Antarian

Antarian (wāk antarihas) is an independent branch of the Maverico-Casaterran family of languages, native to Antari and neighbouring regions in Vinya. Its sole surviving member, Antarian, is the native language of most Antarians and is co-official with Anglian in Antari. The family contains other extinct languages such as Marallic, Capeatic, Cadialic, and Meyianic. The language is also spoken by minorities in other Vinyan states, where it is mostly unrecognized.

Antarian has the longest written tradition of any living Maverico-Casaterran language, having been attested more-or-less continuously for about 4,000 years on Antarian syllabary script and then the Alphabet, introduced in the 7th century BCE. Knowledge of the Antarian syllabary having gone extinct after the Alphabet's introduction, the script was rediscovered in 1784 but remained undeciphered due to its small corpus of limited subject matter. Anglian antiquarian Sir Edward Keen led the academic effort towards its decipherment in the 1890s and 1900s and conclusively demonstrated it as an archaic form of the Antarian language in 1910. It is often described as the sister to all other Maverico-Casaterran branches in view of its many archaic features.

The first millennium of the attestation of Antarian consists almost exclusively of personal names, labels, inventories, and transaction accounts. Occasionally, longer texts reflecting directions for craftsmen are found. The written record of Antarian experienced a notable enrichment under the Old Antarian Kingdom, during which literature is first set in writing, it being assumed that an oral tradition was normal both at the royal court and in communities.

History

Under the Maverico-Antarian Hypothesis, first raised by Henry Hatter, the ancestor to all Antarian languages diverged from the Proto-Maverico-Casaterran about 6,000 years ago. Two methods have been accpeted to support this date: firstly, the shared vocabulary between Proto-Antarian and other Proto-Maverico-Casaterran languages reflects a neolithic society without the ability to fashion elaborate objects from metallurgy, and secondly, assuming a constant rate of attrition, the relatively few cognate remains within the core vocabulary.

The Antarian language is customarily divided into the following phases:

• Proto-Antarian, the unattested ancestor to the Antarian family, spoken just after splitting from Proto-Maverico-Casaterran.
• Syllabary Antarian, the language attested from about 2000 BCE to 500 BCE with the syllabary script; later phases of the language reflect many features of earlier Classical Antarian, but also present are archaic set phrases.
• Classical Antarian, the lingua franca of the Old Antarian Kingdom, spoken from about 750 BCE to the start of the Common Era.
• Late Antarian, the lingua franca of the New Antarian Kingdom, spoken from the 3rd centry CE to the 10th century. Late Antarian, though attested on media and forms close to their Classical counterparts, is not a direct evolution of the Classical language and shows influence from Caditic.
• Medieval Antarian, spoken from the 10th century to the 14th century.
• Early Modern Antarian
• Modern Antarian

See also

• Antari