Caillean (Caillà, /kai'ʎa/ and Zaresian: /ka'ɨa/) is the primary language spoken by the Caillean people in Egelion. Although it's said to derive from the Rhaetan language family, specifically Dundorfian, in modern times the language seems to be much more influenced by Selucian languages, probably due to the role of Egelian in the region. Nonetheless, certain features of Dundorfian have been kept in the language.
Caillean is, however, a slightly diverse language, with three majors dialects. The Standard one, spoken in the northeastern part of Caille, where the capital, Norterra, is located in, has a mix of Selucian and Dundorfian features, although leaning towards Selucian. To the south, the main dialect is the Southern, which presents more similarity with the Egelian language due to proximity. Lastly, the third major dialect, Zaresian, seems to be the most influenced by Selucian, specifically by Kizenian, probably due to proximity. It's said that Zaresian used to be its own language when Zaresia ruled the region, although over time, the language disappeared. This might justify some of the unique features of the Zaresian dialect.
Etymology[]
There's a debate among experts about where the name of Caille came from, with the most supported claim being that it comes from the way Selucians referred to the native inhabitants of Caille, back when they were hunter tribes, as Caiae (plural for Caia), meaning "cudgel", probably referring to the weapons used by the natives. The term evolved phonetically, with the -ae diphtong merging as an 'e' producing an /ə/ (schwa) sound, influencing the sound of the 'i', which developed as a /ʎ/ sound in Standard dialect, a /j/ sound in the Southern dialect, and a /ɨ/ sound in the Zaresian dialect.
Common features[]
There are a few features that all Caillean dialects share. For starters, Caillean is a language that uses many monosyllabic words. The phoneme 'l' is velarised to /ɫ/ when in contact with other velarised phonemes. Initial "r" sounds are often trilled, just like those placed after or before a consonant. An "r" in the final position of a word will only be pronounced (more softly than a trilled 'r') if the vowel behind it is stressed. If unstressed, the "r" will not be pronounced. The 's' will be pronounced like a /z/ when it goes before a vowel or between two vowels. Additionally, the phoneme 'z' will always be pronounced /z/ regardless of its position, whereas 'ss' and 'ç' are always pronounced /s/.
Standard dialect[]
The Standard dialect is spoken in the northeastern region of Caille, being where the capital and the major part of the population is at, hence why it's called "Standard". Much like the Zaresian dialect, it has seven stressed vowels /a ɛ e i ɔ o u/. It presents certain features that are borrowed from Dundorfian, such as the presence of a trilled 'r' sound. It's also theorised that the Dundorfian 'ß' developed into 'ss' in Caillean. The existence of digraphs such as the 'tz' in Caillean are attributed to the Dundorfian 'Z'. Nonetheless, modern Caillean is much more influenced by Selucian, albeit not as much as Zaresian.
While there are seven stressed vowels, there are also unstressed vowel sounds, which are reduced to /ə/ and /u/ depending on where the stress is. For example, the word 'pèl' in the Standard dialect, is pronounced /ˈpɛɫ/, whereas the word 'pelat' is pronounced /pəˈɫat/. This feature is also present in the Zeresian dialect. Just like in the Southern dialect, 'v' and 'b' are pronounced with the same sound: /b/.
Southern dialect[]
The Southern dialect can be found in the southern half of Caille, being very influenced by Egelian. This is probably due to the fact this area isn't very populous, and is very close to the rest of Egelian-speaking regions in Egelion. History is also, probably, partly to blame: back when Egelion wasn't formed as a nation, the northernmost part of the actual Caille was under the rule of Kevligard, the southeast was part of Borvia, and the rest was part of Zaresia. While Borvia was later conquered by Kevligard, the south of the actual Caille never fully integrated, hence why it has remained a mixed bag of Egelian and Caillean culture, leading to a distinctive dialect.
In general, we can see that many of the distinctive features of Caillean aren't present in the Southern dialect and are closer to Egelian. Just like Egelian, the Southern dialect only includes five stressed vowels: /a e i o u/. Unstressed vowels generally aren't present in the dialect, although in some villages an unstressed 'o' might develop into an /u/ sound. Due to influence from Egelian, the 'll' phonemes are pronounced with a /j/ sound, and stressed 'e' and 'i' might be dropped before it, leading to the pronunciation of Caille becoming /.kaje/, compared to Standard /kai'ʎə/ and Zaresian /.kaɨə/. Due to the absence of unstressed vowels, it presents two major distinctions between the other two dialects: one, the pronunciation of all vowels consistently, without changes depending on stress, accent, or any sort of mark; two, the pronunciation of all final 'r' sounds regardless of the vowel that goes behind it. All of this features are fairly similar to the phonetic characteristics of Egelian.
Zaresian dialect[]
The Zaresian dialect is one of the richest and most mysterious dialects in Caille, as it combines Selucian and Kizenian features with those of Standard Caillean. How, why and when this happened is unknown, but it said that the old Kingdom of Zaresia, which consisted of most of modern Caille, was very influenced by Kizenian. As time passed, Kizenian influence of the territories owned by Zaresia would be reduced, being limited to a dialect of a much smaller part of Caille. There are also speculations of Zaresia having its own language, which might have influenced the current dialect.
Some vocabulary that might have been influenced by Kizenian, and that also shares features with it, are: "maig", maî (/.maj/, "may"); "vall", vaî (/vəj/, "valley"); "bell", beau (/bɛw/, "he/she drinks"). The presence of the letter î, with a unique accent mark in Caillean, not present in other dialects, has the sound /j/ and may be used for words that end in 'ig' and 'll'. For comparison, in Standard Caillean, "maig" would be pronounced /ˈmatʃ/; "vall" would be /ˈbaʎ/; and "bell" would be /ˈbeʎ/. There is also the distinction between /v/ and /b/, which is not present in the other two dialects (nor in Egelian). The trigraph is pronounced with an /ɛw/ sound.