamese grew so quickly that they began to take over the territories of other settlers such as the Pabaps, adding them as new minority.
4. The Andanese, a people who preferred to live as an underclass in nations dominated by other peoples than to form their own, were common in Subumpam.
5. Yet more groups of people began moving from Laba to Subumpam as the Subumpamese generally did not mind, and some of these groups of people even had minority groups within them.

Nama is even more diverse than Subumpam, even at local levels, but because Nama never had an ethnic majority, it is seen for the most part as an alliance of microstates rather than one large empire with a lot of little tribes inside it.

Bipabum

Bipabum (also known as Wipabun, Vipon, ʕʷipôn, Bifom, and Pisom) is the "capital" nation of the Subumpamese Union. It is an ethnically very diverse nation. Along the south coast, most people are Pabaps. Unlike most other states, Pabaps living in Bipabum often still speak only Pabappa. They make a living from fishing and do not rely on the government for very much. In the southwest, however, even along the coast, most people are Subumpamese and that is where the capital city of Wabula Pipem is located. It is also the home base of the Subumpamese Navy (Pisčapus).

Further inland, the population is still primarily Subumpamese, but there are is a sizable minority (about 18%) of aboriginals who call themselves Sukuna. These peopke have blended with Subumpamese and created a mixed-race subset of people. The mixed-race people have the religion and culture of the Subumpamese and therefore call themselves Subumpamese. Some of the full blood aboriginals have alos assimilated this way, but not many.

Bipabum is also the target of a lot of immigration into the Subumpamese Union, since Bipabum is the richest state. Most immigrants are from either Nama to the north and west or the Star Empire to the southwest. The Stars are not geogrphically connected to Subumpam and can only reach it by a long boat trip across the sea or by immigrating first through Nama. Nama, however, is hostile to the Star Empire and does not allow most Star people to enter. However, this is difficult to enforce, because many people living on the southern coast of Nama are very similar in appearance and culture to the Stars. The Star Empire considers southern Nama's people and Bipabum's Sukuna minority to be ethnically identical with the Stars, since they are all physically similar: they have dark skin and distinct facial features, unlike the Pabaps and Subumpamese who are mostly blondes, and unlike the Namans who have many racial types but none of them particularly known for being dark. The Stars claim that any nation that has ethnic minorities is a nation of invaders. They say that the only reason Subumpam and Nama are ethnically diverse is because they were originally Star nations that got smothered by immigrants from outside. The Stars have been trying to turn the Sukuna people living in Subumpam against Subumpam and essentially start a civil war, with the intention of not only getting control of the land but potentially also enslaving all of the other non-Sukuna people. However, the Sukuna people have been quickly assimilating into Subumpamese society, especially strongly in the nation of Bipabum.

Moreover, there are two distinct cultures of dark-skinned people who have also moved into Bipabum, mostly on boats with the Pabaps. which means that a lot of the dark skinned people are actually themselves implants. One of these is the Niḳ (Pabappa Nep, Subumpamese Nik). Like Bipabum's Pabaps, they are a fish-heavy culture, and prefer to live along the immediate coast and make a living solely by fishing the ocean. They have not intermarried much with Pabaps because they are much taller than Pabaps and for that matter, all of the other people living in Bipabum. The other group is called the Tarpabap people. They are mostly in Subumpam for the purpose of raising an army to settle the cold, underpopulated interior of the continent, and if successful, also the hot, overpopulated tropics.

Nī This is inland from Bipabum and in many ways seems like a continuation of Bipabum. But it is much poorer since it has no oceanfront and does not have a river that connects it with Bipabum. It does however have a river that connects it to the ocean state of Pipaippis (see below). Nī is the state with the largest Andanese minority, and it also has a lot of Sukuna people.

Manīa A western state with a lot of ethnic diversity. Immigrants from Nama usually stay here instead of moving on to the richer states like Bipabum.

Vuʒi The westernmost state, whose population mostly does not speak Subumpamese.

Yūez Similar to Nī. Has foothills of the Popoppos Mountains, where many Namans live. Has a lot of Sukuna people as well.

Yūenan Similar in geography to Bipabum, but smaller.

Pipaippis

Pipaippis is the smallest state. It consists mostly of Pabaps, who are again mostly concentrated along the waterfront and the rivers leading to it. The Pipaippis River and the bay it feeds into are important sources of power and wealth for the Pipaip people, and they are one of the strongest states despite being the smallest. The capital of Pipaippis is Kaivi Maniyi. Like Bipabum, Pabaps living in Pipaippis often speak only Pabappa and have little to gain by learning another language since they already dominate their society with Pabappa.

Vuʒinī Upland of Nī, this state has a lot of Pabaps, Andanese, Namans, and Sukuna. Yet it is still majority Subumpamese even after all that.

Tacarapi Population is a mix between Subumpamese and Pabaps, with some Andanese`in the southern part. Not much blending of the peoples has taken place because of problems with religion. Pabaps tend to be found furthest east. The people are very poor, and have different religions, but they are more peaceful than a lot of similar nations. Hilly and subtropical, hot in summer.

Tacī A mountainous nation consisting mostly of Pabaps, with some unsettled and mostly uncivilized Repilian aboriginal people in caves in the north. Not many Subumpamese live here yet, but they are slowly streaming in from the west.

Nańavū: Further south than Tacī, but still very mountainous. Propulation is about 85% Pabaps.

Religion

Subumpam was one of the first countries where religion and politics coincided. Although Subumpam was not a democracy, it did have political parties, and these were all based in religion. Essntially religion determined which political party someone supported, and to change parties meant to change religions. These in turn often corresponded to different ethnic groups, for example the Sàŋhʷṁi religion was only practiced by Andanese, the Sĕyepa religion was only practiced by immigrants from the Star Empire, and so on. However, some ethnic groups had more than one native religion, and that is why the names of the religions are not simply derived from the names of their predominant ethnic group. Sometimes also a religion will reach majority status among more than one ethnic group, and Subumpam was one of the first national empires that successfully spread its religion to other ethnic groups and reached majority status among some of them. The major religions in Subumpam were:

Sisnasi is the native religion to Subumpam, and reached majority status among Kavans when Subumpam took over Kava, and remained after Subumpam fell. Nevertheless, minority religions do exist:

Sàŋhʷṁi (Saumfuma in Bābākiam) was predominant among Andanese people, as it was wherever else they went. The Kavan leadership did not see this as a problem because their own native religions had always been allies of the Andanese.

Sĕyepa was brought over by immigrants from the Star Empire, and has few converts among the native Subumpamese.

Emon is another religion brought over by immigrants from the Star Empire. Its members worship the sun.

Yiibam is the native religion in Pabap territory at this time, and has a few converts among the Subumpamese.

Kâ is another religion brought in from Nama.

Lastly, some people are atheists. There is an organization of atheists named Litila (NAN), but most atheists do not belong to any organization. Furthermore, Litila is most popular in the cold hills of the far east, whereas numerically most atheists are in the capital territory of Bipabum, and have no interest in Litila.

A religion called Si was practiced by birds who had flown in from the Arctic

Culture

In mahy ways, Subumpamese culture resembled that of its more famous relative Kava, since Kava arose from a subset of Subumpam. But Subumpam existed for about 1500 years before Kava did, and participated in many wars. Their original state was, like its neighbors, positioned along the southern coast of Rilola in what is today considered a tropical climate but in the 1900s was merely temperate. Unlike most of the states nearby, Subumpam was not an ethnostate with a single language and religion, but rather a union of five major cultures and several more minor ones. They thus created a very large country, militarily more commanding than any of its neighbors, and set the stage for many future wars in which all of Subumpam's neighbors, despite not being geographically connected, conspired to squeeze Subumpam from all direections.

The founders of Subumpam signed a treaty establishing a strong central government in the city of Wabula Pipem, and granting themselves powers above all of the "national" governments they ruled over (they used a word fupa, translated "nation", for the ten subnational entities dominated by just one ethnicity and religion and was, here translated "country", for the supranational government they had created). Subumpam had ten fupa districts and one marginal district that was larger than all of the others in both size and popu;lation but did not have full status because it was mostly comrpised of ethnic minorities who did not speak subumpamese and were only agreeing to join because they wanted military protection.

They believed that they needed a strong central government to keep the national governments under control. They were not a democracy and never had been, but they created a parliament in which representatives from each of the 11 nations could vote on issues amongst themselves. This type of setup was common in this world, for example in the even large empire of Nama. They gave smaller, weaker nations extra power to oppose the majority, and encouraged people to form political alliances that were not merely based on ethnicity, as they figured a government based around ethnic struggles would have no actual core politics.

Soon after the formation of Subumpam, the Star Empire (located partly in modern-day Taryte) asked Subumpam to join as a single state. The Stars wanted to make an alliance with Subumpam against Nama because the Star Empire was located on the western shore of the Gold Sea, and Subumpam was located on the eastern shore. If they joined forces, the Stars figured they could control all shipping through the Gold Sea and wall up Nama. The Subumpamese government was wary of this offer, since they themselves did not have anything against Nama, and did not want to risk being dominated by a foreign power so soon after their birth since the Stars told them they would only get one vote instead of eleven (for the 11 nations of Subumpam). But the threat of military action against Subumpam by surrounding nations other than Nama led the rulers of Subumpam to agree to the alliance, thus creating the Gold Empire.

Despite being commonly associated with Pabap culture due to similarities in appearance, culture, and language, the two groups are not particularly closely related. Both tended to have blonde hair, but they had different facial features. Subumpamese people were taller but markedly thinner than Pabaps even from the earliest days of their coexistence. However, they commonly blended with each other due to the close proximity of their nations. However, both groups blended more with Andanese, who were still numerically superior at this time.

Ethnic groups

Ethnic groups living in Subumpam did not correspond very well with the national boundaries of the 11 states within the Empire. A listing is below:

Subumpamese The majority group.

Andanese Very common throughotu the Empire, the Andanese have historically preferred to live in other people's nations rather than build their own, even if it means living as an underclass.

Pabaps The Pabaps traditionally lived east of Subumpam, but Subumpam expanded to take in the western fringes of Pabap territory, which resulted in the states of Pipaippis, Tacī, and Nańavū (though Pipaippis, whic his not contiguous with the other two, became majroity-Pabap only with additional iimnigration).

Stars Immigrants from the Star Empire, who are actually a large number of cultures rather than one, but who nevertheless, when immigrating into Subumpam, came to identify themselves simply as Stars rather than as immigrants from their original home state.

Sukuna A dark skinned aboriginal minority in Subumpam.

Repilians A light skinned aboriginal minority in Subumpam. Known for their strong tendency for their women to be taller than their men.

Namans Immigrants from the very large and diverse Empire of Nama. As above, they are not a single culture, but a cooperation of hundreds of distinct tiny nations, with no majority and no single dominant culture that controls the others. Nevertheless, once in Subumpam, they have always tended to stick with other Namans and to give up their subnational identity in favor of just calling themselves "Namans". However a partial exception to this trend is that Repilian people from Nama often live with other Repilians rather than with other Namans.

Nik A tribe of very tall, thin, dark-skinned people who immigrated from Laba.

Tasnu Also known as Tarpabaps, this is another tribe of very tall and thin dark skinned people who immigrated from Laba, but they are not closely related to the Nik. Unlike the Nik, they are not stereotypically happy with being a minority under another nation's umbrella and instead want to use Subumpam as a stage from which they can raise an army to conquer the interior. As their name suggests, they are commonly seen with Pabaps, some of whom are also interested in settling the interior, and have already given up their native languages in favor of speaking Pabappa. A smaller number of Tasnu people have moved elsewhere on Rilola, but they are mostly dependent on Pabap-built ships to get around.

Exploration of other areas

In 1974, Subumpamese sailors attempted to reach Baeba Swamp, but their ship was captured by pirates and they realized that they had to pass through many nations in order to get somewhere like Baeba. They realized that if they wanted to grow, they would have to grow over contiguous territory. But currently, all of the land around them was controlled by Nama, which would not let them in.