Oalanii: Difference between revisions

Oalanii, and its original native speakers, the Oalanii peoples, are of [[Taskaric languages|Taskaric]] origin. However, unlike most of their other cultural cousins, they did not settle in Birnu, and instead the Oalanii derive from a group of Proto-Taskaric peoples who sailed south and then west in the Néekh Strait, also called the ''β''-Taskaric peoples(as opposed to the ''α''-Taskaric peoples, who settled Birnu).

The etymology of "Oalan" is unknown, though we know it is a Moshurian word, and that it is most likely not derived from the name of the city given to it by the original Oalanii. The most popular theory is that it comes from [[Moshurian#Middle Moshurian|Middle Moshurian]] ''ukhalan'', meaning "beaver heaven", as early explorers noted the unusually high amount of beavers in the region. The change from ''ukhalan'' to ''Oalan'' most likely comes from the [[Moshurian dialects#Oalan dialect|Oalan patois]], where glottal/velar fricatives that are surrounded by vowels are not pronounced, and initial /u/ often turns into /o/. As censuses were updated, the city names eventually began to appear similarly to their local pronunciation<ref>Although some emperors such as Son Echuin tried to impose a unified standard dialect of the language, and thus insisted that cities like Oalan be referred to by their original names, like ''Ukhalan'' or in the case of Sépenzg, ''Sipénaşg''.</ref>.