Middle Adpihi

The city for conlangs

Contents 1 How Reptigan Developed From Adpihi 1.1 Language Fragmentation 1.2 Planetary Unification 1.3 Explorers' "Dialect" and the Return to Space 1.4 First Contact 2 The History of the Reptigan Language

[edit] How Reptigan Developed From Adpihi

• The period from the end of Continental Unification and/or the beginning of Planetary Unification through to the Return to Space might be regarded as "Early Middle Adpihi".
• The period from the completion of Planetary Unification and the Return to Space through to First Contact might be regarded as "Classical Middle Adpihi".

[edit] Language Fragmentation

Between settlement and the time of maximal linguistic diversity on Adpihi, the language of Classical Old Adpihi "split" into about 5525 different dialects. Going on the principle that "a language is a dialect that has its own army and its own navy", these could be grouped into about 140 "languages" at the time of maximal fragmentation. Of course none of these "languages" necessarily differed from one another more than some of the "dialects" of other languages.

[edit] Planetary Unification

By the time continental unification was nearly completed and planetary unification had begun to look like a distant possibility rather than a mere pipe-dream, the various "languages" above had been grouped into about 10 "languages".

As an offshoot of the planetary-unification movement, a movement to reunite the language of Adpihi began to develop strength.

Different dialects' ways of pronouncing some sounds were sometimes recognized as the same by this movement, and sometimes recognized as different but both correct.

Furthermore different dialects' version of the same word were sometimes recognized as being slightly different words with slightly different meanings.

So the movement began to collapse some previously distinct sounds into one sound, but also to split into different sounds what had previously been just one sound.

[edit] Explorers' "Dialect" and the Return to Space

Certain more-or-less permanent "international expeditions" -- for instance, on the South Polar Continent or in the North Polar Ocean, or various deep-sea or high-mountain or desert research stations, but, most especially, the orbital stations -- began to develop a genre or register that they regarded as a "dialect".

In truth it was much like a lingua franca or beche de mer or pidgin. Part of the motivation for developing this "dialect" was for natives of different parts of the planet to be able to communicate easily. But since all of its initial speakers were highly educated, and regarded also as quite fit and brave, no one "language" or dialect was the substrate and no one "language" or dialect was the superstrate.

"Explorers" would frequently be re-assigned from one permanent expedition to another. It helped to already know a "dialect" that would be understood at one's new post.

The speakers of this "dialect", and the language-unification movement, "adopted" one another; so that "explorer's dialect" became the "prestige dialect" as far as some in the language-unification movement were concerned.

[edit] First Contact

By the time the people of Adpihi -- who, after Planetary Unification, began increasingly to regard themselves as "Reptigans" -- first contacted a non-human intelligent species, the "explorer's dialect" was a creole rather than a pidgin, and was different in certain notable ways from Old Adpihi.

[edit] The History of the Reptigan Language

• The time from First Contact through to the acceptance of non-humans as full citizens of the Reptigan Union might be regarded as "Early Reptigan".
• The time from the growing acceptance of the "Unionists" viewpoint over the "Imperialists" viewpoint, until the re-establishment of contact with Earth, might be regarded as "Classical Reptigan".