Iniki Language Family

 

The languages in the Iniki family seem to have arisen independently among the many thousands of small tribes of Lizari scattered across Inik in the Second Epoch. The early languages in this family would remain very fluid for thousands of years.

K’Iniki (Year -4500 to Year 391)

K’Ikini is a sub-family of languages spoken across Inik that includes hundreds of different dialects, many of which had different partial written languages, but none of which ever became an established, widely spoken language, and very few of which were ever spoken by non-Lizari. By the Third Epoch, the major cities of Inik were all coastal cities, such as Addisc, Blue Harbour and Tzeb, which were predominantly populated by colonists from Ayodesh or Sekhu, who would speak their own languages. Eventually, these foreign languages would take hold even in the interior cities, displacing K’Iniki dialects and keeping them largely constrained to the populations of nomadic Lizari who still mostly lived in the jungles.

Iniki Zula (Year 391 to current)

In 391, when Dugasa Zul united the nomadic Lizari tribes of central Inik and liberated first Addisc and Tzeb (which essentially considered themselves colonies of Ayodesh and Sekhu respectively), and ultimately, Grove, he was declared absolute ruler of Inik. He quickly exerted his authority by stripping all lands and holdings from the great families of the colony cities (including also Blue Harbor, Verdant, and others) and putting his offspring in place as governors answerable only to him. At that time - to facilitate communication across his empire, he established his version of K’Iniki to be the only one; Iniki Zula literally means ‘the King’s Iniki’. Dugasa Zul also ordered the creation of a written language which relied heavily on phonetic spellings using the Middle Vercian alphabet. For several decades, he and his successors outlawed the writing of other languages across the entire continent - which was upsetting and frustrating for many, but ultimately enabled the Lizari to quash the colonialist approach to the development of Inik, and led to a much more integrated society. Iniki Zula is the primary language spoken across all of Inik through to the Fifth Epoch and beyond, and Iniki Zula speakers - Lizari or otherwise - have a strongly rooted sense of pride in their language.