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Palli-to-English |
Palli is a member of the Tapilula language family, and among the most grammatically and phonologically conservative representatives thereof. For example, the name Tapilula is still reflected in Palli as Kapilula, after 15000 years of sound changes. This extreme conservatism is due to the fact that the speakers of Palli are mostly of a race of humans called the vuhau, who were confined to an island habitat for most of their history and whose society changed very little during the 15000 years. Also they were mentally different from the surrounding races, preserving a much more archaic type of language instinct, one which was overall much less susceptible to change than that of most other humans. Moreover, the stability of the language enabled them to more easily communicate with certain species of sentient animals, who would not be able to understand them if their language were to change radically. In fact, despite the fact of sound changes, many words in Palli that underwent a sound change were quickly restored to their earlier form since the changed form would be unintelligible to the animals. Vuhau are not capable of living apart from firebirds and will go extinct if the birds that watch over them go extinct. For this reason, vuhau societies exist only in habitats where firebird societies also exist. The firebirds protect them from harm and bring them food and items from far away, while the vuhau serve as pets and also perform some types of labor that birds cannot do. Although the core of Palli's vocabulary has remained literally unchanged for 15000 years, the language is also very open to new coinages and loanwords, and some old words have fallen out of use; thus the language is not actually mutually intelligible with its earliest ancestors due to the differences in vocabulary.
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