Western Lucidian
Western Lucidian
moderate prevalence
low prevalence
sparse usage
Western Lucidian is a spoken and written sub-language of the Protolucidian languages. Western Lucidian is a minority language with usage concentrated primarily in southwestern Illuminatia in a region southwest of the Transilluminatian Range. The most significant populations of Western Lucidian speakers are found in an area centered on the Southwestern Megalopolitan Complex and in the vicinity of the cities of Requiem, Voyage a Deux, and Clapton.
Western Lucidian—like all of the Protolucidian languages—is a constructed language that evolved from the greater Protolucidian language, which itself developed aboard the Lucidus mission. Western Lucidian is the third-most spoken of the four recognized Protolucidian sub-languages. The sub-language is natively spoken by 2% of Illuminatia's population. 8% of Illuminatians—including native users—are able to understand written and verbal Western Lucidian as well as write and speak the language. 18% of Illuminatians have at least a functional understanding of Western Lucidian in either written or spoken form if not both. Case And Point, Inc is the sole linguistics institution charged with preserving the language and regulating its usage.
Western Lucidian shares its closest linguistic relationship with the most-widely spoken Protolucidian sub-language, Protolucidian Major, which is spoken in eastern Illuminatia on the Timmons Peninsula. This makes Western Lucidian more easily comprehensible by more people than the other more distantly related Protolucidian sub-languages, Quasilucidian and Demilucidian, which are used primarily in the Modal Peninsula and the continent's northeastern regions, respectively. Speakers of Western Lucidian are able to understand more than 85% of spoken and written Protolucidian Major; while Western Lucidian users are only able to understand between 20% and 50% of spoken or written Quasilucidian and Demilucidian. Inversely, comprehension of Western Lucidian by Protolucidian Major speakers averages near 70%, while Quasilucidian and Demilucidian users tend to understand less than 20% of spoken and written Western Lucidian.
Like all Protolucidian languages, Western Lucidian is never used exclusively by its speakers, but is instead spoken in complement of Illuminatia's common language, Glossa Communi. Western Lucidian is taught electively in a minority of schools in southwestern Illuminatia where most of the language's speakers reside. Teaching of Western Lucidian in other regions of Illuminatia is rare. Western Lucidian is broadcast on a handful of wireless and telekinephotography outlets in regions where it is spoken, and is printed in only a couple of alternative publications in southwest Illuminatia.
Distribution and divergence
The populations that use Western Lucidian are concentrated in regions where descendant of the second multiversal duplication of survivors from the Lucidus II spacecraft reside. The close linguistic evolutionary relationship between Western Lucidian and Protolucidian Major arises from the common lineage that the western population itself shares with the first and third multiversal duplications of the same Lucidus II survivors in the east.
The Protolucidian Major sub-language benefitted from a cohesive population of potential speakers numbering nearly twice the number of people located in adjacent regions. The intermingling of these populations occurred early in Illuminatia's history, allowing usage of the root Protolucidian language to remain more unified and less devolved from its original form aboard the Lucidus mission. Western Lucidian, by contrast, on the opposite side of the Illuminatian continent, was separated by some distance from any other Protolucidian speakers. As a result, Western Lucidian mutated more quickly than Protolucidian Major upon the population's arrival upon Neonisi, diverging—much like other Protolucidian sub-languages—from its linguistic roots rapidly during a period when these populations were isolated from one another.
Contemporary usage
Like all Protolucidian languages, Western Lucidian is used as a "home" language, spoken chiefly among family and familiar people in everyday informal interaction. It's an unofficial language that is not recognized for use in commerce or civic and governmental matters. This personal, non-public usage has remained consistent throughout the evolution of the Protolucidian languages and continues to be the case to a less-consistent extent into the present day.