About Bryatesle and its relatives
Bryatesle is a dialect continuum encompassing about 30 million native speakers. It is the lingua franca of about 40 million additional speakers, has a rich literature - fictional, scientific, philosophic, religious and instructional, in both poetic and prose forms - liturgies in multiple religions, songs, humor, word games, and a variety of other linguistic devices. Dialectal differences are sufficient that several ends of the dialect continuum are not mutually intelligible, but the standard forms of the language provide common ground for scholars, businessmen, clergymen, government officials and regular people.
Short history
The pre-historic connections between Bryatesle and its kin languages indicate a rather sudden expansion from the Dairwueh-Bryatesle urheimat about 3800 years before the present year (bpy), after a previous split from Sargalk.
Bryatesle tribes started forming city states sometimes roughly 1800 bpy, at which time also writing systems were adopted from Tatediem cultures to the south. Maritime and fluvial trade networks led to about 40 city states forming around the sea of Sadgal and the sea of Gudnyt as well as the great lake Pajik over the next 800 years. Expansion both east- and northwards included assimilation of some Cwarminoid and Tatediem populations. Westwards, Dairwueh tribes partially resisted Bryatesle expansion, partially stood as equal partners in trade and industry, partially stood in political unity, partially expanded onto Bryatesle areas. Several westwards city states in fact were bilingual, and conflicts were not necessarily as much between Dairwueh and Bryatesle, but rather between distinct alliances of dairwobryatesle states.
About 1200 years ago, a stronger political unity over the dairwobryatesle world emerged, with Ykred emerging as a capital of sorts. This unity lasted 300 years, but after 200 years of dissolution and strife, the last 700 years have seen a somewhat less centralized, but still united dairwobryatesle world, now under the domination of the city-state Sţesar. Although some consolidation of the various standard Bryatesle dialects has occurred due to improved communications, significant differences persist.
Geoculturopolitically, there are occasional confrontations with the Ćwarmin civilization to the east. In the far east, the Ŋʒädär have some trade relations with the Dairwuobryatesle. Southwards, we find the Tatediem engaging in trade, diplomacy, proselytization and sometimes war.
Related languages
The Sargalk-Bryatesle-Dairwueh family consists of the following languages and major dialects (italicized)
- The Hefnarač-Sargaĺk Branch
The Sargaĺk branch
- Sargaĺk
- Inraj Sargaĺk
- Geʔamik †
- Tudiluk †
- The Hefnarač branch
- Hefnarač
- Sindeʔʔet †
- Bidlahʔa †
- The Rilgouz branch
- Simiz †
- Rilgouz
- The Adrk languages
- The Dairwueh-Bryatesle Branch
- The Dairwueh Branch
- Dairwueh
- Bundur
- Vist †
- Kappeuje †
- The Nerazg Branch †
- The Bryatesle Branch
- Northern
- Southern
- Trinzlye †
The Hefnarač-Sargaĺk Branch
The Hefnarač-Sargaĺk branch consists of three extant languages, Hefnarač, Sargaĺk and Inraj Sargaĺk. , Inraj Sargaĺk is moribund, with about 500 speakers. Hefnarač and Sargaĺk each have about 20 000 speakers, but language change towards Dairwueh and Cwarmin are weakening them both. More extinct languages are hinted at from old sources. Geʔamik, Tudiluk, Sindeʔʔet and Bidlahʔa have all gone extinct during the last 100 years. Small word lists for about a dozen other languages that probably were also related have been compiled by scholars and missionaries. The time-depth of the relation between Hefnarač and Sargaĺk is probably on the order of 3500 years or more. The most recent common ancestor between Hefnarač-Sargaĺk and Dairwueh-Bryatesle is probably about 4500 years ago or more.
The Rilgouz Branch
The Rilgouz languages are spoken on islands west of the main Dairwueh lands. The total number of Rilgouz speakers probably is about two million, with Adrk and Vimil having about 3000 each. Whether these languages diverged earlier or later than the HS/BD split is unclear, and even then it is a bit unclear which branch they diverge from: there are isoglosses that pair any two of the three branches, exclude the third - both for sound changes, semantic changes and grammar changes. There even are lexemes that single-handedly occupy conflicting isoglosses.
The Dairwueh branch
An overwhelming amount of shared innovations indicate that the Dairwueh and Bryatesle branches are closely related, having diverged at most 3500 years ago. Dairwueh and Bundur separated about 1500 years ago, Vist and Kappeuje were arguably divergent dialects that have since merged into Dairwueh leaving substratal traces.
The Nerazg branch
A few moribund languages with clearly para-Dairwueh/para-Bryatesle features have been assigned into this family. Research is ongoing, but the evidence is unclear.
The Bryatesle branch
Bryatesle's nearest living relative is Western Tarist, which diverged under the last 1000 years or so. Trinzlye and the southern branch encompassing Tarist and Kurelwai diverged about 1500 years ago, only to see Kurelwai mostly assimilate back into Tarist (but also to some extent into Bryatesle).
Trinzlye was largely assimilated into Dairwueh, where it has left some traits as well.
Arguably, there is a dialect continuum between Bryatesle and Western Tarist.
