Maríshan

Maríshan is a romance-derived conlang that is fictionally spoken by the natives of the island of Maríshe, which is located not terribly far from France and other European countries and governments. For this reason Maríshe has a lot of similarity with French with regards to loanwords and some grammar, but there is also a very distinct "formal" version which has a distinct OSV layout that is very unusual. Fictionally the modern period runs from 1545 to the current day though the middle period would be understandable to most (though spelling was often arbitrary).

Setting
The history of the language is broadly categorized into three periods: old, middle and modern Maríshan. Like French and English, most native speakers would have trouble reading, much less understanding Old Maríshan. A native speaker might understand spoken middle Maríshan after a period of acclimation, but spelling was largely arbitrary, so reading would be difficult. The Old period is roughly 900 - 1390, and the middle period starts in 1390 and runs to 1545, the date at which the Maríshan people gained independence. After gaining their freedom, the language continued to evolve into what is considered modern Maríshan today.

Old Maríshan was a considerably different language than even Middle Maríshan. This drastic difference from Old to Middle Maríshan has caused many to consider that Middle Maríshan was actually a creole since France had started occupation in 1386, and it is from this contact that most scholars believe that Maríshan picked up its largely Romance vocabulary. The creole theory is largely controversial, however, and there are many who dismiss it. They reason that any language sufficiently exposed to another will tend to pick up the vocabulary of the other, especially if one language is the language of the courts, and the other is not. Considering that Maríshan has always been OSV in its lowest register seems to indicate that the creole theory is wrong, or at least flawed, though others believe that a generation of exposure to both Old Maríshan and French could have also lead to the newer generation picking up the OSV tendencies. It is interesting to note that Maríshan did not obtain a high register form that allowed flexible placement of subject and object via re-ordering of the pronouns until the middle period, and many have speculated that it was a concession to allow a more readily understood conversation between the occupiers and the natives.

Nevertheless, scholars point to the complicated pronoun system, and conjugation system as reasons why the creole theory is incorrect. The toi- prefix on conditional verbs, for example, is traceable to taoa- in Old Maríshan, which functioned the same way as the current prefix. The -soí postfix on pronouns (-soae Old. Mar.), as well as the definite and indefinite classes of pronouns also trace directly back to Old Maríshan.

Middle Maríshan would be reasonably well tolerated by a modern speaker once they acclimated to the accent. Speaking would be possible once the required vowel changes were made, but reading would still be difficult. Reading even in the early modern period would have been difficult, as it wasn't until 1634 that the Academy formalized the language, grammar, and spelling. Modern Maríshan grammar itself has not changed much from Middle Maríshan, but as loan words gain acceptance, the vocabulary is drifting slowly away from the mostly French influence. Englaisismen include words like oqaé which is abbreviated to the familiar ok that is replacing the French inspired word acord meaning roughly the same thing.