Wippwo

Lo Neire Wippwo [lɔ 'ne.rɛ 'wip.pwɔ ]
Period	c. 1250-1600
Spoken in	Kasca
Total speakers	5 million
Writing system	adapted Fáralo script
Classification	Edastean  Eastern   Kascan    Naidda     Wippwo
Typology
Basic word order	V1; nonconfigurational
Morphology	fusional
Alignment	direct
Credits
Created by	Arzena, concept by Zompist

This article describes the standard language of the prosperous mercantile city of Hana, capital of the eponymous and current chief Kascan regional power, the Serene Republic of Hana, circa 1475 YP. Neire Wippwo was originally a regional descendant of Naidda spoken in a forgotten corner of the Eige Delta (the Naidda etymon of Wippwo means 'the stinking mud'). Around 200 years before the time of this grammar, a new channel to the sea had opened up in the Wippwo. This, at first, was a result of the natural changes the course of the Delta's riverways. In the 1300s a major hurricane struck the Delta and hastened the formation of the Wippwo Passage.

The Passage began on the northern edge of the Delta, and, soon, traders from Huyfarah started plying the new route as a shortcut into the Delta. New towns sprung up with the increased volume of people and trade moving through the region. It came as no surprise that these new settlements were reputed as seedy places, mixing a riot of nationalities, religions, colorful rogues, and hard-pressed lawmen into the stinking mud of the Delta.

Of the new prosperity in the Delta, the village turned boom town of Hana prospered the most. It gained from organizing a passage tax through the Delta based on the act of passage itself, the total tonnage of cargo, and the type of cargo itself. Due to Hana's short distance from the ocean, foreigner merchants established their bases of operations in Hana; these people, in turn, demanded and created the comforts of high civilization, and so the cycle continued until Hana found itself a bustling city nicknamed 'The Pearl of the Bayou'. Needless to say, there are many fun parties in Hana, and even the stuffy literati of Ussor will tap their feet to the sultry beats of ados and bada.

Within the past century, Hana has expanded its political clout in the Delta. Its power is not yet the hard strength reminiscent of Athalē or Huyfarah but a softer power. Every notable Delta town has a Hana Yard (a compound featuring warehouses, factories, markets, living quarters, entertainment, and diplomatic offices); abroad, there are Hana Yards (which more often than not oversee much more than the eponymous Yard, functioning as de facto colonies of the Serene Republic in less-developed polities) in Ussor, Azbǽbu, Sertek and other cities and towns along the Huyfarahn coast and on the Dagam Islands (itself a dependency of the Serene Republic) as well as in lands along the oceanic trade routes of the northern hemisphere.

The full name of the language is Neire Wippwo, meaning the Naidda of the Wippwo region. It is referred to as both Neire or Wippwo, with the latter more common. In reference to its famous bilabial trill, it receives the name Wibbo both affectionately and disparagingly.

Phonology

Phonemes

	Labial	Labiodental	Dental	Alveolar	Postalveolar	Palatal	Velar	Glottal
Voiceless Plosive	p /p/		t /t/				k /k/
Voiced Plosive	b /b/		d /d/				g /g/
Voiceless Fricative		f /f/		s /s/	š /ʃ/			h /h/
Voiced Fricative	β /β/	v /v/		z /z/	ž /ʒ/		γ /ɣ/
Nasal	m /m/		n /n/				ng /ŋ/
Lateral				l /l/		ll /ʎ/
Trill				r /r/
Approximant	w /w/					y /j/

• <ng> represents /ŋ/ initially and in syllable codae but /ŋg/ intervocalically.

• <ǧ> will be an alternate way of writing /ɣ/

Vowels

Wippwo has eleven vowel phonemes: 8 oral and 3 nasal.

	Front	Central	Back
High	i /i/		u /u/
Mid High	ei /e/		ou /o/
Mid Low	e /ɛ/		o /ɔ/
Low		a /a/

	Front	Central	Back
High
Mid High	ẽ /ẽ/
Mid Low			õ /ɔ̃/
Low		ã /ã/

Wippwo has one true diphthong /ɔa/. In the standard, it is reduced when unstressed to [wə]

• Circumflexes may also be used to transcribe the nasal vowels.

Syllable Structure

Native lexemes in Neire Wippwo consist of the structure (C1)(C2)V(C3). Tolerated initial consonantal clusters consist of a fricative with an obstruent: /be.ʒga/ 'Daiadak; /'ʃɛ.ɾi.zmɛ/ 'tar'; /sla/ 'by the time of'; /skɛ/ 'equal, identical'; /sma/ 'sew'; /ti.ʃna/ 'prostitute'; /te.zŋo/ 'candle'. Syllables could be checked by nearly any consonant in the phonological inventory: /ʃɔ̃.vɛt/ 'desire'; /staʎ/ 'conform'; /pɛɾ/ 'spicy, hot'; however, the most common consonants to end syllables were /m n ŋ l ʎ r h β/

Syllable final /h/

The syllabification of final /h/ distinguished some dialects of Neire Wippwo from one another. Most often paired with a voiceless obstruent in a consonantal cluster, its etymology is /s/; which reduced to /h/ in medial clusters like /sp/, /sw/, /st/, and /sk/. The prestige dialect of Neire Wippwo breaks these old clusters: thus pihwa 'fish' is syllabified /pih.wa/ and pohtou 'attack' as /pɔh.to/, which does not occur in other dialects, which results in realizations like [pi.xwa] and [pɔ.xto].

Stress

Words are regularly stressed on the first syllable. The first half (roughly an iamb) of a sentence receives more volume and tone than the latter half. This produces an overall reduction effect, most noticeably in particles, pronouns and verbal auxiliaries, which have tonic and atonic allomorphs.

• stéiža ažingla l-ah cf ló ah ž-ažingla 'the woman begins to stumble'

Allophony and Dialectal Variation

There are four major dialects of Wippwo: Hat (Ya'n), Hana (Yana'a, not a classical Kascan city), Mumbá (Momuva'ean), and Nurol (Niddolan). As the state of Wippwo expanded in the 13th century, the complexities of government demanded a single language. The eventual standard, termed Neirebo, 'elite Neire', was an amalgamation of the vocabulary of Hana and the phonology of Hat. Its only serious competition came from the academic and literary Momuva'eans, who boasted of their connection to the ancient Tsinakan.

Short of a major dialectal phonemic analysis, the most noticeable differences are outlined in the following consonants in the order Hat, Hana, Mumbá, and Nurol.

/h/

1. #_ [ h | j | Ø | w ] Ha, Ya, A, Wa Aiwa River

(Hana's replacement of /h/ with [j] is an incomplete sound change from Naidda. Originally /j/ > [h], but the reverse was analogized somewhere along the line, rendering hypercorrections of /h/ from Naidda as [j]).

2. _C, _#: [ ː | ː | ʃ | x ] dahmoh, dahmoh, dašmoš, daxmox searching-AVN

3. V_V : [ h | ħ | h | x ] kupeiha, kupeiħa, kupeiha, kupeixa hit-PVN

/ɣ/

1. all positions: [ ɣ | ħ | h | x ] Dahhã, Daħã, Dahã, Daxã Dagam Islands

/ʎ/

1. all positions: [ ʎ | lʲ | j | ʒ ] Tolla, Tolya, Toya, Toža the god Tolya

/β/

1. #_ , _(C)(#) [ β, ʙ | b | v | w ]

• /ɔβ/ 'many' [ ɔʙ ɔb ɔv ɔw ]

2. V_V [ ʙ | ʙ | v | w ]

• /hɔβɛ/ 'we' [ hɔʙɛ jɔʙɛ ɔvɛ wɔwɛ ]

• [ʙ] is a feature of upper class urban speech. This feature is spreading among the other dialects

Noun Phrase

Structure

The order of the noun phrase is based on the following function:

NP: [(Determiner) Noun (Modifier)]

The determiner slot is further subdivided into

D: [(article/deitic) (possessive pronoun) (number) (non-numeric quantifier)] Noun

lo di

the tree

l-oβ di

the many trees

ežou di

your tree

• cf l-ežou di, DEF-2sg.POSS tree, ' your tree (as opposed to mine or his)'. Mumbá and Nurol extended the definite article to all nouns modified by a possessive pronoun.

ahei iš oa di

my six all tree

all my six trees

Articles and Deictics

	Clitic	Meaning
	lo	the
	wo/ǔ	a, some
	do	topicalizer, 'as for'
	go	this
	šo	that

When these particles precede an atonic vowel-initial nominal, they elide to their initial consonant.

*wo/ǔ-ah-->w-ah
a woman

*gǒ-all-->g-all
this fire

The clitic u is not used as a catch all indefinite article. Compare:

• d-ah oadoula
• TOP woman came, as for a woman who came

• w-ah oadoula
• INDEF woman came, a single woman came

Possessive Pronouns

There are six possessive pronouns. Plural forms were created from unstressed enclitic pronouns.

	Person	Pronoun
	1	ahei, hoβe
	2	ežou, žong
	3	a, awer

Non-Numeric Quantifiers

	Quantifier	Meaning
	wa	a few, a minority of
	nam	some, however many
	oβ	many, lots of
	hi	most
	mei	no, none of
	oa	all, each

Numbers

Number	Cardinal	Ordinal	x10
1	ke	ike
2	ni	ini	nirou
3	woa	uwou	woarou
4	boa	ubou	boarou
5	du	udu	durou
6	iš	hiš	šurou
7	mem	imẽ	mẽrou
8	son	isõ	sõrou
9	nil	inil	nurou
10	roa		urou

Other important numbers: keiša 100, keišrou 1000, roašou 10,000

Naidda borrowed, 1, 4, and 8 from Fáralo and were in common use. In designing the standard, the framers sought to purge this "foreign" influence from the nascent language. Nonetheless, the Fáralo numbers šei, bu, dei are still used, but are considered hallmarks of uneducated speech.

Place Holder for Content

Chain of languages: Revival of Faralo and Adata in Neire Wippwo

As the state of the Republic of Hana gained in power, its political and cultural leaders turned to the heritage of Huyfarah and the Empire of Athale. Works of art - in literature, painting, architecture - were commissioned in the style of Athale and Ussor that recalled the splendor at the noontide of these imperial powers. The classical texts of statecraft and the histories of Idores, Kheponon, and Etou were reread and commented upon, informing the organization of the Serene Republic. Etugeist philosophers contended with strange ideas and foreign philosophies brought back with merchants returning from as far afield as Zeluzhia and Xšalad. Science and medicine received the patronage of wealthy merchants and the state alike. New words relating to these fields were borrowed, sometimes forming doublets with words borrowed centuries ago.

The chart below shows the Fáralo word and the two Neire Wippwo words for which it is a shared etymon. Translation and commentary on the doublets are offered in the gloss.

	Etymon	Borrowed lexeme	N.W. lexeme	gloss
	lega	lega	lleǧa	F. language > NW. language; borrowed as 'discourse'
	mastač	mestaš	mašša	F. 'administration, bureaucracy' > NW. 'gang'
	utúči	utuši	tuž	F. 'commit suicide' > NW. 'quit, give up'
	ngastís	ŋastis	ngahtã	F. 'fraud', is origin of NW. ngahtã 'swindler, cheater'
	ngahab	ŋahab	ŋaḇa	F. 'eating' > NW. 'manners, decorum; fine dining'; borrowed as a medical term 'mastication'
	iāsi	yasi	hahi	Ad. 'tool' > NW. 'thingy, doodad'; borrowed as 'instrument, tool'
	huzāia	huzaya	huža	Ad. 'sanctuary > NW. 'safe, strongbox'; borrowed as 'refuge, sanctuary'
	koia	kouya	kožell	Ad. 'language' > NW. 'slang, jargon' (via Namidu); borrowed as 'dialect'

Verbal Content

Irrealis is marked as a prefix on the main verb

h- before vowels:

• houdouloa ora Uhoa 'he might come to Ussor'

ei- before /s S z Z/ z>Z #_ :

• eižomã Šalatžou 'he might learn Xšali'

s- before /p t k f h~x/ and elsewhere:

• Šouna swimei ni Šalat, mašou swimei ni Wippwo 'If I lived in Xshalad, I would not live in Wippwo'

z- before /b d g v G/ :

• Steḇa zboreloa l-ẽlou steḇa wimloa ǧẽ lo ǧin 'he would own the farm if he lived with the goats (ie, in the countryside)'

A particle zez ‘maybe’ has been borrowed from Namidu and functions as a discourse particle:

• Daull eižomã Šalatžou loša? -Zez, eisteiloa še ‘Your friend isn't learning Xšali, isn't he. -Maybe,... yeah, he might tho’

Negative Irrealis

sm(a)-:

• steḇa smoudouyei 'I would not come'
• steḇa smaboreyei ẽlou 'I would not own'

Verbal Nouns

active: -h

• kupeih 'hitting' AVN

passive: -ha

• kupeiha 'getting hit' PVN

If a verbal noun is the head of a noun phrase, it requires determiners.

• Gẽḇẽ lo kupeiha
• hurt-3s>1s the hit-PNV 'Getting hit hurt me'

• Gẽḇẽ lo kupeih om Gungo!
• hurt-3sg>1sg the hit-AVN GEN.3sg Gungo - ‘Gungo’s punch hurt me!’

Negation

Head of NP -- mei Modifier -- m(a)

ežo mei šinah mei gẽḇẽ -- 'Your heartlessness did not hurt me'

Ežo nizzi ma šinah smoudoula ǧẽzou -- 'Your unloving wife would never come with you'

Sample Text

Tsinakan Stele

Stei meiloa git Šengã, lo žah košõ om lo lo om Kaš; lo mužo om lo šoudol ã lo šor:

Sla peha γin lo spo om ahei meββe ei, steβõ l-oa laša hi, hullõ wei. Git meiβõ lo laša šo hi.

AUX(NF-IMP) say-he Šengã, DEF-king great, DEF-king of DEF-land of.3 Kasca, DEF-brother of DEF-sun and DEF-moon, thus:

Before.3 sit-AVN with.3 DEF-throne of my father I, COP(NF-IMP)-they DEF-all country foreign, hostile for.1. Thus say-they DEF-country nearby foreign:

== An ados lament (adopted from a medieval Galician poem)

Do-lõze ni lo-Kana šouna moareloa

Ewurei steiža minõ dahmoh poa

N malou kenouyei

Ero meilou: "Ni nãlou na fatei

Ni šit reβou do-lõze

Ngou wou va smedaβe

N šouna mausu galou".

Because in the world the truth has faded,

I decided to go a-searching for it

and wherever I asked

everybody said: 'search in another place

because truth is lost in such a way

such as we can have no news of it

and it's no longer around here'.

[dO.'lO~.zE ni lO.'ka.n@ 'So.n@ mwa.'rE5.w@

E.'wu.re 'ste.Z@ 'mi.nO~ dam:ox pw@

E~ 'ma.lo kE.'no.je

'E.rO 'melo ni 'na~.lo na 'fa.te

ni Sit 're.Bo dO.'lO~.zE

No wo va smE.'da.BE

E~ 'So.n@ 'mau.su 'ga.o]

as for-truth in def-world AOR dark-3sg

decide-1sg NF.INCP go search.AVN for.3sg

and wherever ask.PRET

everyone say.PRET-3sg in.3sg someplace IMP search

in.3sg that.way lost as for-truth

as of.3sg ABIL NEG.IRR-have

and it NEG.now here

== A Voyage to Xshalad, Diaries of Nirroh Vianoalle the captain of a galleon - the Dâdâh Fisas ('The Dancing Villain') - who plied the trade route from Kasca to the Isles, thence to Zeluzh, and finally Ralpir Sunax (Sandmouth), his last port of call in territory controlled by the Western 3rd Dynasty.

Slahaoḇa, lo Tolláž 23 Weḇa bordaúšõ šou tatužu nušohẽ a Lohtei-koutáš Tungoulou'

Spring Month 2, Day 23 - I have received the trading commission from Lady Lohtei Tungoulou.

Wei gangodušõ ožḇe wou noge n musã a koutášoḇe: 200 tikou om boama n mõž hiding; 50 tikou om woatã; 50 tikou om zivvinei; 7 tikou om allúž (BBEI noaraγiwã [lit. drink] va lo huhpa); 6 tikou om yasi n zeiyoutehlou n lo hiding ha lo woḇudu wou lo oḇyoloa lleida lo kedagéž Saγãyẽ wou lo nušo wou l-awer šeulli ha lo tungou lõze [lit. true rock] n ha lo kažall n wou lo turo tengẽ [lit. sparkling metal] om lo moahlou [origin] ni l-awer snon.

We are to transport for our patroness' profit and gain: 200 tons of grain and sundry seeds; 50 tons of leather; 50 tons of wool cloth; 7 tons of spirits and liquors (NOT for the crew's use); 6 tons of steel tools, weapons and sundry items for sale among the primitives of Zeluzh in exchange for their obsidian, in the form of raw rock and jewelry, and sundry precious metals native to their lands.

Lo hoḇe koutáš mišefi žaḇu sosmeill a rumia [lit. paper of credit] om moudu om 500,000 nira wou võsadah lo boada om 20 tikou om perḇo ni Šalat n wou...

Our patroness has also provided us with papers of credit in the amount of 500,000 nira to finance the purchase of 20 tons of spices in Xshalad and for...'

== An Appeal to Liberty (a tract arguing for Kascan unification under the leadership of the Republic of Hana, remembered in posterity as a soaring anti-monarchical, republican text) WIP