Overview
The former Republic of Bowdani was home to various
languages and language groups, most important of which
was Ingallish, which served as the language of
the elite, as an administrative language, and it was
the language used to communicate between people who
didn't speak the same language. The most important
local languages were Tak in the north,
Flovaignian in the east, and the Kencari
languages in the west and south, with Coare as a
smaller language in the northwest. Additional
languages of which there are only a few hundred or
thousand native speakers left include the Pocari
languages, Bėltse, Gen, and Vaara.
Carian languages
The Carian language are the largest non-Ingallish
language family in former western Bowdani. It
includes the Kencari group, consisting of Coastal
Kencari, Lake Kencari, and White Kencari, the Pocari
group, which has a North and a South variant, and
the Coare language. The Carian languages may or may
not be indigenous to Smalik and any relationship
with other language families hasn't been proven yet.
The Carian languages have very little morphology,
meaning that functions like the plural of nouns and
tenses of verbs are expressed by separate words
rather than changing the main word or adding something
to it; only Coastal Kencari developed something that
could be described as cases, which are in fact
postpositions that assimilated with the preceding
word.
Coastal Kencari is spoken in
· Kencari (official)
· Three Cities and the Cove (official)
· Sarigis (non-official majority)
· Bėltse (minority)
· Both Watches (minority)
· Black Bowdani (minority)
· White Bowdani (minority)
· Coare (minority)
· Nucani (minority)
Lake Kencari is spoken in
· Bbukes (official)
· Kencari (official)
· Nucani (official)
· Western Shore (official)
· Gen (minority)
· Sarigis (minority)
· Tak (minority)
· Vaara (minority)
White Kencari is spoken in
· White Bowdani (official)
· Bėltse (minority)
· Three Cities and the Cove (minority)
North-Pocari is spoken in
· Western Shore (semi-official)
· Kencari (minority)
South-Pocari is spoken in
· White Bowdani (official)
· Bėltse (minority)
· Nucani (minority)
· Vaara (minority)
Coare is spoken in
· Coare (official)
· Black Bowdani (minority)
· Tak (minority)
Tak
nTaah Gil (literally 'The Language of Tak')
is probably an isolate language, i.e. with no known
or clear/proven relations to other languages. It is
an ergative-absolutive language, which means that
the subject of intransitive clauses is aligned with
the object of transitive clauses and the subject of
transitive clauses is set apart, instead of the more
usual nominative-accusative systems, in which the
subjects of both transitive and intransitive clauses
are aligned and the object is set apart.
Bėltse
The Bėltse language is probably an isolate as well
and has been made the official language of the
Kingdom of Bėltse. The language has elaborate noun
and verb systems and certain pronouns that may only
be used when addressing, or speaking about, the King.
This pronoun has been controversial since the
founding of the modern Kingdom; according to those
in favour of the monarchy, the pronoun existed more
than thousand years ago, when the Bėltse (or
Bullocks, as they were known in Bowdani
history) were still independent, but due to lack of
reliable written evidence it is uncertain if this
pronoun has any historical basis or has been
invented by the modern royal family.
Gen
The Gen language is probably a further isolate
and the official language of the Duchy of Gen. The
language uses particles to indicate the nouns'
functions in a sentence, the verb only reflects if
the subject of a sentence is alive or dead (so if
a person has died the verb form that is used has
to reflect this status change). There is no clear
distinction between singular and plural. Instead,
a dual, plural or collective form of a noun can be
the default form if it's the most commonly used form;
rruqt 'forest' or 'trees' is a plural or
collective noun, whereas rruqutti 'one tree'
is the exception.
Vaara
Like Bėltse, Gen, and Tak, Vaara is probably an
isolate. It is a strongly fusional language, with
long words that express a lot of information at once.
Special about Vaara is that time is expressed by the
noun instead of the verb. Silge (goat) can
therefore exist as silge (goat, present),
seilge (goat, neutral), silgett
(goat, past), and sinilge (goat, future).
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