Early Kämpya

Early Kämpya is a creole that was a predecessor to Kämpya. It developed in the future, after Antarctica was settled by a wave of refugees fleeing runaway climate change. It took most of its vocabulary from English, but was heavily influenced by a number of East Asian languages, most notably Japanese, Taiwanese and Burmese.

Phonology

Vowels

The vowel system is simplified compared to English, but more complex than Kämpya. There are 7 vowels /a ɛ ɔ e o i u/. Diphthongs can be formed from any non-high vowel + /i/ or /u/.

Consonants

	Labial	Dental	Alveolar	Palatal	Velar	Glottal
Stop	pʰ p b		tʰ t d		kʰ k g
Nasal	m		n		ŋ
Fricative	f	θ ð	sʰ s z			h
Approximant	w		l	j

The fricatives /θ/ /ð/ are in free variation with the affricates [tθ] [dð].

Phonotactics

The only syllable shapes allowed were (C) V (C) (C). The only consonant clusters permitted in syllable codas were those consisting of a voiceless stop or nasal + /s/. However, sequences of stop + /s/ were in free variation with /s/ + stop. So /lits/ - "list" could also be pronounded [list]. Approximants, voiced fricatives and aspirated consonants could not occur in syllable codas.

Stress

One syllable of each word was stressed. The placement of this syllable was phonemic. Monophthongs in stressed syllables could be either long or short (e.g. /dak/ - "duck" vs. /daːk/ - "dark") , except word finally, when they could only be long e.g. /faː/ - "far".

Sonorant Devoicing

The high vowels /i/ and /u/ devoiced under certain conditions. Specifically:

• They had to be in an open, unstressed syllable.
• The onset of the syllable had to be either /h/, or an aspirated consonant.
• They could not be followed by a voiced obstruent.

So for example /sʰuˈtɔp/ - "stop" was pronounced [sʰu̥ˈtɔp].

If a voiceless vowel was followed by a sonorant, then this also became voiceless e.g. /sʰuˈnau/ - "snow" was pronounced [sʰu̥ˈn̥au].

Grammar

Pronouns

Pronouns were mostly borrowed from English, and displayed a nominative-accusative alignment.

	Nominative	Accusative	Possessive
1st Person Singular	ɔi	mi	mɔi
1st Person Plural	wei	lan	ɛu
2nd Person	jeu	ŋi	jo
3rd Person	ðai	swi	ðe
Reflexive	N/A	se	N/A
Interrogative	bɛ	ke	zwe

The interrogative pronouns could be used to mean either "who" or "what".

Like English, the possessive pronouns came before the nouns they modified e.g. /jo=sip/ - "your ship". However, due to Spanish influence, the accusative pronouns came before the verbs they modified, not afterwards e.g. /mi=hit/ - "hit me".

There is also an anti-logophoric 3rd person possessive pronoun /ði/ (descended from English "the"). It is used to indicate that the possessor is not someone already mentioned in the sentence e.g.

/ðai hit ðe=dɔg/

3PS.NOM hit 3PS.POSS=dog

He hit his (his own) dog.

vs.

/ðai hit ði=dɔg/

3PS.NOM hit 3PS.POSS.ANTLOG=dog

He hit his (someone else's) dog.

Emphatic Pronouns

There are two emphatic pronouns. /bwos/ is a second person emphatic pronoun, really only used when accusing the listener of something. /kjen/ is an interrogative emphatic pronoun, corresponding to English "who the hell" or "what the hell".

Articles

The earliest stages of the language lacked articles. However, within a few generations of speakers, the numeral for "one" - /wan/ had grammaticalised to an indefinite article, and lost the /n/ before another consonant e.g. /wa=sip/ - "one ship".

Demonstratives

Originally, there was a 3-way distance contrast in demonstratives, borrowed from Burmese. /da/ - "this" vs. /hou/ - "that" vs. /huˈlaːns/ - "over there". However, two more adjectives became grammaticalised as demonstratives, /tʰek/ for things uphill from / above the speaker, and /auk/ for things downhill from / below the speaker. /huˈlaːns/ underwent a semantic shift, only referring to things that the speaker could not see.

Possession

Posessors were marked with the enclitic /zu/, and preceded the nouns that they modified e.g. /dɔg=zu baun/ - "the dog's bone".

Number

In the very earliest stages of the creole, some speakers marked plural using the suffix /s/, where it was phonotactically permissible e.g. /kʰɛt/ - "cat", /kʰɛts/ - "cats". However, this was lost quite quickly, and the language stopped marking number.

Transitivity

All verb phrases had to begin with an auxiliary verb, that marked transitivity. Orginally, this had to agree with the subject in number, so there were four such particles.

	Singular Subject	Plural Subject
Intransitive	gets	get
Transitive	ˈizu	aː

These derived from English "get", "gets", "is" and "are" respectively.

However, these auxiliary verbs went through a number of stages.

First, except for pronouns number agreement was lost. The singular forms began to be used regardless of the number of the subject.

Secondly, the intransitive forms were lost.

After that, the stress on the transitive auxiliary verb shifted to the final syllable, so it became /iˈzu/.

It wasn't long before the first syllable on /iˈzu/ was lost. So transitivity was now marked by /zuː/, except for plural pronouns when it was /aː/.