Three thousand years ago, parts of the Steppe Branch of the Northern Venasquing languages would migrate to the beachs of cypress and olives, where it would become the homeland of the Londoesi and Zeremisi nations. Those that did not remain crossed a Channel until they arrived in what would become the Urtoblalps island-continent. From there, they split into two languages: the Nesi would inhabit the black rivers, fens, hills, plains, and rich soil of Western Urtoblalps; while the Falithifel would migrate to Eastern Urtoblalps, where the rocky and volcanic landscape would greet them.
Since the Falithifel would be a nation best characterized as living in mountainous terrains where dragons are the endemic species, then it would be appropriate if their language reflected off the diachronic variation that they would have had to undergo in order to survive. So, while the language was undergoing phonetic change, it was also adding polysemy by adding new meaning to old words.
| Proto-Urtoblalps | ?Beisz-dal? | dragon (lit. wyrm-bat) |
| Nesi | Bestal | dragon |
| Falithifel | Bełal | dragon |
| Biza | to destroy by fire |
While the Nesi language would retain the sounds of the Proto-Urtoblalps language, Falithifel would simplify their words and consonants for the most part. Normally, any population located in an isolated landscape, like an island or mountainous valleys, would retain elements of the older languages. In Falithifel\’s case, the languages changed for ease of communication. While there is some agglutination, the sounds that simplified due to linguistic economy would usually do so for ease of communication due to the forbidding landscape filled with environmental opposites and–of course–dragons.
Sources
- Curzan, Anne and Michael Adams. \”How English Works: A Linguistic Introduction.\” 3rd Edition. Pearson. 2012.
- Deutscher, Guy. \”The Unfolding of Language: An Evolutionary Tour of Mankind’s Greatest Invention.\” 1st Edition. Metropolitan Books. 2006.