|Timeline and Universe:||Ilethes|
|Spoken:||Arithia; major auxiliary language in the West|
|Total speakers:|| Native 600 million|
Total ≈1.1 billion
|Writing system:||Lazeic alphabet|
|Basic word order:||SOV|
Arithide is an Arophanic language of the North Arithidic branch, spoken by more than a billion people. It is the largest and most historically significant member of the Arophanic language family, and is also one of the earliest attested languages of Ilethes. The language has an unbroken literary tradition, written in the Lazeic alphabet, of at least 2,500 years.
Academically, the names Arithide or the Arithide language are umbrella terms covering Modern Arithide and its diachronic predecessors (most notably Classical Arithide), and, in certain circles, closely-related regional lects. In common parlance, however, they simply refer to the modern language, at times specifically the standard variant.
Unlike French, whose use is overseen by the Académie française, there is no official regulatory body charged with standardising Arithide usage, vocabulary, grammar and orthography. Similarly to English, however, the language regulates itself through the standardising effects of the print and broadcast media, particularly through the authority of four major dictionaries, the Renquau, Anvers, Caema and Līs. The first three are compiled and published by eponymous universities, while the last is published by the Lazean broadsheet Līs Ōrēs (hence the common appellation).
Name and Genealogy
The name Arithide is from the Arithide arithīde, combining Areth with -īde, the suffix denoting languages. An older name for the language was Arithian, but this name gradually fell out of favour as Nativisation gained traction in the 1990s CIE.
Arithide is spoken as a first language by over 580 million people in Arithia and another 170 million across 14 other states in Marcasia where the language has official status, and of these, more than 600 million are native, ethnic Areth speakers. A further estimated 350 million speak it as a second or third language, mainly centred in and around Dethria and southern Marcasia where the sociocultural influence of the Lazeian Empire is still felt, bringing the total number of speakers of Arithide to approximately 1.1 billion people today across the world.
Outside of Arithia, the 14 other states with Arithide as an official language are, in alphabetical order:
- Main article: History of the Arithide language
- Main article: Lazeic alphabet