Merar

Not to be confused with Meromo.

NOTE ALSO THAT THE SAME PEOPLE CALLING THEMSELVES MERAR LIKELY ENCOMPASSED THE FERN MIGRANTS AND THEREFORE SPOKE AT LEAST ONE FERN LANGUAGE. THESE PEOPLE WOULD HAVE OUTNUMBERED THE TARPABAPS EVEN AFTER MANY FERNS MIGRATED A SECOND TIME.

Merar was the language of Paba's military caste, which consisted mostly of Tarpabaps and other ethnic minorities.

Merar was a nation of people who had immigrated from Paba to Subumpam during the late stages of the Vegetable War after they had pushed the battlefronts westward out of Paba. After the war they stayed in Subumpam and married Subumpamese women. THey set up a new government stating that only military officers were allowed to hold government posts. Some Merari people claimed that they had created the Third Star Empire, named after the dark-skinned Star tribes of the far southwest; however, though the geographical boundaries were similar, the Merar empire was governed from its north, not its south.

In 3041, FILTER took over Subumpam, and therefore the branch of Merar that was spoken in Subumpam went extinct early on. This was an ironic change of fate, since FILTER was originally a Subumpamese language, and Merar had earlier swept out all of the original Subumpamese languages.

Languages

This is a branch of Paleo-Pabappa, not Gold.

This is the indigenous language of Paba, before its people switched to speaking Gold under the influence of Nama and AlphaLeap. Its population was about 90% Pabaps and 5 to 10% Tarpabaps (the same people later called Merar). The Tarpabaps were the military caste of Paba and were much taller and stronger than the Pabaps.

Originally, the Tarpabaps came from the same port of origin as the Pabaps, despite their greatly different body types. They thus spoke the same language. However, even from the very beginning, new migrants were patrolling the coast, and later migrations to Paba brought different tribes of people who joined the Tarpabap caste. These had their own languages, but in order to rise in rank in the military, they had to learn the main language of Paba.

By around 2100 AD, the small-bodies Pabaps could no longer control the Tarpabaps, and left them to use their own languages. Thus the Tarpabaps who had learned the main language no longer had a special avenue to power. Many of these new migrants moved right through Paba and settled Tarwas, but some people in Tarwas later moved back to Paba.

THIS COULD MEAN THAT THIS LANGUAGE IS A DEAD END AND THAT THE MERAR WHO OCCUPY THAOA, LOBEXON, AND SUBUMPAM ARE ALL SPEAKING VARIOUS LANGUAGES OF THE FERN AND PABAHAIS FAMILIES.

Paleo-Pabappa to Raspara

This branch reduces its vowel system due to Gold influence, even though the shift took place more than a thousand years after Gold's. It may even end up with /a i u/ instead of /a i u ə/.