Zotian Language
Basic information
| Zotian | |
|---|---|
| Zeujien | |
| Native to | Belgium and The Netherlands |
| Ethnicity | Zotes (Zeujiase) |
Native speakers | NL 78 BE 167 |
| Revival | Attempted revival numbers unknown |
Romance? | |
Early form | French?
Latin? Dutch? |
| Dialects | Zonian, Walonian, Brishian, Zotonian, North and South Zeeish, Maasish, Bergian and Rininian |
| Latin alphabet (some alterations) | |
| Language codes | |
| ISO 639-1 | Zeu |
| ISO 639-3 | – |
Template requires an ISO 639 language codeThe language of the self-proclaimed Zotians. It is rumored to be spoken in the Netherlands and Belgium. The name is most likely derived from two Dutch words "Zuid" south or "zot" maniac or fool. Though other regional names for the language exist such as Zudish and Frensch. The language has a lot of features shared with French. It is theorized that the dialect/language may have been derived from French. Because of its many years of influence from the Dutch language, Zotian has evolved to share a lot of Dutch vocabulary and grammar. The surviving form of the language, referred to as Modern Zotian, has been considered very different by most speakers of old Zotian. Old Zotian mostly survives in the older generations, mostly speakers 70+ years of age. About 60% of Zotian speakers speak the older variant. 85% of the speakers identified as female.
History
1880-1914
The language history is clouded in mystery. Most of what we know is from recounts of its speakers. During the 1880s there were rounded up about 1000-2000. Most people during that time were Catholic farmers. Isolated from most other people. This kept the language in a bubble. The language is theorized to have had a slow decline up to this point. When the female rights movement in the Netherlands and Belgium gained traction, the male patriarchs in the Zotian language communities grew worried. To assert their dominance they banned the use of any other language by their women and daughters. "They must only speak Zotian" some women recounted. By this move they became socially handicapped and economically dependent on their husbands. This also slowly brewed hatred to the language by its own speakers. Due to the men looking down on the language and forcing it on their women, it slowly came to be known as "women's language". Due to the now negative load attached to the language it slowly became hated by most of the speakers.
WW1
The language was nearly equally divided in the amount of speakers in both countries, both had about 750-1000 speakers. During WW1 a lot of male speakers in Belgium fought in the war and a lot of them died. About 100-300 speakers died during the conflict, some on the front lines. But some of the Belgian Zotes died during the brutal actions of some German soldiers. This caused a demographic change in the language. Now there were 70% female speakers in Belgium. And there were during that time more Dutch Zotes actively speaking the language.
1918-1950s
This period is very important in history, a major turning point. During the German occupation of both countries, a lot of Zotian males and a small portion of females joined partisan groups to fight against the occupation. Some took in Jews. This ended disastrously in a lot of cases. A lot of the males got imprisoned and sometimes executed. But due to the collaboration with Dutch and Belgians a lot of the Zotes came back with a feeling that them joining the Dutch/Belgian masses would be beneficial. A lot of them felt a feeling of connection and brotherhood. Due to the change of mentality about conserving the language most of the speakers abandoned their roots because they considered assimilating to be beneficial. This change in mentality was way more popular in the Netherlands. Due to that change they nearly completely stopped teaching it in both countries, most remaining speakers became women, but due to it being used as a language to oppress them they also slowly dropped the language.
1950s-1990s
Most of the speakers stopped teaching it and most speakers started dying of old age or other health complications. This became a very steep decline in speakers, around 400 of them remained. Most were old, not many children spoke it. Most people moved away from their communities and to big cities. This trend was a little less in the Belgian demographic, which explains its higher amount of speakers. This was a period of rapid decline which quickly shortened the Zotian language's expiring date.
1990s-beyond
In the Modern day Zotian is in a very critical position. The language's demographics showing that 90% of speakers being above the age of 40. There were some rare instances of the new generations picking up the language as a second language, though no attempt at revival or documentation. The youngest native speaker is 16 years old. This was a miracle since the last native speaker before this speaker is currently 28. Some youngest speakers and some of the oldest speakers are currently trying to document the language in a dictionary. The dictionary is far from finished and we will see when it finally does get released.
Spelling/romanization
There is little to no Zotian literature, most being destroyed and the rest being privately owned. There are no spelling rules currently since it was never a much written language. Currently the people working on the dictionary are also trying to implement romanization. The language has been written in the Latin alphabet and some older literature or texts have been noticed to never completely finish writing the letter n in some cases. Some of the people working on the dictionary are trying to push the use of this unfinished n letter in the romanization to stand for nasalization.
