Atlantic languages

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The Atlantic languages are a family of at least 11 distinct languages of the Insular Celtic variety from within the wider Indo-European language family. The Atlantic languages are native to the island of Atlantica Alba and its over 1100 associated islands, which form the sovereign island nation and dual monarchy of Kilmark–Killarney.

From a standardised perspective, there are eleven attested Atlantic languages, although sources differ due to scholarly disagreement regarding what constitutes a language as opposed to a dialect, with some sources placing the number of distinct Atlantic languages as high as 32. From the standardised perspective of eleven distinct Atlantic languages, at least 90% of speakers of Atlantic languages are speakers of either Killarne or Killian, and in some cases both; Killarne and Killian are considered the most closely related of the Atlantic languages, despite the majority of dialects, including the standardised (national) dialect of each, being mutually unintelligible with the other language. In the case of both languages, more isolated dialects can be mostly or even entirely mutually unintelligible with the standardised dialect and its less isolated mutually intelligible dialects, resulting in some linguists classifying isolated dialects of Killian and Killarne as languages in their own right; however, the mutual unintelligibility within dialects of Killian of Killarne is not nearly as pronounced as that between the two languages.

Using the same definition as above, the remaining approximately 10% of speakers of Atlantic languages speak one or more of the following nine defined languages:

Each of the nine languages listed above is named after the island or islands on which it is spoken as the native language, all of which are small islands located off the (mostly southern) coast of Atlantica Alba. Of these nine, speakers of the Argyle, Cedric and Milese languages together account for about 9% of Atlantic language speakers, each having more or less the same number of speakers and thus accounting for roughly 3% individually, with the six other languages together accounting for the remaining 1% of speakers of Atlantic languages. Argyle, Cedric and Milese each have a number of mostly mutually intelligible dialects, while Bradon, Challic, Dunbric, Lathic, Rhodic and Waltic have not been found to possess different dialects, as they are each spoken by small communities numbering between 3300 and 11,800 people.

Languages[edit | edit source]

The six standard Atlantic languages in use today are as follows:

  1. Atlantic language
  2. Arghyllic language
  3. Cedric language
  4. Killarne language
  5. Killian language
  6. Milese language