Ostlandic language

The Ostlandic language (in Ostlandic: Ostlandisk sprog) is a Germanic language, specifically of the branch of West Scandinavian languages, spoken by over 19 million people, around Ostland and Northern Europe. It is the national language of Ostland.

Ostlandic language is a descendant of Old Norse language, which was spoken by Vikings when they arrived to the Ostlandic islands. It was classified as a Insular Scandinavian language along with Faroese and Icelandic. Its writing system is Latin Alphabet, introduced in 16th century.

Ostlandic, with 19,2 million, is the fourth most widely spoken among the Germanic languages, behind Dutch, with 24 million.

Prehistory (1160 - 1200)
There are hints and scripts that confirm about the existence of the "Ostlandic" language from 1400 decade, approximately. Before that, there was not enough difference between Norwegian and germanic dialects spoken in Ostland. The Ostlandic

Old Ostlandic (1200 - 1700)
The Ostlandic language started its formation since the 46th century B.C., after the discovery of the Ostlandic Islands. It was a dialect of Old West Scandinavian language and evolved closely to Norwegian language. The Ostlandic language was better known for having a 'rough pronunciation of the consonants.

The Ostlandic Islands were important for Norwegian - Danish Empires, but due the distance between the Mainland, the language evolved to a different way, that marked significant differences from the rest of the Scandinavian language. The Ostlandic language also was influenced by the Nordic languages of Northern England and Scotland.

Distinction from Norwegian and Danish
During the 19th century, the language in Norway was starting to experiment some changes to distinct the language from Danish, in Ostland this phenomenon divided into two different points of view in the country's linguistic scene: On the one hand, those linguists who wanted to assimilate the Ostlandic words to make it more similar to Norwegian and Danish, known as the Reductionists; and in the other hand, linguists who wanted to claim and highlight the distintions of the language compared with the rest of the Scandinavian, known (contemptuously, by the Reductinists) as secessionists. Gard Kinn was one of the most important figures for Ostlandic language's identity reasearch and claim.

In 1816, Kinn published a revisited edition of the Bible to remove some of, which he considered, Norwegian-foreign vocabulary. At the time, and due to country's devotee nature, this revision was one of the most important books of the language, and a fundamental base for its further development.

In 1820, Arnnold Svenningsen, professor of the Stavklids University, founded the Ostlandssprogehoss, the first institution to regulate the Ostlandic language. At the time Minister Torfinn Husstat, authority of the Danish cabinet in Ostland, demanded the dissolution of the intitution, and imprisonment of both Kinn and Svenningsen, along with other religious authorities in the archipielago. This episode is known for being one of the starting points of the independence movement of the country.

Alphabet
The Ostlandic alphabet (Ostlandiske alfbetet) was introduced in the 18th century, following the establishment of the Ostlandssprogehoss. It highly influenced by Swedish alphabet, originally consisting of 28 letters. It is a variation of the Latin Alphabet. Later in 1928, king Hans I, validated by Sproghoss, introduced the current variatin alphabet, with the removing of the Æ and Ø from the base alphabet.

O with slash (Ø) was de-facto accepted and reincorporated by the Sproghoss in 1964, but it is not widely used, as the O with Diaeresis (Ö) has replaced it in almost all the words where it was used. It is most commonly to be used in place names, such as the country's capital, Nordøstat.

Diacritic letters
The letters in the Ostlandic alphabet are the same as in the basic Latin alphabet, with the exception of two:
 * Ä: pron. [ɔ:] or [oː], Known as Semi-Open 'A' or also as A with Diaeresis. Is the Ostlandic representation for the Scandinavian letter Å / å, which was removed in the language reforms made by the Sproghoss in 1928, to unify the spellings of Low and Modern Ostlandic. Its sound can be compared with the English expresion Oh.
 * Ö:  pron. [ø'ː], known Close-Mid rounded 'O'. It is a vowel with a shorter and a little more inhaled sound than Latin O. In Low Ostlandic it is represented as a Ō (O with macron).
 * Ø: It represents the same sound as Ö. It was removed from the alphabet during the Reform of 1981, but was still commonly used by the population. In 1964, government recognized and approved that the letter is popularly used, but suggested the use of the Ö from now on. In recent times, it is used for some place names and not so much for regular words.

Former

 * Æ: Known officially as 'Open surounded E' by Language Institute, it was used since 16th century to 1930. In 1918, Language Institute considered it unnecessary and "not widely used anymore", and propossed it be converted into a simple textual combination of vowels 'A' and 'E'. The council of Low Ostlandic spelling (Bhabiersproghe Ostlandisghe) refused these reforms. Later, it was royal-approved by the King Hans I in 1930 with the Reform of 1981 of the language.

Low Ostlandic
After the Reform of 1918, some of the loan words were respelled to, in some cases, match with their original language's spelling, after being widely debated between Modern Ostlandic and Low Ostlandic speakers. For example, countries that never had an European root, for example: Azerbaijan, can be spelled as Asherbaijan since Low Ostlandic does not recognizes Z as an official letter.