Early Modern Beltonian

Early Modern Beltonian (EMB) is the form of the Beltonian language that was spoken in southern and central Beltonia from 1600 until the mid-19th century. It continued to be used with some modifications in literature, law and administration until the 1960s; this phase is sometimes known as Literary Beltonian or Acadamy Beltonian.

EMB was primarily descended from Middle High Beltonian, with some influence from other dialects including Classical Beltonian. It also incorporated loanwords from Ottoman Turkish, Greek, Latin, French and English. After the Beltonian Revolution, the Academy of the Beltonian Language was founded to standardize and regulate the language. The early years of the academy saw the promotion of the Mitollican dialect as the standardized form as well as the last changes to the Beltonian alphabet.

EMB was affected by the High Beltonian Vowel Shift, increasing use vowel reduction, sound change involving the loss of certain nasal vowels and the simplification of consonant clusters. The case system was simplified in the spoken language but was left intact in the written form. The negative and habitual moods were replaced with auxiliary verbs, while the future tense became an inflection. The spoken language simplified inflections to a far greater extent than the written language.