Atlam
Tōžetăna is the Khulls name for a country located at the southern extreme of the continent of Rilola, the home of all humans on planet Teppala. It is similar in size and shape to Subumpam but its climate is much warmer. Tōžetana stretches from 10°N to 14°N and from 9°E to 13°E. The climate of the entire nation is tropical savanna, with little difference from place to place because the topography is flat. However, there is a marked dry season during the Northern Hemisphere winter, so the climate cannot support a true rainforest.
Tōžetăna was founded in 2131 as Tūġyaităna.[1] Its inhabitants were the dark-skinned Crystal people, who considered themselves a single tribe of people united by their shared religion, language, and way of life.[2] There was a small minority of people who called themselves Pastip, and stood out starkly from the majority because of their pink skin and blonde hair. The Pastip had begun moving into Tūġyaităna about a hundred years earlier, from their homeland of Paba, and were involved in Tūġyaităna's secession from its parent empire, Kxesh. There were also minorities consisting of dark-skinned people who resembled the Crystals visually but did not follow their religion; these people were welcomed by the Crystals, who saw them as allies against the oppressive Gold Empire.
For more than 2000 years, Tōžetana maintained itself as a simple but self-reliant tropical nation having little contact with its neighbors. Immigration into Tožetana was rare, and the various minorities were gradually absorbed into the wider population, making Tožetana a nation with a single unified tribal identity once more.
In 4145, Tōžetana invaded the Empire of Vaamū, which had gained nominal possession of Tōžetana in a recent treaty but had no visible presence there. Vaamū was much larger than Tōžetana, but was weakened by many internal conflicts and could not raise an army from the entire population. So the tiny nation of Tōžetana quickly defeated Vaamū, and some immigrants from Tarwas, which had signed an alliance with Tōžetana, moved into Tōžetana. People from Tarwas were dark-skinned but were taller and had different facial features compared to the natives of Tōžetana.
In 4162, an army of dissenters from the empire of Anzan moved to Tōžetana, bringing with them their atheistic culture and two languages: Late Andanese and Pabappa. Their loyalty was to yet another empire, Dreamland, which had made them unwelcome in Anzan. However, they were so militaristic that Dreamland did not support them either, and they chose to seek refuge in Tōžetana. Within two years, the colonists turned hostile and overthrew the government of Tōžetana, making Pabappa the official language. They were able to do this because of naval support from the nation of Wax.
Language
At the time of its founding, Tōžetana spoke the Gold language. This language soon came to be called Khulls. However, the Gold Empire's control over Tožetana was very weak, since the tropical climate allowed the inhabitants to be self-sufficient and not need to rely on the Gold Empire for food. Thus, in Tōžetăna, the Gold language soon developed into another branch of the family, no longer mutually intelligible with Khulls despite their intimate contacts with the peoples of the other areas of the Gold Empire.
Although Pabappa had been introduced to them by hostile invaders claiming loyalty to Dreamland, Pabappa was also the language of the enemies of those invaders, who helped the natives of Tōžetana fight off the invaders. Thus Pabappa came to be spoken by some native Tōžetanians.
Phonology of the proto-language
Tōžetana inherited from Gold a four-vowel inventory (/a i u ə/) with three tones (/ă à ā/) and the following consonants:
/p b m w t d n s z l č ǯ j k ġ ŋ h g ḳ ʕ/
A /w/ could follow any other consonant in the syllable onset, but the unusual coronal pairs tʷ dʷ nʷ and the fricative hʷ were far more common than other combinations.
