Bastarneian language
| Bastarneian | |
|---|---|
| Bastjaniska | |
| Pronunciation | [bastjanʲɪskɐ] |
| Native to | Bastarneia, Ukraine |
| Ethnicity | Bastarneians |
Native speakers | c. 3.2 million L2: c. 200 thousand (2018) |
Indo-European
| |
Early form | |
| Latin (Bastarneian alphabet) | |
| Official status | |
Official language in |  Bastarneia |
| Regulated by | Bastarneian Academy |
| Language codes | |
| ISO 639-3 | – |
Bastarneian (/bæstɑː(ɹ)nɪən/; Bastarneian: Bastjaniska pronounced [bastjanʲɪskɐ]) is an East Germanic language spoken in Bastarneia. Along with the recently-extinct Crimean Gothic, it constitutes the only group of East Germanic languages to have survived into the modern era.
Most modern Germanic languages have greatly reduced levels of inflection, particularly in the realm of noun declension. In contrast, Bastarneian retains a four-case synthetic grammar comparable to but significantly more conservative and synthetic than German. The conservatism of the Bastarneian language and its resultant near-isomorphism to Gothic means that modern Bastarneians can easily read Gothic texts such as the Wulfila Bible and the Skeireins.
The majority of Bastarneian speakers live in Bastarneia, though nearly 419 thousand live in Ukraine, 162 thousand live in Romania, and a further 156 thousand reside in Russia. Smaller diaspora communities can be found throughout the CIS as well as in the United Kingdom and United States.
The state funded Bastarneian Academy serves as a centre for preserving medieval Bastarneian manuscripts and studying the language and its literature.