Lord's Zeribian

Lord's Zeribian, or ŋad i pal, is the standard form of Ngad i zerib used by the Zeribian nobility.

Origin

Lord's Zeribian is a semi-artificial standard language. The spread of the Zeribian languages to the Eastern Islands can be dated to the first centuries BH, meaning that currently (as of 800AH) there is almost 1000 years of dialectal variation between the local languages, and they are only partially mutually intellegible. The standard arose as the form of communication between the nobles from the different Zeribian island nations, uniting them as one people despite the differences of their daily spoken language.
The Standard is heavily based on the Central Dialect of Ngad i zerib from Washleng, which was a powerful state during the early hight of the nobility system, but it's more conservative and regular than the spoken dialects.

Sociolinguistics

Standard Zeribian isn't the native dialect on any of the Eastern Islands , but it's commonly learned as the first language by the noble children. The Standard language is closest to central dialects spoken on Wašleng, but the differences especially on the peripheral islands are so great, that the common people can't understand the standard language. The high nobles are encouraged to never speak the commoners' language, even though they understand it fluently. The nobles' close servants are usually bilingual, and work as interpreters between the nobles and their commoner subjects. The commoners have varying command of the standard language, usually more if they are regularly working with the nobles or take part in the international trade.
Poor knowledge of the Standard language is one of the main things setting the commoners apart from the nobles, thus strenghtening the class distinction. Some rich commoners have adopted the Standard Language as their home language in order to associate more closely with the nobles.

Writing

The Standard Dialect is the only form of Zeribian that is usually used in writing. However, texts from different areas can be observed to contain spelling variations, that stem from the differences between the local language and the standard. Partially because of this the common people are only rarely able to read or write. In the areas where there is a lot of contact with the Farens, some commoners have begun to write in Nem (Faren language), or Zeribian in Nem letters.

Pronunciation

Standard Zeribian promotes clear pronunciation, that makes clear differences between the different words of the written language.Thus it lacks many sound changes that have happened in the spoken dialects of the language. Here is a list of some of the frequent differences pronunciation differences between the dialects.

Consonants

Resisting consonant loss
Word-final stops are either fricativised or lost in many dialects, thus changing written šilaq 'body' into [ʃila:] and bed 'soil, land' into [beh]. The standard language prefers more literal [šilaʔ] and [bed] or central dialect [šilax] and [beđ].
Word final [ r ] is pronounced voiceless [r̥] in the central dialect (der 'stone'->der̥), lost in the northern dialect (->de), fricative indistinguishable from /š/ in the southern dialect (->deš), and is indistinguishable from [ l ] in the eastern dialects (-> deɾ ~ del). Standard language prefers [ r ] or central dialect [r̥]

Vowels

Zeribian five vowel system /ieyua/ is only preserved the writing and in the Standard Dialect. In the Standard Language the vowels are [i e ɨ u a], as seen in rid [riđ]'mouse', fer [fer] 'big', ryd [rɨđ] 'speak', tul [tul] 'lake' and far [far] 'fur'.

In the Southern and Northern Dialects e and i have assimilated producing (e ɨ u a). Fer 'big', fir 'powerful' and feš 'water' are all pronounced Southern [feʃ].
In the Central dialect ancestral /i/ has been centraliced and assimilated with /y/ into [ɪ], producing [e ɪ u a]
Both ryd 'speak' and rid 'mouse, rat' are pronounced [rɪđ].

In the Eastern dialect /y/ and /u/ have assimilated into [ɯ]. Both tyr 'powerful' and tul 'lake' are pronounced [tɯɾ]. Unlike any dialect it also makes the distinction between /o/ and /u/ in some words. Thus it's vowels are [ i e ɯ o a].

Dialects

I will send you more weird seamaggot costumes!

— A scribe who couldn't write the Standard Language

The Zeribian dialects are very different from each other, which is leading to reguar hilarious misunderstandings between people originating from different islands. A popular story, The Impotent Scribe, plays on these differences, pointing out the importance of using the Standard Language in the international communication.

Main dialects of Ngad

Northern: Spoken in the Moons
Eastern: Spoken in Ačfem and Irin i heš
Central: Spoken in Washleng and Uganbalžan. Southern: Spoken in Redingais. Strongly influenced by the northern dialects, due to immigration from the Moons.