Modern Standard Imperial

Modern Standard Imperial is the language spoken in the Empire-in-the-West during the Regency period. It is a descendant of Classical Imperial, with significant influence from the creole languages of the Empire. Its ancestor during the pre-contact era has been identified with the Archaic Imperial of the runic carvings from the Early Empire, but is better known from the reconstructions based on its current descendants. A Proto-Eastern language has been reconstructed, but is not attested. Throughout its history, the Imperial language has been influenced by the Western language, the creole varieties between the later and itself, the Pygmy language, and a little-known neighbour to the east, likely the people from whom they learned steel-smelting. Towards the end of the Early Empire period, richer burghers of Capital City began to borrow constructions and forms from Classical to 'elevate' their dialect, which had considerable influence from Western and the creoles. The court nobility eventually adopted this variety, and with the ascendancy of the court in the Regency period, it spread its influence over the whole Empire, establishing itself as the standard. Much of the old territorial nobility refused to give up their regional varieties, but even in these cases, standardization of grammar and lexicon occurred, leaving the Empire with a single written standard and a single prescriptive norm of pronunciation.

Phonology

Phonemic Inventory

Consonants

POA	Labials	Dentals	Palatals	Velars	Gutturals
Fortis stops	p /p/	t /t/	c /tS/	k /k/	q /q/
Lenis stops	b /b/	d /d/	j /dZ/	g /g/
Fortis fricatives	ph /f/	th /T/	ch /C/	kh /x/	qh /H\/
Lenis fricatives	f /f/	s /s/	ç /C/	x /x/	gh /<\/
Nasals	m /m/	n /n/
Liquids		l /l/			r /R/
Glides	(u) /w/		(i) /j/	(u) /w/

Vowels

POA	Front Short	Front Long	Front Rounded	Near-Front Long	Central Short	Central Long	Near-Back Long	Back Short	Back Long
Close	i /i/	ī /i:/	ue /y:/					u /u/	ū /u:/
Near-close				īh /I:/			ūh /U:/
Close-Mid	e /e/	ē /e:/						o /o/	ō /o:/
Mid
Open-Mid		ēh /E:/	oe /2:/						ōh /O:/
Near-Open
Open						āh /a:/		a /A/	ā /A:/

Phonetic Realization and Allophonic Variation

Consonants

• Most consonants have different allophones for initial, intervocalic, and coda situations:

Orthography	Initial	Intervocalic	Coda
p	[p_h]	[b]	[p_}]
b	[b_<]	[B]	[p_}]
ph	[f]	[f]	[f]
t	[t_h]	[d]	[t_}]
d	[d_<]	[D]	[t_}]
c	[tS_h]	[tS]	[k_}]
j	[dZ]	[dZ]	[k_}]
k	[k_h]	[g]	[k_}]
g	[g_<]	[G]	[k_}]
q	[q]	[?]	[?]
f	[f]	[v]	[v]
s	[s]	[z]	[h]
m	[m]	[~B]	[~B]
n	[n]	[~D]	[~]
l	[l]	[l, 5]	[l, 5, U]
r	[R]	[4]	[6]

• Intervocalic geminates de-geminate but undergo no further lenition.
• Note that <ph> is distinguished from <f> in all but initial position.
• All other consonants are the same in all positions.
• The voiced fricative allophones of the lenis stops may or may not have actual frication
• /m/ and /n/ are realized intervocalically like /b/ and /d/, but with nasalization of the preceding vowel

Vowels

• Short vowels are lax before two consonants, or a consonant and a word-boundary. The lax allophones of /i e A o u/ are [I E a O U].
• Long vowels are realized phonetically short word-finally, and before a cluster containing a fortis phoneme; the short vowels are reduced in these environments
• The reduced vowels differ by region, but the Capital Region has /i e a/->[@] and /u o/->[U]

Neutralizations

The three-way distinction between short, long lax, long tense vowels is neutralized before /r/, /l/, and /n/:

Vowel	_/r/	_/l/	_/n/
i	[I6]	[I@l], [IU]	I~(:)
e	[E6], [E:]	[E@l], [EU]	E~(:)
a	[A:]	[Q:l], [O:]	a~(:)
o	[O:]	[O:l], [O:]	O~(:)
u	[U6]	[U@l], [U:]	U~(:)
/y: 2:/	[3:]	[3:l], [8U]	I~(:)