Arvernian

Arvernian (English: /ˈɑɹvɛrniən, -vɝniən/, Arvernian: [arˈverna]), also known as lengua arverna (Arvernian: [leŋwa arˈverna]) by its native speakers, is a Romance language spoken in southeastern France, Monaco, and northwestern Italy, as well as northern Cuba and the southeastern United States (particularly Florida, Alabama, Georgia, and the Carolinas); collectively, these regions are sometimes referred to as Arvernia (L'Arvernia).

Arvernian is one of the official languages of the United State. For this reason, the aforementioned states are known as L'Acila, or colloquially by English-speakers as Arverica. The situation is often referred to as "America's Quebec." Despite the distance and time between dialects of Arvernian, they remain entirely intelligible with one another and the differences have been compared to British and American accents. However, because Arvernian enjoys no official status in France and negligible recognition elsewhere, American Arvernian has become the global standard and the regulatory body, L'Academia da Lengua Arverna (ALA), is headquartered in Atlanta, Georgia.

Classification and Dialects

American Arvernian (Arverna americana)

American Standard Arvernian (Arvernian Standard de America), or ASA, is the official standard of the language by virtue of having the largest number of speakers by far. Despite this official status, which primarily applies to spelling conventions and other formalities, colloquial American Arvernian contains a number of loans, especially from English and the indigenous languages (Cherokee and Muskogee, primarily), as well as some neologisms, which are not considered standard by L'Academia. Some examples of these include:

ASA	colloquial Am. Ar.	meaning
astaho	lahosta del mar'	lobster
lihermente	na ombra de	slightly
pesce	acola	fish
ruza	pinc	pink
unòre	ahudi	hello

American Arvernian also takes a number grammatical structures from American English, which are not found outside of the United States and are proscribed by the ALA. Unlike the aforementioned examples, these grammatical developments are considered a part of the larger American Standard. For example, the T-V distinction in ASA is much less important than in European varieties. The vò pronoun is used primarily for strangers, bosses (though this is falling out of favor), military commanders, and professionals. It is never used to address family members, however old or distinguished, people that are well-known to the speaker, or in mass communication, such as advertisements or PSAs (Portà to masqua, not Portà vustra masqua, BUT Portà vustrà masque is okay). Virtual assistants like Siri and phone language settings now have an option to change from the default vò to tu after users expressed discomfort at being viewed so formally. Learners are often taught the humorous adage "If it's meeting two, you'd better use tu."

Mediterranean Arvernian (Arverna del Meiterràneo)

Mediterranean Arvernian is not under any standard, but does typically follow ALA conventions. As prescribed by the ALA's internal constitution, 20% of its staff must be European or Caribbean speakers, though only 4% are Caribbean compared to 19% European. Like colloquial American Arvernian, Mediterranean Arvernian dialects diverge from the standard in vocabulary. Generally speaking, while earlier borrowings were from northern Italian dialects and Occitan, modern Mediterranean Arvernian takes mostly from standard French and, to a lesser extent, standard Italian. Some examples of these differences include:

ASA	Mediterranean Arvernian	meaning
stasiondò	parking, parquing	parking lot
giamba	geome	leg
chaple	capello	hat
sostàne	suchene	bra

Phonology

Consonants

	Bilabial	Labio-dental	Dental	Alveolar	Post-alveolar	Palatal	Velar	Glottal
Nasal	m			n			(ŋ)
Stop	b p			t d			k	ʔ
Fricative			ð	s z	ʃ ʒ
Affricate					t͡ʃ d͡ʒ
Approximant						j	w
Trill				r~ɾ
Lateral app.				l

Vowels

	Front	Near-front	Central	Near-back	Back
High
Near-high
High-mid
Mid
Low-mid
Near-low
Low

Writing System

Letter		Aa	Àà	Bb	Cc	Dd	Ee	Ff	Gg	Hh	Ii	Ll	Mm
Sound	Initial	/a/	/eː/	/b/	/k/	/d/	/e/; /ə/	/f/	/g/[1]	/∅/	/i/; /ɪ/	/l/	/m/
	Medial						/e/; /ə/			/ʔ/	/i/; /ɪ/	/l/, /ɫ/[2]
	Final						/∅/; /e/			n/a	/i/	/l/
	Before i	n/a			/s/	n/a			/d͡ʒ/		n/a
Letter		Nn	Oo	Òò	Pp	Qq	Rr	Ss	Tt	Uu	Vv	Yy	Zz
Sound	Initial	/n/	/o/	/wa/	/p/	/k/	/r~ɾ/	/s/	/t/	/u/; /w/	/v/	variable	/z/
	Medial		/o/; /ə/				/r/	/s/; /z/
	Final		/o/				/ɾ/	/s/		/u/
	Before i	/ɲ/	n/a				/ð/	/ʃ/	n/a				/ʒ/

^{[1] Very rare in native words, usually found in loans or recent Latin additions.}

^{[2] The /ɫ/ phoneme is found in all positions in American Arvernian.}

Grammar

Nouns

Arvernian nouns have two possible genders (masculine and feminine) and two numbers (singular and plural) and nouns often follow their natural gender. Gender only determines adjective and/or article agreement. Consider the following table, which divides the words into their pluralization paradigms, rather than by gender (with the definite article).

o/e/à/C-paradigm

	singular	plural
chafto m. "roof"	le chafto	i chafti
pesce m. "fish"	le pesce	i pesci
beità f. "beauty"	la beità	à beiti

a/ò-paradigm

	singular	plural
cucina f. "kitchen"	la cucina	à cucine
vò m. "fire"	le vò	i vue

Verbs

Conjugation of dire "to say"

infinitive	dire
	/dir/
auxiliary verb			gerund		dicendò
					/disendwa/
present participle		dicante	past participle		difto
		/dikant/			/difto/
person	singular			plural
	first	second	third	first	second	third
indicative	eo	tu	el/ella	nò	vò	ello
present	dicò	dices	dici	dicimo	dicete	dicion
	/dikwa/	/dises/	/disi/	/disimo/	/disete/	/dison/
progressive	a la dicendò
	/a la disendwa/
past perfect	dicevò	dicevas	diceva	dicevamo	dicevate	dicevan
	/disevwa/	/disevas/	/diseva/	/disevamo/	/disevate/	/disevan/
future	vam dire	ves dire	ve dire	vemo dire	vete dire	ven dire
	/vam dir/	/ves dir/	/ve dir/	/vemo dir/	/vet dir/	/ven dir/
future progressive	vam a la dicendò	ves a la dicendò	ve a la dicendò	vemo a la dicendò	vete a la dicendò	ven a la dicendò
	/vam a la disendwa/	/ves a la disendwa/	/ve a la disendwa/	/vemo a la disendwa/	/vet a la disendwa/	/ven a la disendwa/
conditional	eo	tu	el/ella	nò	vò	ello
present	dicer	diceres	dicedor	dicemor	diceder	dicentor
	/diser/	/diseres/	/disedor/	/disemor/	/diseder/	/disentor/
subjunctive	eo	tu	el/ella	nò	vò	ello
present	dicà	dicàs	dicàt	dicàmo	dicàte	dicànt
	/dikeː/	/dikeːs/	/dikeːt/	/dikeːmo/	/dikeːt/	/dikeːnt/
imperative	eo	tu	el/ella	nò	vò	ello
	-	dicà	-	-	dicàte	-
	-	/dikeː/	-	-	/dikeːt/	-

infinitive	essere
	/ɛsɛr/
auxiliary verb
present participle
person	singular			plural
	first	second	third	first	second	third
indicative	eo	tu	el/ella	nò	vò	ello
present	so	es	è	somo/som'	si	son
progressive
past perfect
future
future progressive
conditional	eo	tu	el/ella	nò	vò	ello
present
subjunctive	eo	tu	el/ella	nò	vò	ello
present
imperative	eo	tu	el/ella	nò	vò	ello