Difference between revisions of "Gosian"

Revision as of 01:17, 9 December 2005

The language

Gosene (go-SAY-nay) The Gosian language (Ediome Gosiane) is an age-old derivative of Salentino and Italian. First documented in a two-verse biblical translation found on the walls of Silema’s famous Cathedral of the Lord Jesus Christ (Catedral dio Don Isus di Nasareti) which has been dated to the mid 14th Century, Gosian is considered a ‘recent’ linguistic creation by many scholars, not truly coming into its own until long after the Renaissance. Oral tradition, however, holds that the language has existed centuries before the first recorded writings. Despite this disagreement, however, most scholars still hold Gosian to be a product of the Middle Ages and the heavy Latin influence therein.

Phonetically Gosian is a very close derivative of simple Italian, and structurally is likewise similar to its northern neighbor. For this reason, it is generally lumped into the Romance linguistic category. However, because of a strong Spanish overture, as well as a variety of English, French, Maltese, and Sicilian cognates, a current debate exists as to whether Gosian should belong to the Southern-Romance or Italio-Western subgroups.

History of Gosian

The most common story as to the origins of the Gosian language comes to us from the writings of Gosian scholar Leonarde di Nasareti Nove in his text The History of Italy and her Principalities (Io Istorie di Italia at Principalias dila). Written in 1482, it states that in 1096, following Pope Urban II’s call for a Crusade to the holy land, this island was established as a small stopping-point for ships on their trek across the Mediterranean. Those first sailors found an isolated local population, speaking some unknown variation of Salentino, Latin, and Maltese and, following the establishment of Italian and Spanish ports to facilitate the Knights Hospitaller in their travels to the holy land during later Crusades, the dialects mixed with those languages brought from overseas. When the Crusading had ended, those left continued on with their father’s linguistic traditions, and ultimately the bend became some early form of modern Gosian.

In 1688, having been largely ignored by their former Italian masters and with the Knights of Malta a dwindling presence even in the central Mediterranean, the people still living in Goso and Comino took the next step towards independence, establishing their own cultural and historic center in The University of Silema (Io Universitas di Silema), which included a center for Gosian linguistics. Well over a century later, in May 1818, Gosian was declared an official world language, coinciding with the Gosian and Cominan declarations of independence.

Dialects

Modern Gosian can be divided into three distinct dialects. In much of Goso – including the majority of urban areas – a Luzian Dialect (Gosene Luziane), so named for Luzia the capital of Goso, is used. In Comino, as well as some rural areas of Goso, a different dialect, Cominan (Gosene Cominiane or simply Comene) is used. While the difference between the two is lost on many non-native speakers, it lies principally in the length of spoken vowels (Comene is noticeably more drawn-out than its quicker, highly urbanized cousin) and in the use of the articles io, um, and uma (again, Comene has held on to this traditional manner of speech rather than shortening the language for a more urban environment.)