East Milevic languages

East Milevic
Geographic distribution:	Athsud
Linguistic classification:	Shaelic Milevic East Milevic
Proto-language:	Proto-East Milevic
Subdivisions:	Mainland Outer
CWS code	–
Distribution of East Milevic languages, with majority-speaking being in dark blue and minority speaking being in light blue

The East Milevic languages (also called Eastern Milevic) are a group of related languages descended from Proto-East Milevic contained entirely to Athsud. The largest of these languages is Athsudan, which is spoken by over X million people, and is the official language of Athsud. Historically these languages formed a dialect continuum, but this has been disrupted due to isolation and the spreading influence of Athsudan; the only other remaining mainland languages are East Athsudan, X, and X. Though Athsudan dominates the mainland, the outer islands of Athsud still maintain their own East Milevic languages with strong communities; and the Athsudan government has been working towards establishing these as official languages.

Classification

The East Milevic languages are classified under the Shaelic language family, along with other languages descended from Proto-Milevic. East Milevic is the largest Shaelic branch by number of speakers, with X million people speaking a language of East Milevic origin. While the classification of the East Milevic languages within the Shaelic language family has never been subject to much debate, the internal classification remains unclear. Due to extinction of many languages and dialects with the standardization and spread of Athsudan, evidence remains somewhat sparse, as only 4 mainland East Milevic languages are still extant. X

History

East Milevic diverged from Proto-Milevic around X, and would later settle further into the Athsudan peninsula, displacing various Pre-Milevic East Mirarian groups. How far these migrations spread is debated, as any further migrations would have been displaced by the expansion of the Sunrise Horde in the 1Xth century. While it's generally agreed that the mainland East Milevic languages once formed a larger dialect continuum, the status of the island East Milevic languages remains up to debate, especially considering the divergent nature of languages such as Khala. X (20XX), has proposed a division between Mainland and Outer East Milevic languages, which has gained significant traction over the years, though there is still no consensus on the topic. East Milevic was also influenced by the various Pre-Milevic groups in terms of vocabulary. Families such as the Yucho languages, X, and X are generally agreed to have been a substratum of the East Milevic languages, with a significant number of loans from Yucho being found within East Milevic. The exact spread and location of these languages in Pre-Milevic Athsud remains unknown. With the unification of Athsud in the 18th century, Athsudan became the sole language of government and schooling, and the prestige language of the country; and many East Milevic languages still present on the peninsula were quickly replaced by Athsudan, with Eastern Athsudan, X, and X being the last remaining. During the early 20th century, the Athsudan monarchy promoted the idea that the Athsudans were the superior East Milevic group, and that all other East Milevic groups needed to be assimilated. This lead to several unpopular mandates to "re-educate" speakers of other East Milevic languages, though these policies did not last past the Balkist revolution. With the advent of the Balkist revolution in 19XX, this process was largely reversed, and regional schooling in local languages was established, though Athsudan and Otsuki still remained the sole official languages of the country, and a number of East Milevic languages had already gone extinct.

Languages

The following classification, proposed by X (20XX), is considered to be generally correct. Though many other proposed structures exist, such as X.

• East Milevic
  • "Mainland" East Milevic
    • Athsudan
    • Xudalh (East Athsudan)
    • X
    • X
  • "Outer" East Milevic
    • Khala
    • X
    • X
    • X
    • X

Mutual intelligibility tends to be more common among the "Mainland" branch as compared to the "Outer" branch, as many of the island East Milevic languages tend to be much more divergent than those of the mainland.

Comparison

Consonant correspondences

Proto-East Milevic	Athsudan	Khala	Xudalh
*m	/m/	/m/	/m/
*n	/n/	/n/	/n/
*ŋ	/ŋ/	/ŋ/	/ŋ/
*p	/p/	/p/	/p/
*b	/b/	/b/	/b/