Caphiric Latin

Caphiric Latin (latīna caphirium) is a Latinic language spoken by Caphirians in the Imperium of Caphiria. Caphiric Latin is a direct branch of classical Latin and is primarily mutually unintelligible as it shares the base vocabulary, forms, and syntax, while at the same time incorporating informal elements which had always been with the language and infusing it with an updated vocabulary for modernity's sake.

Latin has always been the official language of Caphiria and through the power of the Caphirian Republic and Principate became the dominant language across Sarpedon. Vulgar Latin, a less standard and literary version of the language developed into what is now the Romance languages. Caphiria on the other hand, continued to use the Latin language and adapted it throughout time and ultimately created what is known as Caphiric Latin.

While official statistics are unclear, Caphiria boasts that Caphiric Latin has approximately 1.2 billion native speakers and ranks among the world's most natively spoken language even though it only has one official user. The reason for the unclear statistics is that The Imperium dictates that any of its possessions or conquered territory adopt Caphiric Latin as its lingua franca, which means that the population of Caphiric Latin speakers can range anywhere from 1.2 to 1.8 billion factoring in Caphiria's historical hyper-imperialism and spread of its culture.

=Geographic distribution=

Official status
Caphiria's de jure language is Caphiric Latin; used in its government, on its stock market and for most of its arts. Stemming from classical Latin, of the early Republic, modern Caphiric Latin took its present form toward the end of the Republic and early Principate period. Grammatical structures remain stagnant since those days but thousands of words have been added and thousands of spellings modified.

Despite modest changes, Caphiric Latin is the oldest language in terms of intelligibility with prior variants. There are one billion speakers of Latin within the Imperium, over 99% of the country. It is the primary tongue for every Caphirian school, in which most subjects are taught, and pervades the speech of the majority of telescreen broadcasts and radio shows. The federal government - including the ministries, Senate and Imperator - uses it as the common language of discussion. Moreover, this has allowed Caphiria to foster closer relationships with other Latin-speaking and Romance states.

Latinic countries
Due to Caphiric Latin's intelligibility with classical Latin and depending on how speaking proficiency is defined, anyone who is fluent in classical Latin is able to at minimum speak conversational Caphiric Latin without any effort, with the only major obstacle being the difference in vocabulary. This has created a unique bridge between countries and continents because this enriches the Latinic ethnolinguistic group and further binds them together as they share common culture, history, ancestry and language.

=Vocabulary=

Glossary
=See also=