Montecolan

Montecolan
Monticulan
munticolés
Pronunciation	[muntikoˈles]
Created by	Jukethatbox
Date	2026
Native to	Montecol
Ethnicity	Montecols
Native speakers	54,300 (2026)
Language family	Indo-European Italic Latino-Faliscan Italo-Western Western Gallo-Romance Southern Gallo-Romance Montecolan
Early forms	Old Latin Vulgar Latin Proto-Romance Old Gallo-Romance Old Monticulan
Standard forms	Favla il Ré Favla davídica
Writing system	Latin
Official status
Official language in	Kingdom of Montecol
Recognised minority language in	Coña-is-Monxes, Spain
Regulated by	Rial Academia Munticola (RAM)

Montecolan or Monticulan (munticolés [muntikoˈles]; Spanish: monticuelano) is a Western Romance language spoken by the Montecols of the Western Pyrenees mountains, spoken in Montecol and the Spanish village of Coña-is-Monxes (Spanish: Colina de los Monjes). It is the sole official language of the Kingdom of Montecol since 1903, made so by the nationalist king David I; before this, it had co-official status with Spanish.

Despite its proximity to other broadly similar Iberian languages such as Aragonese, Catalan, and Spanish, Montecolan has garnered interest from linguists due to its particularly distinct grammar, as well as various semantic and phonological innovations remarkably absent from nearby languages. Most linguists estimate that Montecolan diverged from the other Iberian languages around the time of the Reconquista. Its lexical base is composed primarily of inherited terms from Vulgar Latin, as well as loanwords from French and Spanish, though Arabic loanwords are less present than in nearby languages. It is regulated by the Royal Montecolan Academy (Rial Academia Munticola) situated in Coña Brava, established by David I the same year the language was made the only official language of the country.

Phonology

Consonants

Consonant phonemes and graphemes

		Labial	Alveolar	Palatal	Velar
Nasal		m /m/	n /n/	ñ /ɲ/	(ŋ)
Stop	voiceless	p /p/	t /t/		c, qu /k/
	voiced	b /b/	d /d/		g /g/
Fricative/ Affricate	voiceless	f /f/	s, c, ç /s/	x /t͡ʃ~ʃ~t͡s/
	voiced	v /v/
Approximant	medial	/w/		y /j/
	lateral		l /l/	ll /ʎ/
Tap			r /ɾ/
Trill			r-, rr /r/

/n/ always palatalises to /ɲ/ before /i/, so nío /ˈni.o/ "boy" is pronounced [ˈɲiw].

Similarly to Spanish, stops /b, d, g/ undergo lenition in most places to fricative or approximant /β, ð, ɣ/. However, unlike Spanish, these consonants are always stops not only after a pause or a nasal but also when stressed. Additionally, similarly to Portuguese, /s/ palatalises to /ʃ/ in the syllable coda, though unlike Portuguese, word-final /s/ is always /s/.

⟨x⟩ alternates idiolectally between /t͡ʃ/ or /ʃ/; more rarely, it may also be /t͡s/. Montecol speakers are especially more likely to pronounce ⟨x⟩ as /ʃ/ in fast speech; however, whether /t͡ʃ/ or /t͡s/, ⟨x⟩ is always affricated after a nasal. Montecol speakers in the Spanish village of Coña-is-Monxes always pronounce ⟨x⟩ as /t͡ʃ/ in all positions even in fast speech; this is usually attributed to the influence of Spanish.

Silent l

The silent l or invisible l (l-calado or l-invisible) is a sandhi feature where word-final /l/ is only pronounced after /u/ or /i/ if the following sound is a consonant; this primarily affects function words like il, dil and pril. For example:

• Ona poma il ome "The man's apple", ome "man" is with a vowel so pronounced [ona ˈpɔma il ˈome],
• Ona poma il nío "The boy's apple", nío "boy" is with a consonant so pronounced [ona ˈpɔma i ˈɲiw],
• Ona ispátul grande "A big spatula", pronounced [ona iʃˈpatu ˈɡɾande] vs ona espátul áspra "a rough spatula", pronounced [ona iʃˈpatul ˈaʃpɾa].

The silent l is only sanctioned in standard speech after /i/ and /u/. However, it is also common among younger speakers for silent l to occur after /a/ as well, so Rial Madrid [rial maðˈɾið] "Real Madrid" can be pronounced as if written Riá Madrid [riˈa maðˈɾið]. This pronunciation is generally considered a shibboleth of rustic or uneducated speech.

Vowels

Vowel phonemes and graphemes

		Front	Central	Back
Close		i /i/		u /u/
Mid	close-mid	e, é /e/		o, ó /o/
	open-mid	e /ɛ/		o /ɔ/
Open			a /a/