Beltonic languages

The Beltonic languages are a family of languages which are descended from Proto-Beltonic. The languages with the largest numbers of speakers are Beltonian, Wistarian, Swittanese and Lennodese; in addition, Low Beltonian is sometimes counted as a separate language. Together, they have 82 million first-language speakers and 93 million total speakers, with the majority speaking Beltonian and most of the remainder speaking Wistarian.

The Beltonic languages are generally fusional languages with a relatively high number of inflections. A common aspect of the Beltonic languages is a large number of grammatical moods, which are often used to convey statements like "I ought to see it" and "It would be good for us to see it" with a single verb. They also commonly have case marking and variable word order, although some spoken dialects have greatly simplified the case system. They also feature irregular noun and verb conjugations that derive from the nonconcatenative morphology of the proto-language. Despite these shared elements, the languages have considerably different sounds and, in the case of Beltonian, considerable variation within the language itself. Apart from some dialects of Low Beltonian and Swittanese, the languages are not mutually intelligible with each other, and not all Beltonian dialects are mutually intelligible.

The Beltonic languages are not known to be related to any other language family; it has been hypothesized that the proto-language was a Paleo-European language. The Beltonic urheimat is located in the mountains in the south of Beltonia. It spread more widely across the region during the Beltonic Migrations in the 4th to 6th centuries, and then began to split into multiple languages. Starting at the end of the 18th century, the language was introduced to the New World through the Beltonian settlement of New Constantinia. Beltonia, Wistaria and New Constantinia are the countries where the majority of the population speak a Beltonic language.