Languages of Cerescapia
Languages of Cerescapia details languages and language families in the region of Cerescapia.
This article is organized by language family.
Contents
Language Families
Currently, three language families and three isolates are considered to exist as native languages of Cerescapia. In rougly order of speech:
- By far the most dominant of these is Macro-Mace, spoken along the coast from the eastern boundary of Cerescapia to the Delta of Nymphs (and formerly as far west as the island of Prosper in Metalgolem).
- Next-most-spoken is Metalgolan, a Germanic branch spoken within the borders of present-day Metalgolem.
- Third is the Asyhloan isolate, official language of Asyhlo AO.
- Fourth comes Oxenian, descended from Old Oxenian, which is considered a language isolate; Oxenian is a minority language on the island of Oxenia.
- The Cyber-Pilchard languages, Cyber and Pilchardese, are spoken on Pilchard Island, also as minority languages.
- Satanic Ritual Speech has fallen out of use in religious services, but is studied extensively by linguists.
Additionally, Roma is often considered to be a significant language of Cerescapia, although it is not native to the region. Also, English is a major second or third language.
Macro-Mace
The Macro-Mace family was first proven to exist by Asyhloan linguist Loa Oyla in the late 1990s. It is the most widely spoken language family in Cerescapia, both in terms of native speakers and geographic spread.
The Macro-Mace languages are all descended from one language, termed "Proto-Macro-Mace", which broke up around 800 BC. It is thought that it was spoken along the coast north of Pmace Island, in the area where North Pmace City stands today. The Proto-Macro-Macian people are thought to have been more primitive than peoples outside the region, as well as the Cyber-Pilchardese and Oxenians on the islands to the south. However, the language family, and mostly its descendant language Pmace, have come to dominate the region.
A few things are common to the Macro-Mace languages, most notably the plural form in -p. An OSV word order is standard. Also, the word for "I" is nearly identical in all the languages: ya in Pmace, y (feminine) or yy (neuter) in Nymphatic, ya in Yamma, and ia in Insular Metalgol. (The Proto-Macro-Mace words for "you" (pa(y)) and "he"/"she" (ma/maya) have only been descended in some languages.) A masculine-feminine-neuter gender format has been postulated for the proto-language, although this was lost in most daughter languages. Gender and number (where they exist) decline on nouns and adjectives, but never on verbs.
Pmace
The primary descendant language of Proto-Macro-Mace is Pmace. It is first recorded in the 1100s AD by Cybernursian scribes. At that time, it was spoken across the island of Pmace as well as on the opposite shore to the north. After that point, Pmace became a significant trading language in its local area, used as the primary lingua franca east of the River of Nymphs. In fact, it was used in Yamma territory to communicate between different dialect groups, since it was viewed as a "neutral outside language". After the Metalgol decolonization in the late 1800s and especially after the era of revolutions in the 1960s and 70s, Pmace became a dominant language first as a diplomatic language across Cerescapia, and later as a first language across the region's western half.
Pmace exemplifies an Object-Subject-Verb structure, with adjectives coming before their nouns and adverbs clustered at the beginning of the sentence. It has relatively standard phonetics, with the vowels AEIOU pronounced roughly as in Italian and the consonants B C (which can be pronounced like "s" or "ch") D F G K L M N P R T V W Y Z (which is sometimes pronounced as a "zh" sound, as in the word kuczi, "zucchini").
Pmace has lost the gender system, which was present vestigially in some of the earliest inscriptions. Plurals are marked in the standard Macro-Mace -p.
Nymphatic
Nymphatic is the primary spoken language along the River of Nymphs. It was first written in the 1000s AD, although oral literature dates back to the 300s BC (dated by mention of the arrival of the Germanic Pre-Metalgol peoples). The language has recently lost out to Metalgol and Pmace, especially along the river's northern stretches, and has been banned on the western bank, which is controlled by Metalgolem.
Nymphatic is the only modern Mace language to retain the gender structure at all. However, it has collapsed the masculine and neuter groups, leaving a feminine-neuter distinction. The feminine form is unmarked, and is shown by an Object-Subject-Verb structure (standard for Mace languages); sentences where the primary actor is neuter have their order reversed, to Verb-Subject-Object, as well as placement of adjectives after nouns as opposed to before in the feminine form. The syntax can be mixed to express shades of the total gender of the sentence.
The letters are the vowels A E O U Y and the consonants F H K L M N P R S T V W Y (Proto-Macro-Mace B D G Z collapsed into P T K S respectively). Plurals are formed in -p, but are sometimes left off of neuter words.
Yamma
Yamma is perhaps best described as a "dialect grouping", with small dialects spoken across the farming territory of modern-day eastern mainland Pmace. Examples given here are of one of the most centralized and significant dialects, that spoken around the village of Yam City.
Yamma was never a truly written language, as by the time writing arrived in the area in the 1700s, it was already easier to just write in Pmace since few could understand your local dialect. In modern times, the various dialects of Yamma are disappearing fast, and all but a very few are only spoken by the very elderly. Pmace is now the standard language in the area.
The word order is Object-Subject-Verb, which is changed to Object-Verb-Subject in questions and some exclamations (e.g. "How absurd!", literally "Absurd is it how?"). The letters are: A E Y O U, D G K L M N R S T W Y Z (H was dropped; all labial sounds (B F M P V) except for W were collapsed into M, making it by far the most common sound in the language).
Yamma contains traces of the ancient gender structure: it is seen in some set phrases, and is declined in the third person singular on the verb "to be", meama. Plural is in -m.
Insular Metalgol (Extinct)
Insular Metalgol was first spoken by the inhabitants of coastal eastern Metalgolem around the 500s BC. At its peak in the 300s BC, it was spoken along the coast from the island of Prosper to the Delta of Nymphs, but with the invasion of the Germanic Old Metalgol tribes in the 300s, its territory began to shrink. The last words of Insular Metalgol were probably spoken on either Prosper or Rapture in the 400s AD. It is mostly known from a few scraps in Metalgol texts.
While it was spoken, it retained the full three-gender system, as did all the Macro-Mace languages at that time. The word order was strict Object-Subject-Verb. The known sounds are A E O U Y and B D G H K L M N P R S T V W Y (F and Z probably were also used, but they were uncommon enough that they did not appear in any surviving texts. To this day, F is the least common letter in all the Macro-Mace languages except Yamma, which eliminated it.) Plural was marked in -p.
Metalgolan
See also Metalgolem
Metalgolan is a branch of the Germanic languages. It was spoken by invaders from the north who settled the area in the 300s BC. It remained one united language, known as Old Metalgol, up until about 1300 AD, when it broke up into about fifteen different languages.
Old Metalgol
Old Metalgol was the common language of all of mainland Cerescapia west of the River of Nymphs from 300 BC - 1300 AD. It is extensively recorded, with numerous epic battle poems and other great works. It is notable for its high number of words for weaponry, which originated not just from Germanic sources, but also from Celtic, Latin, Greek, Finnish, and Chinese (it is possible that the word lueg, meaning a strong but primitive stick primarily used to bash in the skull of the guy in the canoe next to you, is borrowed from Insular Metalgol).
Old Metalgol retained a small amount of the Germanic case system, with Nominative, Accusative, Dative and Genitive cases, as well as the masculine-feminine gender system. Plurals were (and still are) formed in -s. The word order was Subject-Verb-Object, with secondary verbs pushed to the end of the sentence.
Standard Metalgol
The predominant language of modern-day Metalgolem, Standard Metalgol is normally just called "Metalgol". It was spoken in the area between Despair and the southern Metal Plateau after the breakup of Old Metalgolem in the 1300s. Its number of native speakers jumped in the year 1970, when all other descendant languages of Old Metalgol were declared by the Metalgol government to be dialects of it.
The only remnant of the case system in Metalgol is the Genitive, marked in -h (although it is unmarked after most consonants). The gender system has been lost, except in a few set phrases (comparable to Yamma). The word order has shifted to Subject-Object-Verb, possibly under influence from Pmace, although it was not a large jump: in Old Metalgol, when an auxiliary was present, the main verb would be pushed to the end of the sentence. Plurals are formed in -s.
Other Metalgol Dialects
There were many other daughter languages of Old Metalgol spoken after the 1300 breakup of Old Metalgol. In 1700, it is estimated that there were ten Metalgol languages, including Standard Metalgol and Baalze, and by the 1970 revolution, there were eight. However, after the revolution, policies against non-Standard Metalgol were instituted, including the banning of "minor dialects" in print and in spoken relations with government officials. It is now estimated that only three dialects remain with more than a few speakers: Standard Metalgol, Baalze (see below), and one isolated dialect spoken in the northern part of the Metal Plateau.
Baalze
Asyhloan
See main article: Asyhloan
Asyhloan was probably first spoken around 1500 AD, when the first inhabitants arrived on the island of Asyhlo AO. It is not known to be related to any other language. Looks into Asyhloan's past began in the 1980s: Haalahy (1984) proposed that Asyhloan was related to Pmace based on syntax evidence; he was closely followed by Yallo (1985) who proposed a link to Old Oxenian due to sound structure.
Currently, the most comprehensive study of Asyhloan's genetic relationships is Loa Oyla (1992), who looked at each language in Cerescapia (Old Metalgol, Pmace, Proto-Cyber-Pilchard, Old Oxenian, Yamma, Nymphatic, and even Satanic Ritual Speech and Roma) and managed to prove Asyhloan was not related to any of these. More recent work on Asyhloan linguistics has attempted to link it to French, Turkish, and even Basque. However, no solid theory has gained general acceptance, and Asyhloan is still considered an isolate.
Asyhloan has very simple phonetics, with vowels A O Y and consonants H L S Y. There is a masculine-feminine gender system, with neither being considered unmarked. The only verbal affix is a subjunctive/imperative form in -s. Tense, as well as what are in English helping verbs, act as "verb assistants" at the end of the sentence; the only two tense words are borrowed from Metalgol. There is no plural form.
Asyhloan is Object-Subject-Verb, like the Macro-Mace languages, although the indirect object is placed after the verb while adverbs are placed at or near the beginning; in the Macro-Mace languages, the two are lumped together at either the beginning or the end of the sentence. Adjectives precede their nouns.
Most Asyhlo vocabulary is native, with no corresponding forms in other languages. Much of the vocabulary is borrowed from Metalgol, especially words borrowed in during the 1800s. Modern technical terms are mostly borrowed from English or Pmace.
