Vintallian | |
---|---|
Vintalliano | |
Pronunciation |
[vin-tàl-lià-no] /vinˈtalˈljaːno/ |
Region | Seleya |
Ethnicity | Vintallian |
Native speakers | ~ 52,000,000 (4360) |
Language family |
Superseleyan
|
Official status | |
Official language in | Gaduridos |
Recognised minority language in | Gaduridos, Kalistan |
Language codes | |
ISO 639-3 | Vin |
Vintallian language is a Selucic language used in Vintalli, the largest island of Gaduridos, and is one of nation's major languages.
Vintallian is very similar to the Istalian language, with which shares grammar and large part of the vocabulary. Despite Vintallian and Istalian are mutually comprehensible and are clearly related (the written form in Selucic alphabet is almost identical), until recent times many Seleyan scholars, aimed to counter the colonial heritage of many Seleyan country, continued to assert that Vintallian was a member of the Anantonese language family and which developed independently by Istalian. The Vintallian was influenced then by the long lasting Selucian control of the island under the Selucian Empire.
Furthermore, the fact that the current Vintallian has little or nothing to do with the so called Old Vintallian language, the former a truly Anantonese-related language, it's a further evidence of the extraneousness of the two languages and the closeness with Istalian, of which some consider Vintallian as a dialects.
Many linguistic scholars attribute to the insular nature of Vintalli and to the Selucian colonization the fact that the Vintallian maintained its strong similarities with Istalian. Similarly, the Istalian himself has maintained very strong similarities with the Selucian language since it developed on an island of Alaria, colonized in ancient time by the Selucians, so both languages were protected from excessive external influences thanks to the island nature of the lands where they developed.
Today, around 60% of Vintallians speak Vintallian as a first language. On mainland Gaduridos, the Vintallian language is a common second language. It is also spoken by a significant minority of Kalistanis.
History[]
After long years of studies and research, especially by part of Istalian researchers and linguists since the beginning of 42nd century, it has been fully attested the reality of the settlement of proto-istalian (or istalo-selucic) merchants since the end of the 12th century of the Hosian era.
The Istalian, or Estalian, cities in Alaria and in the Sarrentina Peninsula, having inherited the traditional Selucian inclination towards the sea, exploration and trade, developed a great seafaring tradition with merchant vessels sailing across most part of the known world but especially around Seleya and Dovani.
The Estalian merchants, like their selucic cousins, established several outpost in foreign soil and, among them, as mentioned, also in Vintalli where these outpost became permanent due to the strategic position in the middle of the Anantonese Ocean and between the four eastern seas. Estalian settlers moved in these outpost where they established cordial and friendly relations with the native Vin' tribes (mainly descendants of Gao-Showan people from the modernday Indrala). The Estalian settlers of the communities they established around the original trade outpost influenced greatly the native. The Estalian languages, although a mixture of the several Estalian languages over which the Trivenditan had a prominence role due to the fact that the merchant republic of Vinesia had the most settlers and influence on the island, bacame a lingua franca, especially used with foreigners, mainly other Estalian and Selucic merchants and explorers, and during the following centuries supplanted the previous Anantonese-related language.
The influence of the Estalian city-states was very important for the future development of the Vintallians wh, after the Estalian influence declined, due to the conquest of Istalia by part of the Ahmadi Caliphate, organized themself in city-states which kept their independence until the arrival of the Selucian Empire which through trade influence and also military campaign conquered the island.
It is interesting that after the Estalian influences faded in Vintalli, the local populations resumed the alphabet of the Old Vintallian, deriving from the two traditional Anantonese scripts, and which was adapted to match the Estalian-selucic phonology.
Old Vintallian[]
The Old Vintallian language was a language related to the Anantonese ones that was used in Vintalli until the first century. It was used by the Vin' tribes of South Vintalli. Old Vintallian became extinct in the first century, when Vintallians began to be ever more influenced by the sophisticated Selucic settlers who imposed their language as trade language and lingua franca. However, the Old Vintallian alphabet was preserved. The alphabet is:
There are various schemes for transliterating Vintallian into the Selucic alphabet; the most-used one is shown above. However, most transliteration schemes are not phonetically correct.