Pentapolitan Argot

The Pentapolitan Argot, often called the Argot for short and known within the Pentapolis as the Wolstadtsch Spräche, is a creole language based on the Werdacher form of Hendalarskisch. Like Werdacher, it broadly conforms to standard Hendalarskisch grammar, but unlike Werdacher or indeed any other form of Hendalarskisch, its corpus of vocabulary is very extensively marked by Lechian, Khovihnihk, Burgoignesc and (to a lesser extent) Junglish influences. Consequently, while standard Hendalarskisch and Werdacher are both readily intelligible to almost all Pentapolitans, the reverse is much less frequently true, a fact which has made the language politically useful and consequently culturally supported. The product of the Pentapolitan cities' role as major trading entrepôts, the Argot has been attested in various forms for several hundred years, but since the 19th century it has undergone a degree of codification highly unusual for a creole language and now enjoys official status in each of the five cities as a consequence.

Classification
The classification of the Argot has historically proven controversial. It is widely accepted that it is an Occidental creole language, since all its notable input languages are members of the wider Occidental family, but even this has prompted some disquiet; the Jendaburger linguist Gustof Meller rose to relative fame through his belief that the Argot was not a creole at all, considering the term demeaning, but rather an independent branch of the Occidental family, superior to and 'set above' more parochial national tongues. This position is not accepted within the wider linguistic community but continues to receive support among more 'nationalist' sections of Pentapolitan society. Other sections of the Pentapolitan linguistic tradition have tended to emphasise the language's creole nature, on the grounds that this offers a more historically grounded framing of its distinctiveness than the Meller proposal. Neither of these proposals are supported by the Hendalarskara Linguistic Academy; the Academy focuses on the language's underlying grammar, which remains firmly Central Gothic in its construction, to argue that the Argot remains part of the Hendalarskisch subfamily irrespective of its wider influences. This view, although often mightily unpopular within the Pentapolis itself, represents the closest there is to an international consensus opinion on the topic, and among international authorities the Argot is therefore counted among the Werdacher branch of the Hendalarskisch languages.

Usage
The Argot enjoys full legal recognition in the Pentapolis, where it is the only language that is official across all five cities. It has almost no speakers and consequently no official status within Hendalarsk outside of the Cities, however, and it is not a working language of either the Great Chamber or the Forum of Nations, a fact which is a source of some political tension. Within the Cities, the Argot is considerably more widely-spoken than Standard Hendalarskisch itself; the majority of the citizens of Wrzeczsz-Kokoszki, for example, do not speak anything but the most basic Standard Hendalarskisch but are fluent in both the Kokoszkian dialect of Lechian and the Argot, with both possessing equal status in the city. Even the other more traditionally Gothic cities of the Pentapolis use Standard Hendalarskisch in a distinctly secondary capacity, with the Argot hegemonic in politics, administration and culture alike. Many other mercantile communities around the Vandarch littoral are home to Argot speakers, in the form of both emigrants from the Pentapolis and locals who speak the Argot in order to better communicate with Pentapolitan traders. It has, however, proven difficult to estimate how many speakers of the language exist outside the Pentapolis, with some estimates suggesting that almost 95% of the language's speakers live within the Pentapolis itself. The Argot has in recent decades become somewhat fashionable among sailors of the Hendalarskara Navy and the Hendalarskara merchant marine, as distinct from their Pentapolitan equivalents, but while it is unofficially recognised that there are benefits to two formal navies sharing one working language, it is officially frowned upon and Standard Hendalarskisch remains the sole official working language of both Hendalarskara fleets.

Words
The following table contains some sample vocabulary from the Argot, along with etymological explanations where necessary.