Confederation Slavonic

Confederation Slavonic, or Словѣнскы Iѣзык (Slavonic), sometimes “Conslavonic” (Консловѣнскы), is the de facto official language of the Free Realms.

Why do we need a conlang? Why Slavic? How will it get adoption?

• It ties the worldbuilding together: Tolkein wrote his books as background for his conlangs

• It's a great way of diversifying the in-game culture without the baggage of actual different cultures

• It's cool: virtually no other game has this

• Slavic languages are basically mutually intelligible, while different Slavic cultures have quite diverse cultures

• Confederation Slavonic will be intelligible and very intuitive, and super easy to learn for all Slavic-language speakers

Brief description

Confederation Slavonic is a “creolized” dialect/descendant of the Interslavic constructed language, spoken as a native language by the approximately 1 billion inhabitants of the Confederated Free Realms of Svitania the Uttermost (Вольности Конфедеральни Свитанїе Найдальшей Vollnosti Konfederallni Svitanije Naidallszei), and as a second language by another approximately 4 billion. Alongside English, it’s one of the de facto official languages of the early 25th-century Confederation.

In-universe, it originated as a novalang championed by the Slavic elements of the League rebellion as an identity marker against the imposition of languages like the Russian-based UNISLAV. The original version, in keeping with the neo-traditionalist ideology of the rebels, had a conservative, “pan-Slavic” phonology and morphology (OOC: this is just "etymological Interslavic")

But by the 25th century a series of mergers and simplifications has led to a distinct Confederation Slavonic language, with some basilectal influence from other Slavic languages like Belarusian.

The main differences from Interslavic are:

• Merger of yuses and yers:

  • *ě, *ę, *ė > ѣ /ʲɛ/

  • *ȯ > ъ /ɤ/

  • *ų > у /u/

• Iotated hiatuses transformed into gemination:

  • *člověčji > чловѣччи

  • *konji > конни

• Deaffrication and merging of the dž/dź series

  • *medjunarodny > межународны mezsunarodny [mɛʒunaˈrɔdnɨ]

• "Polish-like" alveolar stop palatalization and i/y neutralization

  • *sědětji > сѣдѣчи sėdėczy [ɕɛˈdʑɛtʃɨ]

  • Note on orthography: even though there are only two phonemes i and y, Cyrillic script distinguishes between i/и/ы using morphophonemic considerations:

    • и is the “unmarked” i, which is always used after consonants that lack a hard/soft distinction in native words (like ч ш к г х), regardless of the actual phonetic realization. In other circumstances, it represents /i/ as opposed to /ɨ/

    • ы is the “hard” i, which represents /ɨ/ in environments where it can contrast with /i/

      • Also marginally used in loanwords to force an [ɨ] pronunciation, such as in Iыптък Jyptȯk, a placename loaned from an extraterrestrial adstratum

    • і, when used as a vowel rather than a palatalization indicator, is used in the following three circumstances:

      • To force an /i/ pronunciation in loanwords: АК Тоокаці-Къркланд Tōkachi-Kirkland Corporation.

      • To avoid ugliness next to и or й: опій opium чій whose

        • This generalizes to any ij sequence being written as ій, or ї next to vowels. Свитанїа Svitanija

• Rather large number of declinable Latinate loanwords. In particular, there are a few s/t alternations borrowed from Latin that are not found in other Slavic languages.

  • секуритас, секуритаты security

  • либертас, либертаты liberty

    • За нашы й вашы либертас!

  • виртус, виртута virtue

  • целестїaльны celestial

  • Секуритатне Силы Премислїе Security Forces of Premislia*

  • Еклесїальна Унїа Кардашовскы Ecclesiastical Union of Kardaszovsk

Samples

Random in-universe stuff

Витамо в Кардашовск --- срѣдищно мѣсто Iужных Звѣздых. Vitamo v Kardašovsk --- šedično miesto Južnih Zviezdih. Welcome to Kardaszovsk --- the central city of the Southern Stars

Наступна станицїа: Музей Кардашовског Наслѣдства Nastupna stanicija: Muzei Kardašovskog Nasliedestva Next station: Kardaszov Heritage Museum

Tower of Babel

И всiа земмiа имѣла iедин iѣзык и подобне слова. I vsia zemmia imiela jedin jiezyk i podobne slova.

Але къгда лiуди прѣмѣстилисѣ из възхода, они нашли равнину в краiу Шінар и онде осадилисѣ. Ale kygda liudi pšemiestilisie iz vyzhoda, oni našli rauninu v kraju Šinar i onde osadilisie.