Amade

Amade was a tropical empire located between 13°N and 17°N, centered west of Taryte, at around 20°W. Its people were often politically hostile to Taryte.

Languages

The language branched off from Tarise shortly after 1085 AD. It may have participated in the shift of /p t b d/ > /h s g z/ that marks out Tarise from all the other Macro-Gold languages, but it is more likely that Amade only did /p t/ > /f s/ and that the /t/>/s/ was conditional. From this point on, Amade became a very conservative language and by 1900 AD the parent language was still readable.

/p/ will soon reappear from sequences like /tw kw/, and may end up even being more common than /b/.

Pre-Gold to Star Empire Amade (1900)

The consonant inventory was:

                       BASIC                             LABIALIZED  
Bilabials:             p   b   m   f   v                     mʷ      w   
Alveolars:             t   d   n       l             tʷ  dʷ  nʷ           
Postalveolars:         č   ǯ           y                       
Velars:                k       ŋ   h   g   ḳ                 ŋʷ  hʷ  gʷ

And the vowels were /a e i o u ə/.

1. The voiceless stops p tʷ shifted to f s.
2. The voiceless stop t shifted to s when before any of the high vowels /i ə u/.
3. The voiced fricatives g gʷ shifted to Ø w. However, the fricative allophones remained, and therefore came to also replace original Ø~ʕ. For example, syllable final -u merged with original gʷ, and obtained the velar frication as an allophone after a stressed vowel.
4. Before a hiatus, the short vowels u i shifted to ʷ y, creating a new set of labialized consonants. However, the palatalized consonants were not distinct from their components.
5. The labialized consonants vʷ bʷ ǯʷ lʷ merged as w.
6. The sequences fʷ hʷ kʷ ḳʷ shifted to f f p p .
7. The sequences sʷ čʷ č became s š š.
8. The labialized nasals mʷ nʷ ŋʷ merged as m.
9. The labialized alveolar stop dʷ became d.

Later branches

1. western dialects go entirely voiceless.
2. no q or k_>
3. f>h, iff h>x.
4. ll nn kk ff>individual new consonants.
5. eastern dialects e o>ya u; some other dialects e o>i wa.
6. probably always the same vowel system in all languages at each time.... goes to 4 vowels first, then changes in harmony later.

NOTE: some of these vowel changes MUST precede the shifts that remove the labialized consonants, and this may mean that the labialized consonants survive at 1900 AD.

Childhood writeups can be copied over by assuming ɔ=wa, æ=ya,etc . Note that there were never any diphthongs. Also it might be better to use au/ai instead of wa/ya.

Culture

There were four tribal groups in Amade:

1. Kxesh people, the dark-skinned aboriginals native to the area.
2. Star people, the dark-skinned aboriginals who inhabited the lands to the east, had a small foothold in eastern Amade.
3. Lenians, the light skinned, and typically blonde settlers who had built colonies in Paba, Thaoa, and other places along the tropical south coast. Also known as Mumba.
4. Lĕba, a tribe of very tall, dark-skinned seagoing people who had settled in various other places along the tropical south coast. Despite their very different appearance, they were culturally related to the Lenians.

Unlike most nearby areas, these four racial groups got along peacefully and formed into a single tribe of varied appearance. They were still dark-skinned, but taller and somewhat less dark than the Tarise people. Yet they were outwardly aggressive, and Amadean pirates captured slaves of all racial backgrounds from nations both near and far.