ပရီငငါကဥ
玻漣語
The Language of Berlean
Brliennagh
[bɚljen̪n̪ɑχ]
ဂါငဂဥဝီရယာရှဇဥမဧခောစဧုငတရီငငကဝု၊
စဧငါကဥဝီရဝီဂဇဧမဧဖြာခငတစေီဂဧမြတု။
Garngr yel falhrz mie karsir na lirnrn khur,
sie nagh yel yegzie mie plak na sirgie mlar.
“Language is the way to join our hearts dueted,
And the tongue – its key to open worlds aplenty.”
Introduction
The Berlean language (Berlean: ပရီငငါကဥ; Romanization: Brliennagh; IPA: [bɚljen̪n̪ɑχ]) is a language spoken on Berlean Island (Berlean: ပရီင ဂြီမဥ; Romanization: Brlien Glirmr; Luanese: 玻漣島 Poalen Dáo), also known as Gleam Island (Berlean: ဂြီမဒါရ; Romanization: Gliemdal; Luanese: 瓊島 Gyeng Dáo), where it is the official language and the acting standard language of the Mhar people, the region’s principal ethnic group. It is the most widely spoken of the Mhar languages and is largely based off of northern vernacular around the city of Neamor. It is a largely analytic language with primarily head-initial word order. It is written with the Berlean alphabet, a variant of the Burmese alphabet. Due to language contact, aspects of the grammar and vocabulary have been influenced by neighboring languages, primarily Luanese and varieties of Southern Meon. Many loan words were particularly taken from Middle Luanese during the time of the Great Dragon Empire (大龍帝國), including transliterations of the readings of Luanese characters.
Berlean Island, also sometimes referred to as Mharland (Berlean: မှောငီကဥ; Romanization: Mharniegh; Luanese: 瑪國 Mágueh) or the Great Gleam (Luanese: 大瓊), is an island nation.¹ It is located to the south of the Great Stallion Empire (大騭帝國). Its largest city and original capital, Neamor, is located in the north. However, due to the possibility of invasion, the capital was later relocated to the second largest city, Mlhernip (Berlean: မြှငီဖ), located in the south.
The name Berlean comes from the word for “jade,” specifically jade colored a light blue-green. This was translated into Luanese as 瓊 and then transliterated back into Berlean as gliem, hence the many alternative names involving Gleam. It is believed that jade is the gemstone of the Goddess Meagler, and that the island of Berlean itself is a giant jade gemstone under the protection of the Goddess.
Traditional Mhar culture is largely defined by the practices of Meaglerism, a philosophical and religious tradition related to Daoism, with peculiarities such as the reverence of yin-over-yang and radial symmetry. Mhar culture is further characterized by being primarily a nocturnal society and one of the few cultures of Ruina to denounce Confucianism.
Notes on the various names of Berlean: Brlien (Berlean) or Brlien Glirmr (Berlean Island) are endonyms referring to the nation and the island and are more geographic. Mharniegh (Mharland) refers specifically to the Mhar people as a nation and is not necessarily exclusive to Berlean Island; it also excludes other ethnic groups. Gliemdal (瓊島) is a borrowed luanese exonym referring to the island geographically, while Dargliem (大瓊) is the borrowed luanese exonym for the nation.
Top: Map of Berlean Island in relation to the Great Stallion Empire
Bottom: Location of the city centers of Neamor and Mlhernip
1 In real life, this is Hainan, a province of the PRC.
*under revision