Ludovian

Ludovian
Ludovin, Ludovic
ludovin, lingùa ludovina
Pronunciation	[ludoˈvin]
Created by	Jukethatbox
Date	2025
Setting	Alt-history Europe
Native to	Ludovia
Ethnicity	Ludovians
Native speakers	450,000 (2025)
Language family	Indo-European Italic Latino-Faliscan Italo-Western Western Gallo-Romance Gallo-Ludovic(?) Ludovic Ludovian
Early forms	Old Latin Vulgar Latin Proto-Romance Old Gallo-Romance Old Ludovic
Official status
Official language in	Kingdom of Ludovia

Ludovian (ludovin, lingùa ludovina [ludoˈvin]), historically also called Ludovin or Ludovic, is a Western Romance language spoken by the Ludovians native to the Kingdom of Ludovia (Ludovian: Rià Ludovina). Ludovian developed as a distinct language from Old Gallo-Romance after the establishment of the Kingdom of Ludovia by King Ludovic I, where it developed into Old Ludovic and eventually modern Ludovian. Like most Romance languages, it is an inflected fusional language with a masculine-feminine gender distinction, although unlike other Romance languages it incorporates the noun agglutination typical of German, frequently calquing German words, such as tetlingùa, a calque of Dachsprache, or manubute, a calque of Handschuh.

There are currently around 450,000 speakers of Ludovian; most live in the eponymous Kingdom of Ludovia, where it is the official language. It is also one of 25 official languages of the EU.

Phonology

Consonants

	Bilabial	Labiodental	Alveolar	Palatal	Velar
Nasal	m	[ɱ]	n	ɲ	[ŋ]
Stop	p [b]	[p̪] [b̪]	t d		k [g]
Fricative		f v	s z	ʃ ʒ
Tap			ɾ
Lateral			l	ʎ
Semivowel	[w]			j

Ludovian features a phonology that is typologically rather unique among Western Romance languages.

• [b g] are allophones of voiceless /p k/ between vowels; however, ⟨b g⟩ still appear etymologically, such as in bon "good (masc.)" or guda "taste", which are pronounced [ˈpon] and [ˈkuda] respectively.
• [p̪ b̪] are allophones of /f v/ in word-initial, syllable-initial positions except before /i/, such as in vular "to want" or fuma "smoke", pronounced [b̪uˈlɑ] and [ˈp̪uma]. Before /i/, and in all other positions, /f v/ are pronounced [f v]. [ɱ], like in most languages, is an allophone of /m/ before /f v/.
• [ŋ] is only appears as an allophone of /n/ before /k/.

Vowels

	Front	Back
Close	i	u
Mid	e	o
Open	a	ɑ

• /e o/ are pronounced mid [e̞ o̞] in Standard Ludovian; however, in practise, they are in free variation with /e ɛ/ and /o ɔ/ respectively.
• /ɑ/ is phonemically distinctive with /a/, and typically appears in -ar verb endings, such as bua "he/she/it drinks" and bùa "bog", pronounced [puˈɑ] and [ˈpua] respectively. As such, as verb endings are always stressed, /ɑ/ is also typically stressed.