Brono-Fathanic

Brono-Fathanic
barônea, barôny-fatanea faϑane, broń-faϑane
Pronunciation	[(Bro.) [baˈronea̯] [baˈronʲ ˈfatanea̯] (Fth.) [ˈfaθɐnə], [ˌbɾoɲ ˈfaθɐnə]]
Created by	Lili21
Date	Sep 2016
Setting	Calémere
Ethnicity	Bronic, Fathanic
Native speakers	51,000,000 (6424 / 2312)
Language family	Samaidulic languages Eastern Samaidulic Brono-Fathanic
Official status
Official language in	Brono, Fathan, (regional) the Chlouvānem Inquisition, Ylvostydh

Brono-Fathanic (Bronic variant: barônea, barôny-fatanea, fully ta fehoavana ta barôny-fatanea; Fathanic variant: faϑane, broń-faϑane, fully ta fihŏwan ta broń-faϑane), usually just Bronic or Fathanic, is a pluricentric Calémerian language, spoken mainly in the two Márusúturonian countries of Brono (Barôno, Bronu) and Fathan (Fatan, Faϑan) and in the Chlouvānem diocese of Hivamfaida (Bro.: Hivoafaida, Fth.: Hivŏfayðe) lying between them, and also, regionally, in the southern part of Ylvostydh.
It is a Samaidulic language of the Eastern branch, thus distantly related with its western neighbor, Qualdomelic (Bro.: Koadromeali; Fth.: Kwažumaey; a Western Samaidulic language).

Of the two major variants of Brono-Fathanic, Bronic is by far the most spoken (amounting to 90% of Brono-Fathanic speakers) and phonologically the most conservative. Fathanic is the official standard in the country of Fathan and, anyway, constantly sees notable Bronic influence on it. Until a hundred years ago, the Bronic standard was official all throughout the Brono-Fathanic lands; it was only during the Kaiṣamā, when the pre-Nāɂahilūmi Bronic-speaking territory had been divided into two parts (Brono as an independent country, but inside the Union, while the rest (Fathan and present-day Hivamfaida - the latter also containing the city of Moamatempony (Måmatempuñih in Chlouvānem), at the time the largest of the Bronic-speaking world) had been annexed to the Chlouvānem Inquisition), that the ethnic diocese of Fathan started using as its official language the local dialect, Fathanic.
Hivamfaida, meanwhile, had not been annexed to either Brono or Fathan and was not an ethnic diocese - about 60% of its Bronic-speaking population moved to either Brono or Fathan in the following decades and the influx of people from the rest of the Union (mainly Chlouvānem, but also many Taruebs and Soenyubi) meant that that area has been increasingly Chlouvānemized. When, in 6385 (39 years ago), Fathan became independent, predominantly Chlouvānem-speaking (but with a widespread Bronic vernacular) Hivamfaida remained part of the Inquisition, as it still is.

A third Brono-Fathanic variant, Moamatemposisy (endonym ta fewåwanie ta mwåmatimbušihь, måmatempuñiyi dældā in Chl.), is the local vernacular of the Chlouvānem diocese of Hivamfaida, spoken by about 50% of people there. It has a de facto written standard, using the Chlouvānem script, commonly used by its speakers; however it is not officially regulated and the official standard of Brono-Fathanic used in the diocese is the Bronic one. Note that Hivamfaida is not an ethnic diocese, but due to its border location Bronic and Skyrdagor are both commonly used in official contexts there (the city of Moamatempony is located on the 12 km wide Yvyslad Strait (Bro.: vy tantanane vy Ivisilade; Chl.: eveṣlada ga šimbroe; Sky. Yvyslad szelekthyv), dividing the southernmost of the Skyrdegan islands from the mainland of Márusúturon).

The Bronic-speaking area

The Bronic speaking area is a large plain area - with some noticeable hilly areas inside - on the southern coast of the Skyrdegan Inner Sea, just south of the main islands of Skyrdagor. The whole area reaches from 42ºN (northern Fathan) to 33°N (the southernmost tip of Hivamfaida, not too distant from the southernmost tip of Brono). The area stretches inland at most about 1000 km (in eastern Brono) and at least 150 (northern Fathan); the climate in most of the area is markedly mediterranean and warm year-round, sheltered from the colder northern winds by the Skyrdegan islands, but also out of reach from tropical influences because of the over 6000 m high plateaus to the south (the southern third of Hivamfaida is part of this plateau area); Fathan and most of the coast occasionally see snow at least once a year, while to the south - where the climate is also markedly drier - no snow ever falls at most inhabited altitudes.

Brono and Fathan are homogeneously Brono-Fathanic-speaking, with dialects of the language forming a continuum throughout the area, with a moderately high mutual intellegibility between the most extreme forms; the main minority language is Gorjonur Skyrdagor in Fathan - the language of neighboring Gorjan - and Chlouvānem (incl. daughter languages) in Brono. Hivamfaida is mostly diglossic, with classical Chlouvānem being the lingua franca but Moamatemposisy, a Bronic variant, being the vernacular of about half of the population. Note, though, that southern Hivamfaida, despite ultimately being a highland basin drained by the river Hŏrlaš (Bro.: Hoarelasy, Chl.: Hårelasih), the major river of Fathan, is mostly devoid of Brono-Fathanic speakers.

Phonology

Consonants

Bronic:

→ PoA ↓ Manner	Labial	Labiodental	Dentoalveolar	Retroflex	Palatal	Velar	Glottal
Nasals	m m		n n			g ŋ
Plosives	p p b b		t t d d			k k
Affricates				tr ʈʂ dr ɖʐ
Fricatives		f f	s s				h h
Approximants		v ʋ	r r l l
Semivowels					y j

/j/ is only phonemic in loanwords - which come predominantly from Chlouvānem, Skyrdagor, or (a minority) from Qualdomelic.

Fathanic:

→ PoA ↓ Manner	Labial	Labiodental	Dentoalveolar	Palatoalveolar	Palatal	Velar	Glottal
Nasals	m m		n n		ń ɲ	ŋ ŋ
Plosives	p p b [b]		t t d [d]			k k
Affricates				č tʃ	ć cɕ
Fricatives	b β	f f	s s ϑ θ ð ð	š ʃ ž ʒ		kh x	h h
Approximants			r r l l
Semivowels					y j	v w

The phonemic status of /θ/ and /x/ is disputed, as they can be analyzed as intervocalic allophones of /t/ and /k/ respectively, but in present-day Fathanic, often also represented orthographically, vowel syncope has meant that they are not intervocalic anymore. Intervocalic /p/ similarly becomes [f], but /f/ was already a Fathanic phoneme.

Vowels

Bronic:

	Front	Central	Back
High	i, y i		o u
Mid	e e		ô o
Low		a a
Diphthongs	ea ea̯		oa wa

/o/ is a fairly marginal phoneme, only appearing in stressed syllables; many people merge it with /u/ in all but a few words (a notable one always pronounced with /o/ is Barôno "Brono" /baˈronu/ and all derivates).

/u/ is pronounced [ʷ] word-finally, and word-final /i/ is written y and pronounced [ʲ] (except in monosyllables).

Bronic, in stark contrast to Fathanic, has almost no vowel reduction in unstressed syllables: only pretonic /a/ is reduced to [ə], but only if the tonic vowel is /e o a/.

Fathanic:

	Front	Central	Back
High	i i		u u
High-Mid	e e		o o
Low-Mid	ae ɛ		ŏ ɔ
Low		a a

Phonemically, the inventory of Fathanic may be said to be essentially the same as the Bronic one, as Fathanic /ɛ ɔ/ almost always correspond perfectly to instances of /ea̯ wa/ in Bronic. The most notable phonetic difference, however, is that Fathan features notable vowel reduction in unstressed syllables, which is nearly absent in Bronic.