Halibrit Bagalyarit
Goals This language is meant to be an artful experiment of a large Biblical Hebrew speaking population living under the newly conquered Balearic Islands, and speaking Hebrew with large Classical Latin influence. This language is an attempt to be both semi-accurate while preserving the aesthetic of Hebrew and Latin.
Setting The language has never left the Balearic Islands. It was spoken continually for thousands of years in different eras. In the beginning of the 6th century Carthaginians conquered the Balearic Islands, and Jews living in modern-day Israel heard about this conquest and victory and began their immigration (under the permission of the Carthaginian government) to the islands. Eager to escape the growing power of the Assyrians and Babylonians, Jews fled west toward the Balearic Islands. There they served as part of the Carthaginian Empire, which gave them autonomy and power over the islands. Towards the end of the Second Punic War in 202, the islands rebelled against Carthage and allied themselves with the Roman Republic, but kept their autonomy as a Jewish state. In 123 BCE, Romans officially conquered the islands and settled Latinized Hispanic peoples to populate the islands. The district had its own capital in Mago, named Magon in Balearic Hebrew. The islands were conquered by Germans and then reconquered by Romans in the 5th century CE, and in 601 declared themselves independent again until they submitted themselves to the Umayyad Dynasty in 707. The islands were still allowed a large amount of autonomy culturally, though politically and economically they were under the control of the Umayyad Dynasty. In 1099 the islands broke free from Muslim rule, and became truly independent again. In the Middle Ages the islands were attacked several times by crusaders, though never conquered for longer than a few years. In 1229 Catalonians conquered all the islands, and forced their language upon every Hebrew speaker except in Frumentaria. From around the 1400s to the early 1800s, Hebrew became extinct everywhere except on Frumentaria. Pirates allowed Jews to live on the island if they were taxed or helped the pirates militarily, and any non-Jew living on Frumentaria was killed by pirates. British and eventually Spanish forces conquered the islands, though the Jews of Frumentaria were never expelled. Now, the islands are an autonomous community in Spain, and the modern form of Balearic Hebrew is a co-official language with Spanish and Catalan. Most speakers have bilingualism with either of the two European languages.
Eras This first era is directly after the Phoenicians conquered the Balearic Islands. The mainly Jewish population spoke Classical Hebrew. This era was simply known as the "Pure Era" (Linqa pura) and lasted from the beginning of the 6th century to the early 2nd century BCE. No linguistic change occurred during this era, this early Balearic Hebrew was essentially the same language as the Hebrew of much of the Bible.
The second era began around 120 BCE, when colonists from Latin speaking areas filled the Hebrew towns. Some Jews began to speak Latin, but with a significant Hebrew accent and emphasis on Hebrew grammatical structures. In this era the Jews of the Balearic Islands would begin to borrow significant amounts of vocabulary from Classical Latin sources, and would phonetically change the vocabulary to fit Balearic Hebrew's phonotactics. Grammar was borrowed from Classical Latin, but the language was still identifiably Semitic and Hebrew in nature. This era is called "Mixing" (Linqa mihta) or "Classical Balearic Hebrew" (Linqa Bayarixa Hathixa).
The third era was a time of more dramatic change for the language. This era began around the 5th century CE. While a significant portion of the vocabulary was Latin-based, much of the grammar and syntax of Linqat Ivra was still genetically Hebrew. Aramaic speakers arrived to cities on the Balearic islands and caused some phonological development of the language as well. After the fall of the Roman empire, there was a resurgence of Hebrew-based grammar and vocabulary caused the language to resemble more its previous era, especially in grammatical structures. The varieties on the larger islands were somewhat influenced by the Visigoth and Arab conquests but mostly in vocabulary relating to warfare or state life. From there on, the language has undergone some phonetic development, and the Pine Islands have mostly stayed conservative while the northern dialects have diverged greatly. The modern language resembles remarkably Biblical Hebrew, but clear Latin influence is visible too.
