Classical Beltonian

Classical Beltonian (Fhmıusıdvodɛ, Beminsidwode) or Imperial Beltonian (Modern Standard Beltonian: Bémesiawri Imperiáus) is the form of the Beltonian language that existed in the period of 900 to 1300 as a spoken dialect and lasted until 1500 in written form.

Classical Beltonian developed from Old Beltonian, primarily influenced by the Omchoke dialect and drawing further influence from Greek and Latin. It was the standard dialect of the government and educated speech in the Beltonian Empire. The period of Classical Beltonian is generally assumed to begin in the century after the rise of the Empire, which saw the standardization of the Beltonian alphabet and a distinct dialect for writing and educated speech. The dialect remained in use for longer in written form, until the rise of printing press and the Beltonian Reformation. Considered a poetic and literary language in Beltonia for many subsequent centuries, Classical Beltonian continued to influence the development of the language, especially Literary Beltonian.

Classical Beltonian is a highly inflected language. In common with the Beltonic languages it has multiple grammatical moods, and unlike its predecessors added combined inflections for mood and tense and introduced a form of imperfective aspect. It maintained the case system and gender marking. It maintained a similar consonant inventory to Old Beltonian, adding front rounded vowels and some contrasts with the mid vowels.

History
Classical Beltonian originated from the Old Beltonian dialects spoken in Omchoke, the dominant city of the Beltonian Empire. The Beltonian language had been re-established as the official language of the government in 763 with the Greek alphabet as its writing system, while the church continued to use Greek as a liturgical language. Between the 8th and 10th centuries, there was continued variation and evolution in the written language. This period also saw the divergence of the Beltonian and Greek alphabets.

In the 10th century, the language used by the government in both speech and writing became standardized. In practice, the standardization process resulted in the importation of new features and words from Greek, such as the genitive case. Matanides' 923 book Grammatitii Beminsidwade (Beltonian Grammar) is considered a particularly important milestone in the process. Basil the Scribe's 985 book Up Grammatitii čo imBeminsidwade (On the Grammar of Beltonian) would become the standard grammatical reference book in the empire for nearly half a millennium.

The Classical dialect's period as the language of government, scholarship and literature included the Beltonian Golden Age. Many of the most celebrated writers in Beltonian history wrote in the language, including Basil the Scribe, Nicholas of Velissi, Inoba, Acrites, Halacha and the Scholar Kings. Classical Beltonian poetry tended to be based around Greek poetry formats.

As a language spoken by the educated elite with codified grammar, the Classical dialect was relatively resistant to change. Nevertheless, some changes did take place, including the addition of a substantive article in the 12th century. In some cases, the dialect was affected by movements to instill Greek features and spelling; it varied as to whether the borrowings came from Ancient or Medieval Greek.

There is evidence that by the second half of the 13th century, the dialect was considered to sound archaic. In the satires of Renodita, characters speaking in the Classical dialect are portrayed as being pretentious and difficult to understand. In 1298, Nicholas IV decreed that royal proclamations should be read to the public in the local vernacular. Nonetheless, Classical Beltonian continued to be the primary language of written Beltonian for another 200 years, and was spoken in a few contexts such as law courts and court rituals.

The arrival of the printing press and the Beltonian Reformation marked the end of the Classical dialect's use in writing, with a pivotal moment being the publication of Escha's Bible in a written form of the Batinese dialect. Other uses of the Classical dialect, such as in court rituals, ended after the Ottoman conquest. Although later forms of the language were more influenced by Middle High Beltonian than the Classical dialect, it continued to influence the language, especially the spelling.

Consonants
Classical Beltonian had 23 consonant phonemes and was overall similar to Old Beltonian. The main difference was the shift of /χ/ > /x/ on the start of syllables and after back vowels and /ç/ after front vowels. This meant that unlike Old Beltonian and Middle High Beltonian, /x/ and /h/ were now contrasted. Other changes were the shift of /w/ > /ʋ/ and the introduction of geminate consonants.

Vowels
Vowels in closed syllables were affected by the Low Beltonian Vowel Shift, which included /u/ being fronted to /y/ and other rounded back vowels being raised. In addition, the schwa was re-vocalized into a front rounded vowel /œ/.

Another trend was the splitting of the mid vowels into two phonemes. The pair /e/ and /ɛ/ and the pair /ɔ/ and /o/ were contrasted in stressed closed syllables, but otherwise were allophones (close-mid in open syllables and open-mid in closed ones). The /ø/ and /œ/ sounds were only allophones, and some linguists like Chrétien argue that there was no /ø/.

At least some Low Beltonian dialects also had vowel allophony with the closed vowels. Ansleh argues that /i/, /y/ and /u/ could respectively be realized as [ɪ], [ʏ] and [ʊ ~ ɵ] in closed syllables, but finds no evidence that it was present in the Omchoke dialects that gave rise to the Classical dialect.

Sound change
The following changes affected Classical Beltonian and all the primary medieval dialects:
 * Monophthongization of short diphthongs in High dialects: /ei/ > /e/ and /ou/ > /o/, which slowly spread to Low dialects.
 * Especially in Low dialects, [ɒ] emerges as an allophone of /ɑ/ after /w/ and before nasal and labial vowels.
 * Especially in High dialects, loss of [ə] between stops, triggering consonant assimilation.
 * Especially in Low dialects, /u/ > /ʉ/, initially only in unstressed syllables.
 * Loss of uvular stops /q/ > /k/ except its allophone [ɢ] > /g/. Bacha believes this began in the central dialects, although other linguists like Ansleh believe it began in Low dialects.
 * Assimilation of adjacent stop consonants, e.g. /tp/ > /pp/.

The following changes affected Classical Beltonian and Middle Low Beltonian, but not Middle High Beltonian:
 * Low Beltonian Vowel Shift: /ʉ/ > /y/, raising of rounded back vowels /o/ > /u/, [ɒ] > /ɔ/ and /ə/ > /œ/.
 * Split between the pair /e/ and /ɛ/ and the pair /o/ and /ɔ/ in stressed closed syllables.
 * Weak rhotic sounds converge with strong rhotic sounds to /ʁ/.
 * Merger of open vowels to /a/.

Nouns
Nouns were divided between three genders: masculine, feminine and neuter. The re-division of the Old Beltonian common gender into masculine and feminine nouns was influenced by Greek. Greek loanwords took the same gender as in Greek, while Proto-Beltonic words took a gender which reflected their natural gender. The feminine gender was limited to Greek loanwords and explicitly feminine concepts. Some words like mama "mother" (neuter in Proto-Beltonic) were thus moved to adopt a gender that reflected their natural gender.

Like in Old Beltonian, the copulative case had three uses. It could be used as an alternative to the subject with the copula verb, for forming certain tenses and also for forming relative pronouns. The copulative case was altered to resemble the nominative case with suffixes, whereas in Old Beltonian it had resembled the accusative case with suffixes.

Basil the Scribe was the first scholar to document the existence of a genitive case. Unlike other cases, this was formed through a prefix rather than a suffix. The pronunciation was [in] by default but the nasal would assimilate with an adjacent consonant to become [im], [iŋ] and possibly [iɲ]. It was spelled <ım> if pronounced /im/, <ıl> before /g/ and <ıu> otherwise. Matanides and some modern linguists have not recognized the genitive as being a case, but rather as a case of a preposition that assimilates before words.

With the exception of a few words, the vocative case merged with the accusative.

Strong nouns
The strong noun pattern had been complex and at first glance was unpredictable. If the nominative was considered to be the default form, all other cases except the copulative were derived from the Proto-Beltonic cross-mutation. However, the effect of the mutation depended on whether the vowel was in a closed or open syllable, with vowels in closed syllables affected by the Low Beltonian Vowel Shift.

Articles
Classical Beltonian had a definite article, which was derived from a demonstrative adjective. The definite article behaved as an irregular adjective. There is some early evidence of nouns assimilating into the adjective; the pronunciation of /m/ became /n/ before a definite article, and voiced consonants were de-voiced.