Lingography

[Raphael]

How can it be that Verduria, west of Ismahi, speaks Verdurian, Ismahi speaks a form of speach different enough to be considered a language of it's own, and Erenat, to the east of Ismahi, speaks something close enough to mazhtane to be considered Verdurian?

I know that Ismahi is isolated by mountains, but shouldn't these mountains- combined with the desert to the south- isolate Verduria from Erenat as well?

[Drydic]

Mind you that

Avélan chauvinists like to describe their speech as a "sister language" of Verdurian.

Other than that, good question. Anyone care to speculate?

[zompist]

How can it be that Verduria, west of Ismahi, speaks Verdurian, Ismahi speaks a form of speach different enough to be considered a language of it's own, and Erenat, to the east of Ismahi, speaks something close enough to mazhtane to be considered Verdurian?

I know that Ismahi is isolated by mountains, but shouldn't these mountains- combined with the desert to the south- isolate Verduria from Erenat as well?

A good question... the short answer is that dialect boundaries can work like that. Spanish and Italian-- that is, Castilian and Tuscan-- are on the whole more similar to each other than the Catalan and Proven?al dialects that lie between them.

And for that matter, there are phonological similarities between Andalucian Spanish and coastal Latin American dialects (Cuban, Venezuelan, Central American, Vera Cruz, etc.). Verduria and Av?la are both on the ocean, while Raizumi (the capital of Ismahi) is inland; thus they influence each other a good deal more than they interact with Isma?n. (In pre-modern worlds, the shortest distance between two points is always over water!)

It's also worth noting that the rural dialects are not as close as the standard dialects are; also that there's a significant divide between rural ?renati and urban Av?lan. There are lexemes and sound changes that the rural dialects share with Isma?n and/or Sarroc. (Still, with some good will, an ?renati peasant could communicate with a Verdurian one, while both would be baffled to encounter an Isma?n mountaineer.)

[Drydic]

A question:
for Benecian and Beshbalicue, you state in the 2000 posts that they use a pre-reform orthography. Are you ever going to elaborate on this? Might this be jumpstarted into a study of Old Verdurian?

[zompist]

A question:
for Benecian and Beshbalicue, you state in the 2000 posts that they use a pre-reform orthography. Are you ever going to elaborate on this? Might this be jumpstarted into a study of Old Verdurian?

Could be, for one day when I'm looking for something exceedingly pedantic to do. I've always wanted to get Old Verdurian on paper, plus a slew of dialects in detail.

[pne]

And I wonder whether the pre-Great Relexification Verdurian (e.g. the sample in Soa Et?levi i Ihano) might be reinterpreted/retconned as some dialect, perhaps early Av?lan? It is, after all, internally consistent, just different from Modern Standard Mažtana.