Avelan Verdurian

[Yiuel Raumbesrairc]

I had that question in my mind I think ever since I understood most of Almea : why is Avela speaking a Verdurian dialect, while it is surrounded by Ismahic speaking people on the west and Sarroc speaking people on the east. Also, the Kebreni rule would Kebrenize the language at least a little I presume. How then was Avela able to maintain a "language communion" with the far Eretald, during the Dark Years and later?

If I take as an example the Romance languages, no such "double pockets" ever formed. Indeed, the Romanian language pocket is closer to Italian than to any other Romance language, but still, by the distance and different influence, it has diverged much (though I wonder if Sicillians may understand Romanians).

However, I do have an example in French, where you have the European and Quebec pockets. The Quebec pocket has diverged much, but it seems was able to retain enough so that French people on both sides, with a little change in the speech, can understand each other. However, this was caused by the colony focus on Royal French and then a perfect isolation because the surrounding language wasn't Romance at all.

So...

[zompist]

This has come up before, but I'm too lazy to find the previous response.

It's not really as isolated as it looks. Avéla is a coastal city, and its quickest communication is along the littoral. In fact, the Ismaîn littoral dialect is also closer to Verdurian; the difference there is that the capital, Raizumi, is inland and not part of the littoral community. As for Sarroc, Avéla and Sarnáe haven't been under the same administration for a thousand years, and so have diverged; but again, northern Sarroc wouldn't be that far from Avélan dialect, and the normative dialect is from farther south.

As well, there are a number of isoglosses shared by Avéle and Ismaîn, such as the voicing of intervocalic consonants and the r-coloration of vowels before r. I can't say what's shared with Sarroc yet!

You're right that Kebreni has influenced Avéle— though it's also true that it's influenced Verdurian. In both cases, popular speech probably has more Kebreni words; the Verdurian standard tries to use Cadhinor roots.

[Yiuel Raumbesrairc]

If I understand correctly, if there would be no standards for the Cadhinorian languages, we would more or less see a continuum of dialects along the littoral, all of them somehow close to Verdurian (yet the further east, the more divergent it would be), and then some Ismain (isolated in the mountains) has influenced the dialects along the littoral between Zeir and Avela, giving the actual division. And again, the continuum continues deep into Sarnae, the official division being the political border, but really there is not much difference along the border.

As for a previous answer, it is probably deeply buried, because before asking a looked for an answer.

[zompist]

Yup, you've got it!

[Mornche Geddick]

It strikes me that Avéla probably has a large minority population of Sarroc-speaking refugees.