Languages of Tarwas

Tarwas is a nation founded in the year 2144 by Tarpabap people who had immigrated through Paba. For more than 5000 years, it had resisted being swallowed up by the empires around it, until finally voluntarily joining The Poswob Empire around the year 7700. For the next thousand years after that, it used its strategic location (just east of Blop, the imperial capital) to present itself as an alternate way of life for Poswobs wishing to escape the poor living conditions in Blop and other Poswob cities. The Poswob Empire refers to its divisions as states, not nations, but most people in Tarwas still consider Tarwas to be an independent nation that merely has signed a mutual assistance pact with the Poswobs.

Language

See Merar.

It is quite possible that Tarwas' language forms an independent, early-branching variety from the very beginning, perhaps even earlier than 2100 AD, and survives as such for at least the next 6700 years. Remember that there were border conflicts with Sakhi.

These may be called Helmet languages. Just to the south of Tarwas, there were many different language families sharin the same land: beside Helmet, there were also Oyster, East Andanic, Creamer, and a few remnants like Tuq, the Repilian aboriginal languages, and the fringes of Moonshine.

Tapilula (0) to Proto-Thaoa (1085)

1. The aspirated velar stop k became č before the vowel /i/. If another vowel followed, the /i/ disappeared. This happened even if the /i/ was accented.
2. When a "velaroid" consonant (/k ḳ ŋ h g l/) followed an accented high tone vowel, the vowel metathesized, leaving a closed syllable. Thus, for example, /àli/ > /ail/. These closed syllables were all high-toned, and are thus written without tone marks. Thus, for example, aa implies àa. Later, daughter languages introduced tone contrasts and independent sequences.
3. A schwa before another vowel in any syllable disappeared. Thus əa əe əi əo əu əə shifted to a e i o u ə. This happened in both open and closed syllables.
4. The sequences iu and ui shifted to ə̄.
5. The double-vowel sequences aa ee ii oo uu əə shifted to the single vowels a e i o u ə in closed syllables only.
6. The sequences ii uu əə (which now occurred only in open syllables) shifted to əi əu ə.
7. The sequences ie uo shifted to i u in open syllables only.
8. The sequences ai ei oi merged as ei; the sequences au eu ou merged as ou.
9. The sequences ea eə shifted to ee; meanwhile, oa oə became oo. Then, aə shifted to aa. Thus, the sequences /ee aa oo/ once again appeared in both open and closed syllables. Note, however, that much inherited /ea oa/ had participated in grammatical alternations with /əa/, which had become a simple /a/ by this time, and this is the form that was usually generalized.
10. The sequences ia ie io iə shifted to ī . Then ua ue uo uə shifted to ū.
11. In absolute final position, syllable-final ŋ changed to n. (But see below.)
12. Accented vowel-initial syllables gained a pharyngeal ʕ as an onset. Then the clusters nʕ kʕ shifted to g ḳ.
13. After long vowels, all consonants became voiced. Also, consonants occurring after initial vowels also became voiced. This created the new consonants v ǯ . Thus, final -h in words like hʷīh became -g. However, analogy made it so that the change was confined to open syllables in most words. This sound change did not affect diphthongs. There was no voiced velar stop, as all four velars simply shifted to fricatives.
14. After initial unstressed /u/, all consonants other than palatals became labialized. This change extended even to clusters. Because of the voicing rule, however, all of these consonants were voiced. vʷ > w.

    bʷ probably also shifted to w.

15. Initial vowels were deleted unless an illegal consonant cluster would have resulted. Sometimes root-initial vowels were retained due to classifier prefixes.
16. All schwas and diphthongs became low tone.
17. Labialized consonants lost their labialization when occuring after another labial or labialized consonant.
18. After a stressed syllable, intervocalic ʕ ʕʷ became g gʷ. This is due to reanalysis, not a true sound change.
19. The glottal fricatives h hʷ became velar; there was no spelling change.

The consonant inventory at this stage 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

The vowel inventory was

Short vowels:          a  e  i  o  u  ə
Long vowels:           ā  ē  ī  ō  ū 
Falling diphthongs:      ae ei ao ou
                            əi    əu

The long vowels /ā ē ō/ can be spelled aa ee oo, but the high vowels /ī ū/ are usually not, because /i u/ before another vowel would indicate a glide. This list may have to be cut somewhere in the middle, with the full list applying to just one subbranch and ending around the year 2668.

Proto-Thaoa (1085) to proto-Helmet (2668)

1. The voiced coronal obstruents d ǯ merged as r.
2. The sequences ae ao shifted to ai au.
3. The labialized obstruents tʷ dʷ gʷ shifted to pʷ w w.
4. The velar ejective ḳ merged to k.
5. The sequences č kč merged as s; preceding vowels retained their tones.
6. In word-initial position, the voiced velar fricative g shifted to y.
7. The labialized nasals mʷ nʷ ŋʷ merged as mʷ.
8. The voiced stop b shifted to v.
9. After a high tone, the voiceless fricatives hʷ f h shifted to kʷ p k. The /s/ did not shift.
10. After a low tone, the voiceless stops pʷ p t shifted to bʷ b d.
11. After a high tone, the nasals mʷ m n ŋ became the geminates mmʷ mm nn ŋŋ.
12. Tones were eliminated.
13. The sequences mpʷ mp nt shifted to mbʷ mb nd.
14. The clusters kpʷ kp kt kf shifted to ppʷ pp tt pp. Note that there was never a /ks/.
15. Any other final k shifted to h, which adopted previously existing sandhi rules such as /hm/ = [mp].
16. The labialized consonants kʷ pʷ bʷ mʷ shifted to p p b m. Then w shifted to v.
17. The diphthongs ai ei əi all merged as ē. Then au ou əu merged as ō. Then, the double vowel sequences aa ee ii oo uu became ā ē ī ō ū.

It is not clear if Tarwas branches off in 2144 or if it is refreshed by later settlers.

Climate and geography

Tarwas has a very simple climate regime. The main state of Tarwas stretches from 30°N to 35°N and has no perceptible differences in temperature from the north end to the south end. The average temperature in winter is 0°C, in summer it is 20°C, and year-round the average is 10°C. This is because the expected temperature gain towards the south is exactly compensated for by the smooth upward slope of the land. The same thing occurs to the west in Nama.

Since temperature variation is insignificant from one end of the region to the other, the wildlife and plant life is also similar. However, the southern end of Tarwas experiences a moderate dry season during the summer, whereas towards the north it is wet all year round.