The ancestors of the imperials came first to the marshy coasts of what later became Sueldon. This is reflected in the Paiodd word for ‘city’ mess, which, as noted by the famous imperial linguist Holwess Aliss, is likely derived from the same origin as the word meass itself, meaning ‘coast’. Those who settled along the Sueldonian coast later expanded west along the coast, north to the marshlands surrounding the Dog’s Ear Bay, and north into the plains and lowlands.
This eventually gave rise to several divergent languages among the coastal settlers, and in fact those who migrated to the lowlands began to diverge more greatly from their coastal ancestors, eventually establishing their own unique identity.The lowlanders also began to expand, further north and west into the forests and the highlands beyond. This established a still more divergent highland group, who also participated in subsequent expansion into other highland areas.
Thus, when Galeadd Viress rose to become emperor and united the various peoples under his nacent empire, there were many groups throughout the realm. These groups are descended from the major three: Coastal, Lowland, and Highland. A categorized list is as follows. Each group had its own unique culture and language, and thus this is also a list of the languages that existed before the empire. All are related, though divergent enough to be unintelligible to even the most closely neighboring groups. Within each major grouping, the language groups are listed from West to East, South to North.
Coastal
Bayspeech
- West
- Southwest
- N
- East
Sueldonian
- West
- East
Marshland
- South
- North
Lowland
Sienan
Rolanish
Muralian
Honalian
Highland
Virestian
Culadian
Woodland
- West
- East
West Honalian
Alavolian
In addition, it must be noted that there were the remnants of indigenous groups, though these had been largely pushed to the margins of the land by the ever-expanding Coastal, Lowland, and Highland groups. There were also enclaves under Parinali influence, and especially to the East, the Barbarian groups, many of whom resist imperial rule to this day.
Viress succeeded in uniting all of the major groups related by common ancestry to his own Virestian stock, the Coastal and Lowland groups as well as the Highlanders, and was even successful in bringing some of the indigenous, Parinali, and the Westernmost of the Barbarian tribes into the fold.
