View source for Lahob languages

: {{distinguish|text= the [[Lakovic languages]]}}
{{Infobox language family
| name        = Lahob
| altname     = Lahob-Imuniguronian; Lahobic
| setting     = [[Verse:Calémere|Calémere]]
| region      = most of Márusúturon
| protoname   = Proto-Lahob
| familycolor = #E4CEFA
| family = One of Calémere's primary language families
| child1      = Kenaywanic
| child2      = Central Lahobic
| child3      = Łogawenek
| child4      = Nayzehenyn
| child5      = Tłašnelek
| child6      = [[Chlouvānem]]
}}
The '''Lahob languages''' (also known as '''Lahou''', '''Lahobic''', '''Neshlenkentian''', or '''Lahob-Imuniguronian'''; Yeł. Lawo: ''tławiyuk notłe''; Łaȟoḇaror: ''łaȟoḇu sorä''; [[Chlouvānem|Chl.]]: ''hūlisakhāni dhāḍai'' (rarely ''lahāvumi dhāḍai''; <small>[[Nordulaki|Nor.]]: ''þêukor Lahou'', [[Cerian|Cer.]]: ''šérošu Raó'' or ''Lahó''</small>) are a large [[Verse:Calémere|Calémerian]] language family, most widely spoken on the continent of Márusúturon<ref>The only core Lahob-speaking territories in other continents, except for the coasts of Gurdugal, are the Kāyīchah islands (geographically in Védren) and a handful of small Tłašnelek-speaking villages in far eastern Gathuráni - an area whose actual classification as Evandor or Márusúturon is disputed.</ref>.

There are six currently recognized living Lahob branches, often grouped in two macro-branches:
* ''Northern Lahob'', ''Core Lahob'', or ''Lahob proper'' - an occasionally used, at least geographically relevant, category for the five non-Chlouvānem branches spoken in Northern Márusúturon (mainly the boreal country of Mersefêny):
** ''Kenaywanic languages'', spoken mainly in far western Mersefêny, including Łōplan and others, but also ''Kȯtıme&nbsp;Qoşazırme'', spoken at Taiga Crane Lake (Kȯt Qoşazırme) in central Kerbellion, the westernmost Core Lahob language and one of the most divergent.
** ''Central Lahobic languages'', spoken in the Berkill basin and in a few communities in the far southwest (Konyzałay peninsula) of the Koitrûx peninsula; including Łohofál, Sulutamilian&nbsp;Minwan, Łokudár, Dal&nbsp;Ming&nbsp;Wang, and Tłowpedar.
** ''Łogawenek languages'', spoken in the Firap and Allak basins of Mersefêny, and moribund in far northern Soenjŏ-tave; including ...
** ''Nayzehenyn languages'', spoken mainly across most of the central, northern, and eastern Koitrûx peninsula, including Yełeshian&nbsp;Lawo, Shershan&nbsp;Lawo, Nahawi, and others;
** ''Tłašnelek languages'', spoken in the northwest of the Koitrûx peninsula as well as some isolated coastal communities further north and west, both on Gurdugal and on the Márusúturonian mainland.
* ''Chlouvānem languages'' (or ''Imuniguronian languages''), including [[Chlouvānem]] and all of its descendants, which is the most spoken and widespread branch, counting for nearly the entirety of all Lahob speakers.
** The Chlouvānem (or Imuniguronian) branch is traditionally divided into three sub-branches: Northern Imuniguronian, Southern Imuniguronian, and Mūltarhāveyi, the third of which has only recently been recognized as a stand-alone branch, as it was formerly considered a third subdivision of Northern Imuniguronian. Southern Imuniguronian is formed by Chlouvānem, Ancient Western Chlouvānem, and all of their descendants (the majority of Lahob vernaculars of the Inquisition which are not creoles); it is the only branch which has been attested since ancient times. Northern Imuniguronian and Mūltarhāveyi together include eleven vernacular languages spoken in the northwestern corner of the Plain and in the highlands of Mūltarhāvi; these languages have remained unwritten until the early Consolidation Era and have had a large influence from non-Lahob languages of the area as well as from Classical Chlouvānem and share many areal features with the Southern Imuniguronian Khalmāṣi languages (or Northwestern Plain vernaculars), one of the daughter branches of Chlouvānem; these features have long made it difficult to recognize them as distinct branches. Like the majority of vernaculars of the Inquisition, these languages are only ever written in informal settings and exist in a state of diglossia with Standard Chlouvānem. ''Boxʷǝḷ'' (''bālši'' in Chl.), a Northern Imuniguronian language of the Sarēdī group, mostly spoken in Dāhuṭrijaiṭa, is by far the most spoken one, with about two million native speakers.

The Lahob family is one of many language families - including the unrelated Kenengyry and Samaidulic families, as well as various not better classified isolates - that most likely originated in the area of Márusúturon between the Carpan and the Skyrdegan seas, roughly between 30° and 40°N. The Urheimat of Proto-Lahob speakers is thought to be either the western shore of the High Ivulit (i.e. modern day Leñ-ṱef or Ebed-dowa) or the area around the Little Ivulit (today southern Leñ-ṱef, Līnajaiṭa, or southern Qualdomailor). From there, the Lahob peoples mainly expanded northwards, up to the taiga of northern Márusúturon, except for a few tribes (notably the Ur-Chlouvānem) who migrated southeastwards, into the Nīmbaṇḍhāra-Lāmberah plain. In most of this area, however, Lahob languages were replaced by the later spread first of Samaidulic and then of Kenengyry languages, so that practically all non-Chlouvānem Lahob languages are spoken in the Northern Márusúturonian taiga, along the Orcish Straits.<br/>
The Ur-Chlouvānem eventually settled in the far southern part of the Plains, where they intermixed with the local populations, forming a distinct ethnicity whose main connection with the other Lahob peoples is linguistic rather than genetic. Eventually the Chlouvānem language, one of only two attested ancient Lahob languages<ref>The other ancient Lahob language to be attested is Western Ancient Chlouvānem (or WAC), which is however extremely closely related to Chlouvānem so that many scholars consider them to be two divergent dialects of the same language; in fact, the two languages only diverged from Ur-Chlouvānem after the migration into the Plain, and they had varying degrees of mutual intelligibility while they were spoken first languages. WAC itself was replaced in official usage by Chlouvānem (albeit much more slowly than unrelated languages of other Chlouvānemized territories), and the present-day Southwestern Plain vernaculars, daughter languages of WAC, still use Classical Chlouvānem as their lingua franca.</ref>, became the liturgical language of the [[Verse:Yunyalīlta|Yunyalīlta]], which led it to be spread across all of Márusúturon and become, as of today, the most spoken language of the planet.

By number of native speakers, they are the second-largest on the planet (just slightly behind the mostly Védrenian [[Yombu-Raina languages]]), however the vast majority of Lahob speakers speak a language belonging to the Chlouvānem branch.<br/>
Excluding Chlouvānem (and its daughter languages) with more than 1,9 billion speakers, the other Lahob languages are fairly small by number of speakers, with less than 100,000 speakers collectively: Nordûlaki is the only official language<ref>Under Mersefênyi laws, municipalities can declare another language as co-official in their territory; however, most of the Lahob-speaking villages are census places in unincorporated territories. Despite this, the Region of East Koitrûx has declared Yełeshian Lawo as a "language of regional importance", the only Lahob language other than Chlouvānem to be officially recognized anywhere on Calémere.</ref>, and the main lingua franca, across the area (except for the areas in Soenjŏ-tave), and in the most densely populated areas the vast majority of people are Nordûlaki-speaking descendants of Evandorian colonists. Lahob speakers are mostly clustered in a few villages, rarely exceeding a thousand inhabitants. Central Lahobic and Nayzehenyn are the most spoken among these branches, with the three most spoken languages being, in order, Yełeshian Lawo, Łohof-aðá, and Nahawi.<br/>The situation in the Chlouvānem-speaking areas is almost the reverse, as it is the Dachsprache everywhere across the [[Verse:Chlouvānem Inquisition|Chlouvānem Inquisition]], in a state of diglossia with thousands of local vernaculars which are either descendants of Chlouvānem itself, Chlouvānem-based creoles, or totally unrelated languages.