Papotement

Papotement
Gnun Tongo
Pronunciation	[ɲun ˈto.ŋo]
Native to	Carucere
Native speakers	~500,000
Language family	Estmerish-based creole Arucian West Moutagnar creole Papotement
Writing system	Solarian using the Papotement alphabet.
Official status
Official language in	Carucere
Regulated by	National Academy of Papotement
Language codes
ISO 639-3	par
The location of Carucere, where Papotement is spoken

Papotement (IPA: [pa.pɔ.te.mɑ̃]), locally rendered as Paputemanti (IPA: [paːputeˈmanti]), commonly known as Gnun Tongo (IPA: [ɲun ˈto.ŋo]), is a Estmerish-based creole language spoken by over half a million people in the Asterias. It is the most widely spoken language in Carucere, serving as the unofficial national language of the country.

Papotement has its origins from a basic pidgin language spoken between Bahians and Gowsa workers in the mid to late 19th century, but the modern form of the language originates from the post-Great War period during the 1940s and 1950s. The vocabulary and grammar of Papotement reflects its synthesis of the Moutagnar creole spoken by Bahio-Carucereans and the Ziba language spoken by gowsa workers. Gaullican also plays a major role in the creole, introducing many loanwords. Despite its relatively recent emergence, the language has quickly developed in complexity, in part due to the array of languages influencing it.

While Gaullican still remains the language of prestige, Papotement is the lingua gaullica of the Republic of Carucere. Carucereans tend to speak Papotement at home and in media; Gaullican is limited to administration and educational purposes. Although Carucereans are of Satrian, Southeast Coian, Bahian, and Euclean origins, Papotement has gradually replaced the ancestral languages of most of the population to become the primary home language of the country.

Etymology

The word papute originates from Gaullican papoter ("to chat, chatter"). The word papotement is formed by adding the noun-forming suffix -ment. The word is ultimately derived from a colloquial term by Gaullican colonial administrators and settlers to refer to the pigin spoken between Bahian and Gowsa workers in the late 19th century. It was originally used to differentiate it from the preexisting Moutagnar creole language spoken by Bahians, then known as Carucerean Creole by the Gaullicans. The term papotement continued to be used as the pigin developed into a full language. As the Moutagnar creole was subsumed into Papotement, some now use "Carucerean Creole" to refer to the latter.

The language's most commonly name used by native speakers is Gnun Tongo (lit. "New Tongue"), which references its status and origin as a newer language. Other native names for Papotement include Karuku Tongo and Paputemanti.

History

Estmere was the first Euclean power to settle the island in the early 16th century after the destruction of the Karukera Confederacy. The decimation of the majority of the native population resulted in only a small portion of Papute vocabulary deriving from the Nati language. During the 300 year rule of the colony, the population largely consisted of Euclean settlers and soldiers with some slaves. The language that developed was based on Estmerish, but differed greatly from the language spoken by the slave owners. This pidgin language eventually became the native language of the children of the slaves, where it developed into a creole.

Under Gaullican rule from 1724 to 1770, they rebuilt the plantation economy by importing additional slaves from across Southern Bahia to replace the slaves that escaped. There was only minor Gaullican influence on the creole as Gaullican rule was brief, the size of the native Gaullican settler population on the island was small, the enslaved population was segregated from the colonists, and the slaves lacked any kind of formal education. The new slaves learned the Estmerish-based creole from recaptured Maroons or those who never escaped, and adopted it as their main language.

After the Asterian War of Secession, Estmere once again took control of the island. The abolition of slavery in the 1790s led many Bahians to leave the plantations and form their own communities, where the creole language continued to evolve. Meanwhile, splits in the Amendist Church in Estmere in the early 19th century, led to several evangelical and fundamentalist churches seeking to convert the free Bahian population to Amendism. As part of their mission, they also taught Estmerish to them to create an educated class of Estmerish speakers. Despite their attempts to suppress the Moutagnar creole, it continued to be spoken by the population.

Gaullica regained control of the island after the War of the Triple Alliance in 1854. Gaullica once again sought to establish a plantation economy, but they could no longer depend on slavery. Instead indentured workers from modern day Dezevau known as gowsa were brought to replace the freed slaves and became the plurality population on the island by the 1870s. Unlike the Bahian slaves before them who spoke a multitude of languages, the gowsas universally used Ziba to communicate with each other. As a growing number gowsas were freed from their indentureship contracts, they began settling down and establishing communities across Carucere, where they began interacting with the pre-existing Bahian communities.

Consistent but limited language contact between the two cultures led to the creation of a pidgin language to communicate with each other. It is considered to be the earliest modern form of Papotement, albeit in simple nascent form. Individual reports of communication between the Gowsas and Bahians using the pidgins date to as early as the 1870s. Colonial administrators continued to discourage the use of any language other than Gaullican in formal settings, but the pidgin remained the main method of informal communication. Although it did not develop into a creole and remained a simple pidgin, it saw widespread use for communication between the two groups primarily for the purpose of business.

The end of the Great War and the collapse of Gaullican rule on the island led to significant hardship for the non white population. The post-war reconstruction into a semi-autonomous district under a Community of Nations mandate led to numerous and sustained interactions between Bahians and Gosas for the first time, where they used the pidgin to communicate with each other. Most pivotal for the development of modern Papotement was the introduction of universal nonsegregated schooling and early versions of day-care for all children. For young Bahian and Gosa adolescents, primary and secondary school was often the first time that many young people from different linguistic backgrounds interacted for long periods of time. To communicate, the students used the pidgin in school where it began to spread and develop rapidly with the introduction of more complex grammar rules and new vocabulary. A teacher named Roch Mathieu, who worked in a school in Carucere during the 1940s, wrote:

The next generation of children [in Carucere] speak a new language. The Gowsas and Bahians speak different languages but children have picked up a little of each language and have created a new tongue. Now they don't speak the languages originally spoken by their parents or the Gaullican we are supposed to teach them.

By the late 1940s, nearly all Bahian and Gosa children born in Carucere had exposure to Papotement during their childhood, at which point it was developing into a fully fledged language. The language faced widespread disapproval from older generations from all ethnic groups, especially by the Gaullican speaking elite, but the use of the language had become too widespread among young adults. The use of the language was often discouraged, but it emerged as a major part of the Arucian Naissance, when a new generation of political activists used Papotement to communicate. Papotement quickly became a symbol of Carucerean opposition and identity among Carucerean nationalists. As older generations were largely unfamiliar with the language, Papotement words and phrases were used as secret codes by them to conduct their activities. Various versions of Karuke Cheri Peji, the country's national anthem were written in Papotement around this time.

As the next generation of people were raised in Papotement, the language continued to change and began influencing the other languages on Carucere. During the 1960s and 1970s, the Moutagnar Bahian creole was gradually subsumed by Papotement and many young Dezevauni and Kachai people started favoring the language instead of Ziba. The language received additional support when President Jean Preval embraced the language as part of his progressive policies. The National Academy of Papotement, created to regulate the language, was founded in 1977. The Academy published the first dictionary starting in 1978, establishing definitions and pronunciations for many common words and phrases. However orthography remained unregulated, and spelling remained disparate. The Carucerean government began supporting an orthographic reform in 1980, with a system that generally follows Gaullican but eliminates silent letters and reduces the number of different ways in which the same sound can be written. It was formally codified in 1996 with the publication of the fourth edition of the Diksione Paputemanti.

Papotement has been the subject of a great amount of academic research. There is significant disagreement when Papotement developed from a simple pidgin into a full language, with studies proposing dates from as early as the 1930s to as late as the 1970s. Due to its recent emergence, Papotement has been intensively studied by academics studying language formation. It has also been the subject of many comparative studies, comparing how Papotement developed with other creoles such as Western Imaguan Creole.

Origin

Papotement is unique compared to other Asterian creole languages due to its very recent emergence and influences from an array of different languages. The Moutagnar language was traditionally considered to be the superstrate as it forms the foundation of the language, while Ziba is considered to be the substrate language. However, recent scholarship has argued that there is no clear superstrate-substrate relationship, as they have relatively equal influence on each other due to the nature of the contact and mutual influence. Instead they argue that both parent languages should be considered as adstrates. The complex interactions of these languages led to the formation of a pidgin in the late 19th century and the full creole in the 20th century.

There is significant debate on the relationship between Papotement and the Moutagnar creole. The current consensus is that Papotement emerged as an independent creole language from Moutagnar after it was heavily influenced by Ziba and Gaullican languages. However some argue that Papotement is a direct continuation of the Moutagnar creole albeit with heavy influence. Nevertheless the general consensus is that Papotement is a new creole that has emerged through the significant influence of Ziba on the original creole.

Moutagnar creole

The direct predecessor of Papotement is the Moutagnar creole or the Old Bahian creole (OBC) that developed during the 16th and 17th centuries. During Estermish rule, colonizers produced tobacco, cotton, and sugar cane on the islands. Throughout this period, the population was made of roughly equal numbers of white workers, settlers, free people of colour, and slaves. The slaves spoke an Estermish based creole. The majority of the Bahian slaves brought to the colony spoke a Southern Bahian language, particularly the Rwizi and Sisulu languages. It began as a pidgin spoken primarily by enslaved Bahians from various tribes in Suriname, who often did not have any language in common. As a result, a pidgin was formed from which a distinct creole emerged by the late 16th century. Known as the Bahian Creole, the majority of its vocabulary was derived from Estmerish, but its grammatical structure contained many features similar to South Bahian languages. These included some agglutinative features, but it was already much more analytical than its origin languages.

After Gaullica seized the colony in 1715, they sought to rapidly expand sugar production. The sugar crops needed a much larger labor force, which led to an increase in slave importation from Bahia. During this period an estimated 20,000 to 30,000 Bahian individuals were enslaved and brought to Saint-Brendan, nearly doubling the slave population. Although the Gaullican colonial authorities interacted very little with the slaves, the Estmerish creole was influenced by the introduction of the Gaullican language which contributed many loan words.

Ziba

Ziba was the main language spoken by gowsa workers imported to Carcuere in the mid to late 19th century. The gowsas were subject to gaullicanization efforts as part of the Holistique movement, which pressured them to adopt the Gaullican language. Thus by the time Papotement began to form, Ziba in Carucere was undergoing partial creolization with Guallica. The majority of Ziba's contributions to the creole are loanwords expressing complex ideas, specific cultural terms, and nuanced expressions. In addition Papotement has borrowed Ziba’s noun/adjective compounding and affixation, that allows the creole to form its complex terms.

Gaullican

The Gaullican language arrived in Carucere after the seizure of the islands in 1721, where it would be used as the main language of administration during the two periods of Gaullican colonial rule from 1721 to 1770 and 1854 to 1935, during the Arucian Federation from 1935 to 1945, and under the United Provinces from 1945 to 1953. During this time, the language has a significant impact on the development of the creole, especially in vocabulary; about 10-5% of the lexicon is of Gaullican origin. Gaullican has directly and indirectly influenced Papotement vocabulary.

Estmerish

During the Estmerish rule of Carucere from 1770 to 1855, evangelical and fundamentalist churches arrived in Carucere following major denominational splits in 1811 and 1844. Alongside converting the free Bahians to Amendism, they sought to teach them Estmerish to create an educated class to further increase conversions. The greatest influence of Estmerish in Papotement is through loanwords, especially for words of a religious nature such as "Lord". While most Papotement words of Estmerish origin were borrowed from the Bahian creole, which in turn derived some of their lexicon from Estmerish, some words were directly loaned from Estmerish.

Other Gowsa langauges

Although gowsas overwhelmingly spoke Ziba, the indentured workers were imported from a vast geographical area and usually spoke other languages. These languages include Kachai, Pelangi, Kabuese, and other South Bahian languages. However these languages gradually fell out of use as they primarily used Ziba to communicate and only has a minor influence in Papotement, although many loan words originates from these languages.

Varieties

Basic diagram of the Papotement ethnic dialect continuum.

Standard Papotement is defined by the Diksione Paputemanti and the Papotement Guide both published by the National Academy of Papotement. Standard Papotement was declared the national language in 1996 during the reforms throughout the 1990s and early 2000s that standardized its grammar, spelling, and pronunciation. However the National Academy has stated that the standardized language does not replace the various dialects of Papotement and was only standardized for use in formal situations such as education and media. However in the past few decades standardisation, mass media, and education has had a noticeable impact on the diversity and depth of the language's dialects which has caused some controversy and discussion.

Dialects

Unlike many other languages, Papotement's dialects correspond to Carucere's ethnic groups and the socioeconomic status of the speaker rather than geographic location. Carucere's size and population density means that dialects cannot be meaningfully distinguished from each other and instead exist on a continuum. Papotement forms a multi-polar dialect continuum between Carucerean Ziba, Moutagnar creole, Estmerish, and Gaullican, corresponding to the country's ethnic and religious groups. Nevertheless four broad categories can be ascertained determined by the amount of influence their parent languages have on the dialect. Influences largely manifest as distinct accents and the use of loanwords and slang from parent languages, which increase the greater the influence is. At the most extreme examples, the dialect is mutually intelligible with its parent language, even if standard Papotement is not. In recent decades, linguists have argued that Moutagnar creole was not completely subsumed by Papotement, but continues to exist as the main dialect spoken by Bahians, especially by the Maroons.

In addition, socioeconomic status adds another dimension to the language's dialect. Generally wealthier and more educated speakers of Papotement speak a dialect with more influence from Gaullican, while less wealthy speakers without higher education much less so. As with the ethnic dialects, they exist on a dialect continuum without distinct differences. They together form a complex variety of dialects across Carucere.

Phonology

Consonants

Papotement has a total of 24 consonants largely drawn from its source languages, mainly Moutagnar creole and Ziba, but it has developed a distinct inventory unique to the language. Notable features include distinguishing between voiced and unvoiced consonants and the usage of affricates. The phonology described here is for standardized Papotement; the language's distinct dialects include greater phonological influences from its substrate languages.

Consonant phonemes

		Bilabial	Labio-dental	Alveolar	Postalveolar / Palatal	Velar	Glottal
Plosive	Voiced	b		d	ɟ	g
	Voiceless	p		t		k
Nasal		m	ɱ	n	ɲ	ŋ
Fricative	Voiced		v	s
	Voiceless		f	z	ʃ		h
Affricates					d͡ʒ
Tap/Trill				r
Approximant			ʋ		j
Lateral Approximant				l

Vowels

Papotement has seven vowels, not including front and back long vowels.

Vowel phonemes

	Front	Central	Back
Close	iː    i		uː    u
Close-mid	eː		oː    o
Mid		ə
Open	aː    a		ɒː    ɒ

Diphthongs

Papotement has five diphthongs, [ai] [ui] [oi] [au] [ou], which are influenced by Moutagnar and Ziba. In Ziba loanwords in Papotement, both languages share the common diphthong [ai] while the Ziba diphthongs [ɯi] and [aɯ] are an allophones with the Papotement diphthongs [ui] and [au] respectively. The remainder of Ziba’s diphthongs are converted into monophthongs or long vowels in loanwords. [ɒa]➜ [a]
[iɒ] ➜ [i]
[iɯ] [ia] ➜[iː]
[ɯa] [ɯɑ]➜ [uː]
[aɒ] ➜ [aː]
[ɒi] [ɒɯ] [ɒu] ➜ [ɒː]

Phonotactics

Papotement uses a high number of nasalized vowels, palatalizes non-labial stops, and prenasalizes voiced stops. Consonant clusters are reduced at the end of words and many syllables are reduced to only a consonant and vowel.

• The most common consonant cluster is CV (one consonant, one vowel) which aligns with Ziba; however longer clusters from Moutagnar creole like CV, CCV, and CCVC are used.
• Like most creole languages, Papotement has a tendency to have an open syllabic structure, meaning there are many words ending in vowels. This feature is strengthened by its tendency to delete consonants at the end of words, especially when the preceding vowel is unstressed.
• Nasalization is phonemic in Papotement, caused by the deletion of final nasal consonants. The nasal feature is kept, even if the consonant has been dropped.
• In Standard Papotement, the phonemes /b̪/ and /ð̠/ found in Ziba loanwords are generally realized as /b/, and /z/ respectively and form allophones. In certain dialects closer to Carucerean Ziba, they form separate phonemes.
• Many Papotement speakers tend to palatalize the velar consonants /ɡ/ and /k/ preceding /ɑː/. Sometimes they also palatalize alveolar consonants, such as /t/, /d/, and /n/.
• Similiar to other creole languages, Papotement has a tendency to reduce consonant clusters no matter where they occur. Final consonant clusters are almost always reduced by dropping the second consonant. Initial and medial occurrences are reduced much less consistently.
• When /r/ occurs at the end of a word, it is always deleted. When it occurs in the middle of a word, it is sometimes deleted leaving a residual vowel length.
• Like Moutagnar creole, dental fricatives (/θ/ /ð/) are absent, the alveolar stops /t/ and /d/ are used instead.
• Unstressed initial vowels are often deleted in Papotement. Sometimes this can lead to a glottal stop instead.
• Stress is evenly distributed across syllables, meaning that the prosody of Papotement is different from its parent languages. Although there is not any consistent pattern to stress, it is reserved mainly for content words and is identified by a higher pitch.

Grammar

Papotement is an analytical language like most creoles, but it features a greater degree of grammatical complexity due to heavy influence from the highly agglutinative nature of Ziba. It has a subject-verb-object (SVO) word order reminiscent of its parent language. The language's structure is a synthesis of simplified grammatical patterns typical of creole languages, such as verb conjugation and copula dropping, contrasted with Ziba's grammatical complexity with the inclusion of complex noun phrases and inflection. Papotement's sentence structure is closely aligned with Gaullican grammar.

Nouns

In Papotement, nouns are typically simple and feature limited inflection for pluralization, possession, and case marking. However the influence of Ziba's noun and adjective compounding and affixation results in highly complex noun phrases that can express complex concepts.

Papotement noun phrases are typically formed through compounding adjectives and nouns together, placing modifiers before or after nouns, using particles to indicate relationships, inserting prepositions or postpositions, using relative clauses, and reduplication of some or all of a word. Noun phrases typically has the following structure:

Article, Demonstrative, Quantifier or Possessive + Adjective or Adjective string + Modifying Noun + Head Noun + Auxiliary Elements

Grammatical case

Papotement only marks two cases, the accusative case and the genitive case. The accusative case, marked with the affix “-a”, is typically used for nouns and pronouns when the direct object of a sentence is unclear or the speaker wants to emphasize the direct object. The genitive case is marked with the affix “-mia” and attached to the noun that is possessing.

Pronouns

Papotement's singular and plural personal pronouns lack grammatical gender entirely. For example so, which also functions as a possessive pronoun, is equivalent to "his/her". Papotement also has the pronoun, li which can cover all plural pronouns and the third-person singular pronoun, regardless of case or gender. Thus li can be translated as "he, she, it, him, his, her, and hers" depending on the context. As a result, pronouns function like nouns, maintaining their form regardless of position in a sentence. Reflexive personal pronouns are created by agglutinating the suffix mem (same) to a pronoun; to ("you") tomem ("yourself"). The possessive pronoun is “fi”

Adjectives

To form adjectives, grammatical markers are placed next to nouns or, less commonly, adjective forming suffixes are used. For example, the adjective-forming suffix -bo ("made of", "full of") in Ziba is used in Papotement as a general marker in front of the noun. Compare Ziba zuanibibo ("made of sandstone") with Papotement bo gre ("[made] of sandstone"). Adjectives and modifiers precede head nouns for descriptive precision.

Articles

Papotement's definite article la is placed after the noun. The Papotement indefinite article en is placed before the noun.

Demonstratives

The word sa ("this" "that") is used as a demonstrative after the noun that it modifies. It may also be used as a pronoun, replacing a noun.

Verbs

Verbs in Papotement are typically not conjugated for common grammatical categories such as tense, number, or person. Instead of being inflected, most grammatical categories are displayed through adverbs or grammatical markers. Tense, mood and aspect are most commonly displayed through grammatical markers. Verbs precede subjects and objects in most cases; adverbs and adverbial phrases often come before verbs, similar to Ziba.

Verb inflection in Papotement are not used for common grammatical categories; instead it can be used to change the meaning of a sentence, it can show emphasis, grammatical polarity, or politeness. The conjugations are usually derived from Ziba and attached on stems from Moutagnar creole. For example, ve- ”not” in "Li mi vegaan da skool"' “He did not go to school”, literally “He not went to school” and -jia “near, besides” in “Di kyat doz waakjia da skool”, “The cat used to walk near the school”

Tense is determined by an appropriate grammatical marker placed next to a noun or pronoun. No markers are needed to indicate present tense, but Papotement's three additional tenses are; pe marking progressive aspect, pou marking the future tense, and ti marking the past tense. Tense markers can be combined to create combination markers to create more complex phrases. For example, combining the markers ti with pe creates the marker ti pe, which signifies an ongoing event but in the past. Two major verbs are ena ("there is", "there are", "have") and pena the negative of the former. Ex: Ena en buk ("There is a book"), Pena buk (There is no book).

Papotement has three aspect markers indicating continuous, habitual, and completed actions. The continuous tense is made with the marker di preceding the verb. The competitive aspect is marked by the marker don which indicates that the action of the verb has been completed. The habitual aspect in Papotement are marked by doz, ysetu, or aalwayz which indicates that the action of the verb occurs or recurs over an extended period of time.

There is only one copula in Papotement, the word ete which is only used when referring to a temporary state or location of a person or object. The copula is omitted when referring to the inherent qualities of an object or person, forming in essence a stative verb form. Copulas in all other situations are dropped in Papotement.

Adverbs

Adverbs and participles are typically formed by grammatical markers. Examples are the negative marker ve, which changes the verb's meaning to the negative and the marker ju equivalent to Estmerish "-ly". Markers are placed before the word it modifies or can be attached as an affix.

Reduplication is one of the defining features of Papotement; where a whole word is repeated, or a part of a word, or a word of similar meaning is inserted after to modify the meaning of a word. It is commonly used to indicate frequency or intensity of the action indicated by the original verb stem. Typically for a short word, the whole word is repeated or a word of similar meaning is inserted after the word it modifies. For longer words, the first syllable of the original word is commonly affixed instead. For example, nak means "to knock", nak nak means "to knock repeatedly".

In addition it can be used to emphasize the meaning of the repeated word in the context that it is used. For example So ron ron faas ("He runs fast") means that he has been consistently running fast, while So kouri faas faas ("He runs fast") emphasizes the speed of the running. Words can be repeated more than twice to further emphasize the meaning, although this can become cumbersome and is typically only used for comedic effect. Due to the nature of Papotement, sometimes reduplication is performed by using different words derived from its parent languages that share similar meanings.

Papotement uses the prefix ve- and two different words for negation noh and neva. Neva implies that an event did not occur at one specific instance.

Syntax

Papotement largely uses subject–verb–object word order. The language allows complex noun phrases, which can include long relative clauses, within a SVO sentence. This is similar to Ziba grammar with grammatical markers taking the place of conjunctions and compounding. Paoptement most commonly uses direct object-nun construction ("The woman gave her son the money.") than indirect object constructions ("The woman gave the money to her son."), although the latter is used when the indirect object is the focused element. Relative clauses are created with the marker na (approximately "that") placed in front of the clause.

Number and plurals

Papotement has a few methods to mark plurality in a sentence. The plural marker dehn can be placed after a noun to make the noun plural; for example: gyal dehn meaning “girls”. Like Ziba, nouns can be marked as plural by duplicating the first syllable of a noun at the end of the word; due to its similarities with reduplication it is often used to emphasize that it is plural. Finally it can be determined by context; for instance, zibu buk is "several books"; while the individual word buk' implies a singular book, including the term zibu ("several") implies there are multiple books. The Papotement indefinite article en also is the number one, so "one book" and "a book" are both translated as en buk in creole.

Lexicon

Papotement vocabulary is mainly derived from Moutagnar creole and Ziba, which each make up around 40% of the total vocabulary; the remainder of the vocabulary is mostly from Gaullican. As Moutagnar creole played a significant role in the initial communication and contact between the speakers, basic vocabulary and everyday terms necessary for communication primarily comes from this creole. Words forming complex ideas, specific cultural terms, and nuanced expressions are drawn from Ziba, and the intricate noun/adjective compounding and affixation from the language plays a significant role in forming unique terms. While Gaullican influence is minor in comparison to the other sources, it still has a presence, particularly in formal contexts and domains related to education and government. In addition academic and technical terminology are mostly derived from Gaullican.

The vocabulary of Moutagnar creole originates from 16th to 17th century Estermish and thus often maintains archaic definitions and pronunciations. For example, the "silent" consonants found in the consonant clusters of modern Estmerish in words such as knot, gnat, and sword continued to be pronounced by Moutagnar creole and left an influence in modern Papotement. Another notable contribution is bledi from Estmerish "bloody", although it is only used as an intensifier and completely lacks any profane connotations. Some loanwords originate from the second period of Estmerish rule due to basic education by Admendist churches, but the majority originates from the first period.

Ziba is the second largest source of words in Papotement. The majority of these loanwords were concepts, objects, and ideas introduced by the gowsas and their descendants from their place of origin. These include contributions such as Papotement bònge from Ziba venge ("breadfruit"), daubo mnògjui from daubo mhedhui ( "congee"), zibu ("several"), and Djòbu ("many; more than twenty") from dhebu ("twenty" "many"). Many Ziba words were directly borrowed with the root word and affix to form whole words in Papotement. Examples include bidui ("side street" "alley") from bi- ("little") -dui ("street"). In addition many grammatical markers originate from Ziba grammatical suffixes, such as Papotement zua (in the likeness of) from Ziba -jua ("-like").

The remainder of Papotement's vocabulary is largely derived from Gaullican from the late 19th century, albeit with some changes in pronunciation, spelling, and morphology. Nevertheless the majority of these words remains largely intelligible with Standard Gaullican. A few words originate from the first period of Gaullican colonial rule, but the vast majority come from the second period of Gaullican rule.

There are minor influences from Southern Bahian languages, such as makutu from eOnikhuma makhwatta "(running sore)" and other Southeast Coian languages, such as kawo niòu ("sticky rice") from Kachai ເຂົ້າໜຽວ (khao niāu). Other minor sources include Champanian, Nati, and various regional languages.

Due to its complex history, many Papotement words that originate from different languages share similar definitions. For example, the Papotement words rele ("to call by name") and heil ("to greet informally") both have similar meanings but are derived from different languages; the former comes from Gaullican héler ("to call over loudly") and the latter from Estmerish hail ("to greet"). This is often a source of word play in Papotement.

Orthography

Papotement is written in the Solarian script with a phonemic orthography with highly regular spelling, except for proper nouns and foreign loanwords. According to the official standardized orthography, the Papotement alphabet is composed of 34 letters. Long vowels are supposed to be officially marked by duplicated letters, but in colloquial text and other informal situations it is usually left unmarked.

Consonants Papotement orthography IPA b b ch ʃ d d f f g ɡ gj ɟ h h j d͡ʒ k k l l m m mn ɱ n n gn ɲ ng ŋ p p r r s s t t v v z z Semivowels w ʋ y j

Vowels Papotement orthography IPA a a e e ee eː i i ii iː o o oo oː ò ə ou ɒ oou ɒː u u uu uː Diphthongs ai ai ui uɪ oi ɔɪ au aʊ ia ia

Sociolinguistics

The vast majority of Carucereans speak Papotement on a daily basis, especially in informal situations. Although both Gaullican and Papotement are de facto official languages in Carucere, Gaullican has long enjoyed greater social status and is the main language in government, business, and education. While Papotement was traditionally considered to be the low language in the diglossic relationship between the two languages in society, since the 1970s, the use of the language has been supported by the government. They have encouraged the use of Papotement in media; The Strait, Carucere's paper of record, publishes its primary edition in Gaullican and Papotement. However in other formal situations, such as diplomacy and business, Gaullican is highly encouraged; these situations are one of the few instances when the use of Papotement is stigmatized.

Literature and culture

Carucere's national anthem, "Karuke Cheri Lan", is in Papotement. The newspaper The Strait Times publishes an edition in the language and the left-wing Diario is published only in Papotement.

Zegodu letter

The oldest surviving written text in modern Papotement is a short letter dated from 1946, discovered in a private book collection in Pointe Henri in 2007. The letter was sent by a young Gosa woman named Zegodu to her friend Elise, inviting her to her birthday celebration. Although their lineage can be traced from their modern descendants, little else is known about the two women or their relationship to each other. When the letter was written, Papotement was still undergoing significant changes and thus the letter contains archaic vocabulary, spelling, and grammar. The letter is currently stored at the National Library in Jameston and a reproduction is on display at the National Museum of History.

Original text		Modern Papotement		Gaullican		Estmerish
Mi tre cheri kamarad, mo ju tied ju invite tu célébrer de mo bertday le 14 Septanm. Mi di luk fawad ou vizit, car elle radr pou ma jou moch plu injai. Mi heil debu kamarad faire la selibraytmidi jeme wi kontan heureux jeme. Heloa ta maman de ma part, ahn à toute ou famille. Mon papa ahn ma maman les send lur salutations. Ziska Ou Dieu te donne la helt. Au revoir, gudbai cheri.		Mi tre reme kamarad, Mo ju tied ju envite pur selebr de mo bertday 14 Septanm. Mi di luk fawad ou, car el radrpou lizour boku moch moch plu injaii. Mi notifie pou debu kamarad tu selibrayt pou de midi jeme wi kontan jeme. Heloa to mama pur mi, ahn all ou fanmi. Mi papa ahn mama dehn send lurz salut. Ziska le sa a pouvwa Ou Dieu donn to helt. Au revoir, gudbai cheri.		Ma très chère amie, je t’invite chaleureusement à célébrer mon anniversaire le 14 septembre. Mi attends avec impatience ta visite, car elle rendrait ma journée beaucoup plus agréable. Je vais appeler beaucoup d’amis pour faire la fête de midi jusqu’à ce qu’on soit le plus heureux. Dis coucou à ta maman de ma part, et à toute ta famille. Mon papa et ma maman les envoient leurs salutations. D’ici là, que ton Dieu te donne la santé. Au revoir et à bientôt chérie.		My dearest friend, I warmly invite you to celebrate my birthday on 14 September. I eagerly await your visit, for it would make my day much more enjoyable. I will call many friends to celebrate from noon until we are happiest. Greet your mother for me, and all your family. My father and my mother send them their greetings. Until then may your God give you health. Au revoir, goodbye sweetheart.

^a Originally meant to write to, now means to informally greet.

^b Literally full of happiness [from celebrating].

^c Phrase used by Carucerean Badists to refer to the Sotirian God.