Below is a transcript of a conversation between Professor Eleinn Hahíns of the Royal College of Banra and Magister Errícc Cnohrmann, a visiting scholar from Gialla, discussing the later stages of the Pizan language following the Yḿboldhźh (Head-Rolling) revolution.
Professor Hahíns: Thank you for joining me today, Magister Cnohrmann. Our students have been learning about Late Pizan, and we have some background about earlier forms of the language, but we’ve yet to discuss what happened to the language after the revolution. Could you give us a brief overview of Late Pizan?
Magister Cnohrmann: My pleasure, Professor. What you call Late Pizan, the people call Kamvlŕsâi or “Immortal Speech.” It was established as the official language of the Empire after the Yḿboldhźh, when the Four Right Hands solidified their control around 1950. By then, High Pizan had become a dead language outside the Garden of Nobles.
Professor Hahíns: Fascinating! So this was a deliberate linguistic reform that accompanied political revolution?
Magister Cnohrmann: Exactly. The revolutionaries wanted to distance themselves from the old regime. Adopting their regional dialect as the official language was as much a political statement as a practical one. It symbolized the shift of power away from Tashpâna’s insular nobility and towards the broader population of Dŕkíns (that is, nobles) elsewhere throughout the country. And it served to facilitate that shift in power, since it made it easier for the Dŕkíns of the eastern provinces to issue proclamations, enforce laws, and perform every other function of empire that relied on written text. In fact the replacement was so complete and ruthless that the official history of the Empire of Khŕsêi, the earlier forms of the language are not acknowledged at all. On Gallia, due to the intermittent nature of the Empire’s influence over us, we have preserved the largest known library of Early and High Pizan texts.
Professor Hahíns: Remarkable! What most distinguishes Late Pizan — or Kamv — Kamvul — uh…
Magister Cnohrmann: Kamvlŕsâi. kam-vlur-SAAYE. In Artanga we might spell it Camvlursaaí.
Professor Hahíns: Yes, exactly, that’s what I was going to say. What distinguishes it phonologically from its predecessors?
Magister Cnohrmann: The most striking feature is what I have called, in my research, “phonological compression.” Late Pizan dramatically reduced unstressed vowels, creating many syllabic consonants. For example, Karsêrha, the name of the Empire in High Pizan, became Khŕsêi. Tashapâna, the capital, was renamed Dźhpân. This compression, I would argue, reflects the revolutionary ethos—direct, efficient, stripped of aristocratic flourish. Almost brutally terse and efficient, in fact.
Professor Hahíns: Could you give me — I mean, uh, give our students some more before-and-after examples to illustrate these changes?
Magister Cnohrmann: To be sure. Consider this phrase from High Pizan: Solayosa hana marsha toyo ndiga (“The soldiers marched all day”). In Late Pizan, it became: Han źlais mâizh toll ndigh. Notice how the syllable count drops dramatically while preserving meaning. The complexity of syllable structure indicates, I believe, that Late Pizan is spoken somewhat more slowly than High Pizan was, though of course it is difficult to be sure. I have endeavored to gain audience with Queen Sarah for the purpose of ascertaining this, since she ruled Artír during High Pizan times and visited the Empire at least once, but she seems to be unavailable.
Professor Hahíns: Queen Sarah has many other more important engagements, I am sure. But could you speak to grammatical changes? It sounds like those occurred as well. I notice High Pizan hana, in the second position, has changed to han and moved to the front of the sentence.
Magister Cnohrmann: Indeed, well spotted, Professor! High Pizan used a rigid SVO structure, similar to its ancestors — Spanish and English — and like almost all languages that have undergone creolization. (I have made a particular study of the creolization process, since it’s quite common among the islands and regions conquered by the Khŕsêi.) But Late Pizan drifted toward VSO, likely influenced by Artanga and Arcllantanga. This manifested as clause-initial obligatory auxiliaries with infinitives in the former clause-medial position. The earlier example would literally translate as “had soldiers to-march all day” in Late Pizan.
Professor Hahíns: We deeply appreciate your time today, Magister. For students who are particularly interested in this topic, what resources would you recommend?
Magister Cnohrmann: For detailed phonological charts and extensive examples, I’ve published a comprehensive analysis in the Imperial Archives. I’ve also been developing a linguistic reference encycolpedia that maps the evolution of Pizan through all its stages. This is ongoing work in the process of publication as we speak.
Professor Hahíns: We will certainly be looking forward to that, Magister! One final question: what would you say is the most important lesson from studying Late Pizan’s evolution?
Magister Cnohrmann: That languages never evolve in isolation from their social context. The compression of Late Pizan—its syllabic consonants, its shifted word order, its truncated forms—all reflect a society moving from aristocratic verbosity to brutal revolutionary directness. The Four Right Hands understood that to truly change a society, you must change how it speaks. As we say in Gialla: when we speak a new language, we see a new world.
For a complete analysis of Late Pizan phonology, including full sound change rules and examples, visit Professor Cnohrmann’s Patreon.
