Armine
| Armine Armeisughôl | |
|---|---|
| Pronounced: | /aɾˈmɛi̯sʊɣol/ |
| Spoken: | dialect continuum across the historic reaches of the Solthâin Empire |
| Writing system: | Ēlûvêny |
| Genealogy: | Merumannic Languages
|
| Typology | |
| Morphological type: | fusional and agglutinative |
| Morphosyntactic alignment: | Tripartite |
| Basic word order: | VSO |
| Credits | |
| Creator: | Kaiveran |
A language from the world of Vais, 4th from the sun of Faolain Alpha. Accessible through the Leanna Gate. Atail and Vais are the only known planets within the reach of current spacecraft; however, some other planets in the galaxy show signs of life.
Armine is the native tongue of the Armei, who have settled on multiple continents but are native to Melkhir; a standardized form is an official language of the Solthâin Empire, which controls much of the continent's landmass and is a prime world power of Vais.
Phonology
Armine has, at first blush, a massive phonemic inventory even for a language primarily spoken by keen-eared alien foxcats. Its native script has letters for 96[still?] consonants and 20 vowels. However, several sounds have gone extinct or merged in various varieties, and no form of the language has made every available phonetic distinction for centuries. Letters for these old sounds may still be found in certain contexts, however, especially proper nouns.
The Armine spoken in most everyday contexts is part of a dialect continuum. Adjacent varieties are highly mutually intelligible, but very distant varieties (or those separated by a historically difficult barrier to travel, such as a mountain range) may not be. This situation is complicated by history; the Empire has grown and shrunk over time, and increasing contact between the different species and cultures has significantly shaped the course of local language development. Most significant cross-pollination has happened with languages spoken by the Heilidh, Vyrunaa, Zin, Vožjatt, and Ĥoltera.
Standard Unified Armine was an attempt by the government at side-stepping this issue. By simplifying the phonology to a rough "common denominator" among varieties, and deprecating/replacing certain archaic aspects of the grammar, the Empire sought not only to unite speakers of Armine, but perhaps encourage people who did not speak the language to learn it. These efforts have met with heavy criticism and mixed success. On one hand, SUA has become the official standard form of Armine in government, and Armine-language media has increasingly levelled its speech to resemble SUA. On the other, Armine speakers continue to speak their own local varieties in most contexts, and the majority of people in the Empire and environs choose to cross language barriers using the simpler and more extensively engineered interlanguage Meru instead.
Consonant Inventory
sldf
Romanized Orthography
Later; lang is being completely overhauled!
