Emnian language

Emnian
Eaimhnidht
Pronunciation	[ˈavʲɾʲiːtʲ]
Native to	Emnia
Ethnicity	Emnians
Native speakers	5.32 million (2020)
Language family	Emnitic
Early forms	Primitive Emnian Old Emnian Middle Emnian
Writing system	Equatoric (Emnian alphabet) Emnian Braille
Signed forms	Emnian Sign Language
Official status
Official language in	Emnia
Language codes
ISO 639-3	–

Emnian (Emnian: Eaimhnidht [ˈavʲɾʲiːtʲ]) is a West Emnitic language spoken by about 5.32 million people, principally in Emnia, where it is an official language.

Until the 16th century, Emnian was a continuum of dialects spoken from the Lower Delta to the Far East without a standard variety or spelling conventions. With the advent of Autocephalism and the introduction of the printing press, a standard language was developed based on the speech of the Lower Delta region. It spread through use in the education system, trade, and administration. During the romantic nationalist movements of the 19th century, the language itself was promoted as a token of Emnian national identity, and experienced a surge in use and popularity as major works of literature were produced. Today, the traditional dialects have almost disappeared except for the Thárann Valley dialect.

History

Emnitic languages may have arrived in Emnia between 2,500 BC and 2,000 BC with the spread of the High Lake Culture. The language spoken by the High Lake Culture has been suggested as a candidate for the Proto-Emnitic, or, specifically, the direct ancestral language to Primitive Emnian.

Primitive Emnian

The earliest written form of the Emnian language is known to linguists as Primitive Emnian. Primitive Emnian is known only from fragments — mostly personal names — inscribed on stone in Emnian runes. These inscriptions are mostly found in the south of the country as well as in northern Southerland, where it was brought by settlers from Emnia.

Old Emnian

Main article: Old Emnian

Old Emnian first appears in the margins of Equatoric manuscripts as early as the 6th century. A large number of early Emnian literary texts, despite having been recorded as manuscripts during the Middle Emnian period (such as the Seaphair Mudoire), are written in Old Emnian.

Middle Emnian

Main article: Middle Emnian

Middle Emnian refers most narrowly to the form of the language used from the 10th to the 12th centuries; it's therefore a contemporary of late Old Sudric and early Middle Sudric. It is the language of a large amount of literature, including the entire Angaoide t-an Éile.

Modern Emnian

Early Modern Emnian began to take shape between the 13th and 18th centuries, when numerous tracts were written in order to teach the most cultivated form of the language to student bards, lawyers, doctors, administrators, monks, and so on in Emnia. Despite being a cultivated language, the standards were largely based on vernacular usage and allowed a number of dialectal forms which had already existed at the time.

Phonology

One of the most notable aspects of Emnian phonology is that nearly all consonants are paired — with one having a "broad" pronunciation and one having a "slender" one. Broad consonants are either velarised (that is, the back of the tongue is pulled back and slightly up in the direction of the soft palate while the consonant is articulated) or simply velar. Slender consonants are palatalised, which means the tongue is pushed up towards the hard palate during articulation. The contrast between broad and slender consonants is crucial in Emnian as it not only plays a critical role in distinguishing the individual consonants themselves, but also in the pronunciation of the surrounding vowels, in the determination of which consonants can form clusters, and in the behaviour of words that begin with a vowel. The broad/slender distinction is similar to the hard/soft distinction of many languages such as Slavonian.