Atlish language

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Atlish language
Atlish tung
Native to Esthursia
RegionAuroria
EthnicityEsthursian people
Native speakers
131 million L1 (2022)at
5-10+ million L2?
DialectsNorthern, Weskerby (Capital), Southeastern, Down, Helmark Atlish
Latin alphabet
Official status
Official language in
 Esthursia
Regulated byBand for the Atlish Tung
Language codes
ISO 639-3

The Atlish language (Atlish: Atlish tung) is a West Gotic language spoken by approximately 130 million people in Esthursia. It is closely related to Mercanti, but has significant North Gotic influences, particularly from Asthonic and its parent language, Prydanian.

Atlish was the product of various Gotic languages being appropriated by local Cumbric people and standardised into dialects; these forms were inflected languages, as was normal for Gotic languages at the time. As the language became the dominant language of the people of Esthursia by the 12th century CE, it developed and modernised, levelling much of the noun inflections of Old Atlish, however did not undergo the Great Vowel Shift to the extent or in the same forms as the Mercanti language. The language's alphabet retains the ash (æ) and thorn (þ).

Atlish retains some level of mutual intelligibility with Mercanti; as a result, native Atlish speakers are able to code switch to some degree into Mercanti, however their tendency to choose Atlish-cognate words in Mercanti and speak with grammatical tendencies sourced from Atlish has spawned Esthursian Mercanti as a dialect.

History

Classification

Atlish falls inside of the West Gotic group of languages, with significant influences from North Gotic languages.