Language: Hiveria



History
After the foundation of Hiveria, the indigenous Frilandic population was largely expelled or assimilated by the newcomers, who mainly came from the Norman territories in France and the British Isles, and to a lesser extent from other areas such as Spain. As a result, Hiveria became a patchwork of French, English, Spanish and Frilandic dialects, or mixed forms thereof. To be able to understand each other, people used the French language as lingua franca. It was the language of the Norman nobility and bourgeoisie, so any Hiverian who wanted to count had to master French. French and English became the official languages of Hiveria, with standard French eventually taking precedence. It is used in schools, in business, by government, in the media, and also in place, street, and personal names. It is striking that the majority of Hiverians have perfect knowledge of standard French, but usually speak the local dialect as their first language.

Grammar
Hiveria follows standard French as spoken on the continent.

Loanwords
The dialects spoken in Hiveria contain many loanwords from Latin, English, Spanish and (more recent) Arabic. Examples of these are: "ciuda" (Spanish "ciudad"= city), "burre" (Spanish "burro"= donkey), "adija" (Arabic "hadiyya"= gift), "ducan" (Arabic "dukhan"= tobacco) and "marban" (Arabic "marhaban"= hello). In the big cities there are many street languages, which sometimes consist of over 25% to 50% loanwords.
        Frilandic loanwords are more rare because these are deliberately avoided. There are however, many maritime words of Frilandic origin, examples are: "cegale" (Frilandic "segal"= sail), "roudar" (Frilandic "roþar"= rudder) and "bog" (Frilandic "bog"= bow). There are also still local dialects that stem from Frilandic, albeit heavily influenced by French.

Dialects
Hiveria has a wide variety of regional languages, so the list below only contains the most important ones.
  • Amaresque: the word "Amaresque" originates from "ahmar" (red), the Arabic name for the "Quartier Rouge" (Red Quarter), a working-class area in Louisville where many immigrants live. Amaresque developed from a mixture of French, English, Arabic, Turkish and Farsi. The dialect became very popular amongst youngsters and from Louisville it has spread over large parts of the country.
  • Danabais (Danabian): Danabian is mainly spoken along the east coast of Danab province, its origin is in San Carlos. Danabian has undergone many Spanish influences and borrowed over 35% of her vocabulary from this language.
  • Esrayettien: is spoken in the overseas territory Esrayette. It's part of African French and has many influences from the local Berber language Tamaxluk.
  • Français Classique (Classic French): name for an old-fashioned dialect that is spoken in the south of Hiveria, in the area between Le Gisement and Quartier. Classic French is derived from 15th century Middle French. As an example, a line from a poem in Classic French: "Et pour ce j'en vueil dire le vray et lez raisons, sy s'esbatront souvent gentilz hons et clarjons de cy jusqu'à cent ans, pour vray, en leurs maisons."
  • Français Kumangien (Kumangan French): this dialect is spoken overseas by the Hiverian minority in Kumanga. Although Kumangan French contains relatively few loan words, it did adopt much of the Kumangan pronunciation. European Hiverians think this sounds very funny and on Hiverian television their Kumangan kinsmen are regularly subtitled because otherwise nobody can understand them.
  • Français Phelipien (Phelipan French): this dialect is spoken overseas by the Hiverian minority in Santo Phelipe. During the last few decades French has lost much terrain here and many Hiveran youths are mainly speaking Spanish or Phelipés. Because of this, Phelipan French contains a lot of Spanish loan words, like "arbolade" (Sp. "arbolado" = forest), "pêble" (Sp. "pueblo"= village) and "alubes" (Sp. "alubias" = beans).
  • Heunien: Heunien is spoken in the east of the province of Heunia and is more closely related to English than French. Example: "Me I offer the pearles de raine, venues the payes whe'il ne rain." ("I will give you pearls of rain, coming from countries where it doesn't rain", Jacques Brel - Ne me quitte pas).
  • Valtrais: Valtrais is spoken in the area around Valtrois. It developed during the Middle Ages from a mixture of native Frilandic and the French of the newcomers. A nice example of Valtrais are the first two lines of this Paternoster, which has both French and Frilandic characteristics: "Notre Far qui êtes aux Emil, que din nam soit gewiht."

    Other languages
    The official languages in Hiveria are French, English, Arabic and Spanish. These last two were added in 1995 due to their large number of speakers. Although the majority of the people can speak French, less than half the population speaks it as a first language. The most important languages in Hiveria are:

    (the first percentage shows the part of the population that is able to speak this language)

    French: 90% (of which 45% as first language)
    English: 65% (of which 7% as first language)
    Arabic: 35% (of which 24% as first language)
    Frilandic: 14% (of which 14% as first language)
    Spanish: 10% (of which 3% as first language)
    other: 7% (of which 7% as first language)

    The above languages include the dialects that originate from these. Frilandic speakers live almost exclusively in the province of Solaria (East Walamark).


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