Bastarneian language
| Bastarneian | |
|---|---|
| Bășciâinesc | |
| Pronunciation | [bəʃˈtʃɨjnesk] |
| Native to | Bastarneia, Ukraine |
| Ethnicity | Bastarneians |
Native speakers | c. 9.7 million (2018) |
Indo-European
| |
Early form | |
| Dialects | Pannonian |
| Latin (Bastarneian alphabet) | |
| Official status | |
Official language in |  Bastarneia |
| Regulated by | Bastarneian Academy |
| Language codes | |
| ISO 639-3 | – |
Bastarneian (/bæstɑː(ɹ)nɪən/; Bastarneian: Bășciâinesc pronounced [bəʃˈtʃɨjnesk]) 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 three-case synthetic grammar comparable to but slightly divergent from German.
The majority of Bastarneian speakers live in Bastarneia, though nearly 419 thousand live in Ukraine, 162 thousand live in Romania and Moldova, 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.
History
Language of the Bastarnae
Podolian period (4th century—1257)
Middle Bastarneian (1257—1650)
Modern Bastarneian
Legal status and recognition
The 1989 state language law of the former Bastarneian Soviet Socialist Republic declared that Bastarneian, written in the Latin script, was the sole state language, intending it to serve as a primary means of communication among all citizens of the republic. Until 1989 Bastarneian was written in the Cyrillic alphabet in official and public contexts.
In 1991, the Declaration of Independence of Bastarneia named the official language as Bastarneian; the 1994 Constitution of Bastarneia establishes Bastarneian as "the official language in Bastarneia".
Dialects
Phonology
Grammar
Vocabulary
Linguistic purism
Writing system
Bastarneian Cyrillic
From the 869 to 1362, then again from 1940 to 1989, Bastarneian was primarily written in the Bastarneian Cyrillic alphabet.