Tapilula

The Tapilula languyage is much more guttural than its ancestor of 8000 years ago, but is almiost entirely CV, so does not necesarrily sound harsh or intidimating. e.g. /plam/ > /ḳà/. This is a matter of preference. The name Tapilula refers to the continent, as this was the language spoken by the first Laban settlers to reach the continent in over a thousand years.^[1]

The mother of Tapilula was Mumba . This is the same word as the tribal name Hupa.

E'oqaaniam

Phonology

The Tapilula language had an unusual phonology that set it apart from its neighbors on the islands of Laba:

It lacked both /r/ and /s/, unlike its parent language and unlike most of the languages around it.

The labialized alveolar consonants /tʷ dʷ nʷ/ contrasted with plain alveolars, but the only other labialized consonants in the language were the velar fricatives /hʷ gʷ/. Previously, there had been labialized stops and nasals at other places of articulation, but these merged into other consonants while only the alveolars remained. Both branches of the Tapilula family that were spoken on the continent of Rilola changed these into lateral consonants /tɬ dɮ nl/.

There was a labiodental fricative /f/, which contrasted with /hʷ/.

Stops produced towards the front of the mouth (/p b t d tʷ dʷ/) came in voiced and voiceless pairs; the two stops in the dorsal area (/k ḳ/) were both voiceless, but distinguished a plain and an ejective version.

Stops produced in the front of the mouth (/p b t d tʷ dʷ/) were more common in speech than those in the dorsal area (/k ḳ/). By contrast, the only fricative produced in the front of the mouth was /f/, and it was much rarer than the dorsal fricatives /h g/. The labialized velar fricatives /hʷ gʷ/ were more common than /f/ but less so than the plain /h g/, but note that /gʷ/ is commonly realized as [w].

Tapilula was the only language in its area that had tones; it had developed them independently, without being influenced by other languages.

All syllables were CV, but there were three syllabic nasals /m n ŋ/ which behaved as vowels except for the fact that they could not take contrasting tones. They could, however, carry stress in a word (as in afṁ "dolphin") and even stand alone as words of their own (e.g. ṁ "breast").

pholongy:

/p b m f t d n l tʷ dʷ nʷ j k ḳ ŋ h g hʷ gʷ/

/a e i o u ə/

Note that there is no /s/, but there is a contrast between /f/ and /hʷ/. This leads to a change of /f/>/s/ in the Gold branch, but the Andanese branch simply merges the two labial fricatives and goes on without an /s/.