Quelpartian language

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The **Quelpartian language** (Quelpartian: *\_\_\_\_\_*) is a language spoken as a first language by about 7 million people, primarily in Quelpart, where it is the official language alongside English. It is head-final, analytic, tonal, and has a SVO word order. It has a long recorded history stretching back to around 900 BC, but despite this its classification is a matter of fierce debate. It is regulated and standardized by the Academy of the Quelpartian Language.

## Classification

A major subject of debate is how to classify Quelpartian. There are three competing theories: that it is an Austronesian language, specifically a Donghai language, with heavy Chinese influence; that it is a Sinitic language with an Austronesian substrate; and that it, at least in its modern form, is a creole of its older Austronesian form, numerous Chinese languages, Japanese, and Mongolian. All agree that there is heavy Austronesian and Chinese influence on it, with the disagreements being based on how to interpret it.

Works in Classical Quelpartian (e.g. the *Chronicles of the Kings*) show that it was agglutinative like most Austronesian languages, and early borrowings to and from Proto-Peninsular Japonic generally include prefixes and suffixes. By Old Quelpartian, however, the language had suddenly become analytic, despite influence from Old Japanese which was also agglutinative. Scholars attribute this to the Voyage of the Three Thousand and continued migrations from China which, according to the *Princely Records*, doubled the island's population. By Middle Quelpartian the language was practically fully analytic due to influence from Wu and Min Dong.

The first theory, that Quelpartian is Austronesian, was previously supported by the Academy of the Quelpartian Language and thus the government. The Academy admits this was due to anti-PRC sentiment during the Cold War, and the wish for the government to distance itself from its past. The second theory is now the most popular and the one supported by the Academy. The third theory is the least popular of them, though some prominent linguists have argued towards giving it more credit.

Quelpart is a member of the sprachbund

## History

*Main article: History of the Quelpartian language*
### Proto-Donghai, and Proto-Quelpartian

Proto-Batanic is the reconstructed ancestor of the Batanic and Donghai languages, theorized to have been spoken in the Batanes Islands in between Luzon and Formosa, both in Malaysia. Some speakers eventually ventured north through the Kuroshio Current and settled the Orange Islands, southern Kyushu, and eventually Quelpart between 2000 BC and 1500 BC. These peoples would speak a language with its own grammatical and lexical innovations, termed Proto-Donghai. The different peoples on different islands would have their speech patterns diverge yet again, with the one spoken on Quelpart diverging to become the Proto-Quelpartian language. Trade with Jomon peoples in Japan led to the introduction of a few loanwords from them, but not much influence extended further than that.

### Classical Quelpartian

*Main article: Classical Quelpartian*
With the rise of the Zhou Dynasty of China, trade links between the mainland and Quelpart were established, and the first written form of the Quelpartian language emerged as Classical Quelpartian. Large numbers of Old Chinese loanwords became incorporated into the language, and some grammar features were adopted. This marked the beginning of a dramatic shift towards an analytic grammar. The adoption of Chinese characters led to a large written tradition, with most works surviving to this day.

### Old Quelpartian

*Main article: Old Quelpartian*
The migration of the Yayoi peoples into southern Korea and Japan and the rise of Yamato (Japan), Daitan, and Shunreng led to a new era of the Quelpartian language. Influence over the small state shifted between the Chinese, Koreans, and Japanese, leading to a larger variety of loanwords. In addition, trade links expanded to reach the Orange Islands and thus some doublets were introduced to the language.

### Middle Quelpartian

*Main article: Middle Quelpartian*
Following the Mongol Invasion of the island and the establishment of the short-lived Mongol Rump State, many Mongol loanwords entered the language. The rise of the Wokou led to heavy Min Nan influence.

### Early Modern Quelpartian

*Main article: Early Modern Quelpartian*
PORTUGUESE AND DUTCH AND DANISH

### Modern Quelpartian

Following the Japanese annexation, a number of new Japanese words were introduced into the language, mostly for abstract and foreign concepts that had not yet been established during the previous periods of colonization, e.g. *kon-sen-to* "wall socket" and *ku-du-ma* "car". A number of sound changes also occurred between 1900 and 1947, such as the "*il*-*sil* merger" which made the two words be pronounced as *il*.

## Phonology

Quelpartian, like Chinese languages and Vietnamese, has syllables analyzed as having three principal parts: the onset, the nucleus, and the coda. Syllables have an optional glide /j/, /w/, /ɰ/, or /r/ (trilled and not an approximant like the onset /ɹ/) between the onset and the nucleus. The following list of consonants are for the onset only:

The following list of consonants is for the coda only:

* /ɲ/ and /ʈ͡ʂ/ are **never** realized like this, but instead are realized as [n] or [ŋ] and [ʈ] with palatalization of the following syllable; see "Sandhi" below.
* /ɹ/ technically only appears in two syllables: *er* /ɚ/ and *ar* /aɹ/, but in practice can appear on syllables even with approximant codas due to Erhua.

### Tones

Quelpartian has an ungodly amount of tones

### Sandhi

Quelpartian is known for having extensive sandhi rules.

## Morphology and Grammar

*Main article: Quelpartian grammar*
Although an Austronesian language, Quelpartian is much closer in its grammar to languages such as Chinese and Korean: it is highly analytic and topic-prominent but otherwise follows an SVO word order.

### Nouns

Possession is indicated with the particle *er* after the possessor, which goes before the possessee. If the word for the possessor ends with anything other than a stop coda (i.e. *-p*, *-t*, *-ch*, or *-k*), then it becomes a suffix *-'r* which triggers Erhua. For example, *Kat-Mei**r** Koeng**r**-Kuei* "state of the US" (note that the word for "state", *koengr-kuei*, has a fossilized possessor; literally translating it would give "state of [a] country").

Pronouns, however, do not use *er*; they instead use measure words as if they were numbers, e.g. *Sou **hual** shi-yeo* "my book". If a number is used with the "genitive" pronoun then the measure word is repeated: *Sou **hual** er **hual** shi-yeo* "my two books".

Interrogative pronouns are always the topic and thus always go first in a sentence. If they are the object of the verb, then a synonym of the verb in the middle voice or ergative alignment must be used for the sentence to be grammatical.

### Verbs

Verbs do not conjugate for tense, aspect, or person, but nevertheless the rules surrounding them are very complex.

Certain verbs only take a subject or topic, which is the receiver of the action; these verbs are said to be in the "middle voice". Other verbs are ostensibly SVO but in fact the subject or topic is always the receiver of the action, even when not in a topic-prominent construction; these verbs are said to be in the "passive voice" although they do not have other voice forms nor is there a true passive construction in Quelpartian. For example, *ngào* is usually translated as "according to", "in X's words or language", or "as said by", and is used as follows:

Eok "Quelpart" ngao lang Ing-Ngeo
or Quelpart speak.ERG use[INSTR] English.language
or Quelpart in English (literally "or Quelpart spoken using the English language")
MIDDLE VOICE: A transitive verb with only a subject is assumed to be in the passive or reflexive, while if it has an object then it is assumed to be transitive. This is similar to how *break* works in English, as in *The window broke* versus *He broke the window*.

### Other Clitics

Quelpartian does not have a full word for "to say"; rather, the clitic *:* (pronounced like *ng*) is used. (The colon is also used as it is in English, but without spaces around it.) It is attached onto the end of the statement, with the speaker going afterward. It causes a form of sandhi similar to erhua called *Nga-Rong*:

Ai, kok choi-koi eng You-Sa-Lim! : Nephi.
ah, hate[OPT.bad] woe storm[befall] Jerusalem say.by Nephi
Nephi said, "Woe, woe upon Jerusalem!" (excerpt from 1 Nephi 1:13 from the QUELPARTIAN BOM TRANSLATION)
## Lexicon

*Main article: List of Quelpartian words*
Quelpartian has a large vocabulary, aided by its long history of contact with other cultures. The majority of words nowadays come from some variety of Chinese; the oldest being Old Chinese, followed by Middle Chinese, Wu and Min Dong, and Mandarin. Truly "native" Quelpartian words, in other words those that come from Austronesian, are not as many in number but are often the most commonly used. Other words come from Japanese, Chosunese, Mongolian, Portuguese, Dutch, Danish, and English.

Many words in Quelpartian are formed by a Chinese root followed by a native Quelpartian one, such as *reng-seo* "person", from *reng* (the "Han" reading of 人) and *seo* (the native Quelpartian word). These are believed to have been coined between 400 BC and 500 AD as a way for scholars to "define" newly introduced Chinese words.

## Slang

*Main article: Vernacular Quelpartian*
Prior to standardization after World War 2, "slang varieties" of Quelpartian have been hard to define. As a language with much foreign influence and a long history of coining words, even after World War 2 some members of the Academy have claimed that there is no such thing as "slang" and rather the form of Quelpartian spoken on the streets is simply the next form of the language. Nevertheless, after the period of Quelpartian back-slang in the early 1900s and the introduction of numerous English (especially the slang used by American soldiers and sailors stationed on the island), Japanese, Mandarin, and Chosunese loanwords in the 1940s and 1950s, the Academy has been unwilling to add many "slang" words to the Dictionary of the Quelpartian Language.

Collectively calling them "Vernacular Quelpartian", the Academy lists the following slang varieties that emerged after World War 2:

* Pidgin Quelpartian, which is a pidgin or creole of Quelpartian, Chinese, Japanese, Chosunese, and English. A few standard Quelpartian words have their origins in it, but otherwise the Academy treats it with hostility and bans its use in government institutions, and corporations are fined for using it internally and in advertisements.
* Bu Jan or "Poor John", which may have originated in the LGBT community as a cant when anti-sodomy laws were still in place (similar to Polari or Bahasa Binan). However, it has expanded past that and many non-LGBT citizens use at least a few words and phrases on it, based on government surveys.
* Cell Quelpartian, which appeared during the introduction of cellphones in the 90s. It has many contractions in writing to circumvent the lack of special characters, as well as the character limit, on early phones. It is not as prominent anymore following increased government oversight of the Quelcomnet.

## Orthography

*Main article: Quelpartian orthography*
Quelpartian was originally written in Chinese characters, known as Al-tseua, which were introduced by the Zhou dynasty during the FIRST DYNASTY period. These were used to transcribe both native Quelpartian words and Chinese loanwords, meaning that a character could have multiple readings. As time went on, more and more loanwords were introduced into the language: the majority were Chinese or Japanese, with many also coming from Peninsular Japonic and Korean. This meant characters often had many readings, and even when disambiguated with another character (forming disyllabic words as what happened in Middle Chinese) different readings often produced different meanings. The first attempt to remedy this was during the Wokou period when Sokhor Shingkhor attempted to replace them with a modified form of 'Phags-pa, which would transcribe words phonetically; however, it fell into disuse immediately after his death.

The Portuguese conquered the island from the Wokou in 15XX. Catholic missionary Jerônimo Monteiro developed the Monteiro Romanization of Quelpartian in order for the language to more easily be translated into Portuguese, and vice versa, especially when printing Bibles. The Dutch and later the Danish took control of the island but kept the Monteiro Romanization, making it the official script of the Quelpartian language. Nevertheless, Chinese characters were still taught to select scholars in order to translate texts in the Quelpartian Royal Archives, as well as for easier communication with the Chinese and Japanese. When the island was returned to Japan after the Meiji Restoration, there were attempts to replace the Monteiro Romanization with either Chinese characters once more or some form of *kana*; these both failed. Instead, Lee Keuan-De - who would become the first Chairman of Quelpart - developed the Lee Romanization System (SRS) which was similar to the Monteiro Romanization but reduced the number of diacritics. This remains the standard orthography to this day.