Eppaya

Ǝppaya, also written Eppaya where ASCII is preferable and Əppaya where the Pan-Nigerian alphabet is outlawed (and alternatively called Eppaina) is a language based loosely on Romance languages, principally Spanish. It has undergone a few transformative sound shifts and processes to appear quite different to its parent languages. The language is a quick experiment and is intended to have a sort of islander aesthetic. The language was created by CEIGE⟨TAWK⟩ and started off as as just a joke, referring to a comment by someone else about variation with the following: "Sainta Bairazón, lýranos/lírvanos de normaildá" ("Holy Variation, deliver us from normality", a spin off of the Paternoster). Such romlanging was not enough to sate die Chaoslust, thus further transformations had to take place.

Introduction

Resources on Eppaya are scarce, primarily because many speakers have moved onto a more advanced version of the language known as Abe.

Phonology

Eppaya is set apart from average romance languages phonologically by ~4 major processes (although these processes are applied to the romance languages and not necessarily Latin):

• Metathesis: Consonants next to /j/ and sometimes /i/ switch with that element, for example bairazón (from variación) and normaildá (from normalidad). In addition, /r/ and /l/ switch with following plosives and fricatives, thus lírvanos (from líbranos). One could sum up this hierarchy as (from most likely to be on the left to most likely to be on the right) as approximants, sonorants, fricatives, and finally plosives. This leads to a syllable rearrangement resembling CVASFP, although a syllable with all those slots filled (e.g. *cairvt) would be highly unusual. The ambiguity between fricatives and approximants in some romance languages leads to alternatives like lýranos (cf. lírvanos above).
• Assimilation: As the language progresses towards CVCV, certain neighbouring consonants (and vowels) may combine. For example, bairazón yields bayazón. Sometimes this may not occur, though, thus bairazón may stay intact.
• Debuccalisation: /s/ in coda position becomes /h/ and then turns the preceding vowel voiceless. The vowel is then reduced (to either /ǝ/ or /i/), and the /h/ then later combines with the next consonant if possible to form a "double consonant" (whether these are actually geminated, glottalised, preaspirated, "tensed", or a complete fiction is currently under debate within Eppainese universities, high schools, and nursing homes). If lucky, a reduced vowel may be reinstated as a proper vowel after taking on traits from nearby vowels. For example, ǝppaya (from España), but kuǝtta, kwǝtta /kotta/ (from cuesta).
• Loss of Distinction: Voicing distinction is lost after speakers simply stop caring about the state of the language. /þ/ and /ð/ merge into a single letter "z", /b/ merges into /p/, etc.

After some amount of other arbitrary alterations (e.g. bairazón -> belazo(nǝ/ni), the Eppainese language is complete. Top with cream, serves 3 million.

Orthography

Due to the loss of voicing distinction and no need for Q, the Eppainese have started to use b and p, and d and q by analogy, interchangeably. Double consonants may informally be replace by an apostrophe, 'okina, or straight quotation marks, or occasionally other symbols like a hash or the at-strudel e.g. ǝ#aya and ǝ@aya for the name of the language.

Consonants

Letters	Phonemes
p, b	p, b
t, d, q	t, d
k, g, (ð)	k, g
ch, c, j, zh	tS, dZ
v, f	v, f
z, (d, q)	ð, þ
s	z, s
y	j
w, gu, gw	w
h, (g, ð)	ɣ̞, x, h
l, r	l, r
m	m
n	n

Vowels

Vowels are largely cardinal, with the exception of the mid-central vowel, which is free to follow its dreams.

Grammar

Pronouns and Pronominal clitics

Clitics are added onto the end of verbs as objects in an imperative or infinitive phrase, e.g. liva-nǝh, free us. Otherwise they are added to the start of the verb. Subject pronouns are standalone words that come before the verb phrase. Without a subject pronoun, a phrase is inherently mediopassive and intransitive. For example, nǝlliva would mean "we free ourselves" or "we are free". However, with a pronoun, such as "tu nǝlliva", the meaning changes to active transitive, e.g. "you free us". Clarifying the mediopassive sense can be done by reduplication or explicitly using a standalone pronoun, e.g. nǝnǝlliva (note that nǝnǝ- does not become nǝnnǝ-) or nuǝtta nǝlliva. If for whatever reason a null-object is desired, that is possible too, but marking is preferred using kǝ- or alo-, alǝ-

Table of Pronouns

Person	Standalone	Etymology	Clitic	Etymology
1sg	mi, cho	mi, yo	me	me
2sg	tu	tu	te	te
3sg	ze, zei, dei	de + él, ella, ello	lo, la	lo, la
1pl	nuǝtta	nuestra	nǝh	nos
2pl	buǝtta	vuestra	vǝh	vos
3pl	zeyǝh, zei, dei	de + ellos	lǝh	los, las
Formal	dǝtté, zǝtté	de usted	lo, la	lo, la
Something #1	kosa	cosa	kǝh	cos-
Something #2	alo	algo	alo	algo
Someone	luno	alguno	lu	lu-

"Cho" can be used ala "ego", and refer to the self.

This may need trimming and tidying up though. Otherwise apart from these grammatically complicated pronouns, the class is an open class, and just about any appropriate noun can be used as a pronoun.