Algarvic Languages and Peoples

The Algarvic Languages were a family of languages descended from the speech of the ancient Algarvic tribes, Algarvic peoples being the speakers of such languages. The original speakers dwelled in the forest country of south-eastern Derlavai. Many of Algarvic tribes then migrated northwards, towards the Kaunian Empire, first serving as  mercenaries in its armies and eventually altogether overthrowing the empire and conquering it. Other Algarvic tribes took to the sea, colonizing off-shore islands and the western part of the Kuusaman continent.

The main modern Algarvic Languages were Alagarvian, Lagoan and Sibian. Though the similarities between them were obvious, they had developed in divergent directions and were not mutually intelligible. In particular, Lagoan had absorbed numerous Kuusaman loan words not found in other Algarvic tongues.

The linguistic similarity did not breed a political harmony between Algarvic peoples, who often fought bitterly against each other. There was a time when Lagoas and Sibiu fought a whole series of wars, motivated by commercial rivalry. Later, both felt threatened by the rise of Alagarve and were its foes in both the Six Years' War and the Derlavaian War, despite their linguistic affinty and distant common ancestry with the Algarvians. And even when allied, Sibians and Lagoans were far from really fond of each other.

After conquering Sibiu, the Alagravians tried an intensive propaganda campaign promoting " Algarvic Brotherhood" – with Alagarve being the "Elder Brother" and Sibiu the "Younger". However, most Sibians treated cynically this propaganda of their conquerors.

For his part, King Swemmel of Unkerlant, when receiving the Lagoan Ambassador at the height of the Derlavaian War, noted with distaste the similarity of Lagoans to Alagarvians – which he did not show outwardly, as at the time the alliance with Lagoas was vital for Unkerlant's survival.

Literary Note
The names and occasional words in Alagarvian, Lagoan and Sibian appearing in are books are from, respectively, Italian, Portuguese and Romanian – all of then Latin languages, but distant from each other geographically and linguistically. They represent, however, the actual Germanic languages – Alagarvic as German, Lagoan as English (which has a considerable non-Germanic vocabulary) and Sibian as either Dutch or the Scandinavian languages.