Neviric languages

Neviric
Geographic distribution:	Ekuosia
Linguistic classification:	Ekuo-Lahiri Adzo-Neviric Neviric
Proto-language:	Proto-Adzo-Neviric
CWS code	–

The Neviric languages belong to the Adzo-Neviric branch of the Ekuo-Lahiri language family, spoken primarily in the region of Lower Ekuosia. Neviric languages are official at a national level in Nevira and at a subnational level in the Povan Union, within the republics of Cimseje and Ailmudenje.

History

The first speakers of Adzo-Neviric languages arrived in Nevira approximately 4000 years ago. The point at which Neviric and Adzamic started differentiating themselves as different branches within the same language family is yet undetermined. Academic speakers migrated up the Ekuos up until modern-day Tabiqa. The entire Neviran coast became Neviric territory, while the situation in the Povan regions was more varied, with Neviric groups dominating the Ekuos region, while the inland was populated by Adzamian speakers.

Within the Adzamian Empire, scholars noticed several features in common between the languages of the peoples of the Veyle and the Nevirat provinces, and to a lesser extent, their own language.

By the arrival of the First Neviran Empire, Neviric languages formed a dialect continuum across Lower Ekuos and Neviran coast. During the empire, the variant of Neviran spoken in the Delta region, which became known as Classical Neviran, became a more upper class variant, and influenced quite strongly the variants closest to the delta region. The variants in the Lower Ekuos also received influence, but to a lesser extent than coastal and inland varieties. After the fall of the empire, these varieties kept diverging to the point of becoming new languages, the main one being the povan Ailmudenian language.

The Second Neviran Empire brought back the widespread use of Classical Neviran for governmental usage, but after the fall of the empire and the proclamation of the neviran Republic of the Delta, increased nationalist sentiment led to the creation of a standardised version of Neviran, based mostly on the variantspoken in the Delta.

Standardisation in the povan regions was harder, as the division between proper Ledzib and other Neviric varieties closer to Neviran proper was a hard one to set.

Nowadays, Neviran and Ledzib have a combined speaker number of around 120 million, and are not considered mutually intelligible.

Shared features

Phonological

Most older Neviric languages shared a five-vowel system with a length distinction. However, this system has broken down in both Nevesh and Ledzib, but has been maintained in Ailmudenian. In contrast, consonant inventories tend to be rich due to several phenomena. Palatalization became a widespread phenomenon, both progressive and regressive, affecting Ledzib (which has a palatalised version of almost every consonant) and to a lesser extent, Neviran. All languages contrast voiceless, voiced and ejective consonants. All have uvular consonants, which developed organically only in delta Neviran from velar obstruents in contact with *a ā and *o ō, and spread to Ledzib via loans. Adzamic loans helped phonemise uvulars in both languages.

Grammatical

Neviric languages have maintained the noun class system and animacy hierarchy systems which are characteristic of Ekuo-Lahiri languages. In contrast with Adzamic languages, the collective number is still marked in all classes.

The structure of the verbal system is quite similar, with verbs being marked for location, tense, mood using prefixes in most neviric languages, albeit which are marked and how vary more widely. Ledzib is generally considered more conservative than Neviran regarding verbs.

Lexical

There are several lexical items that are reconstructed up to the Proto-Neviric level which do not have a traceable equivalent in other Ekuo-Lahiri languages. These include: - The *-xab- adjectiviliser