abstract
| - The Kalurilut language (natively saKalurilut [sakaluʁiˈlut]) is a language isolate spoken natively by virtually all people in iKalurilut, a country in central-western Isungatsuaq, where it is the only official language, and also by a minority in the neighboring country of Buržuuqtaš (Kal.: iPusuuqqaa) and in the areas on the shores of the huge inland Kātvanė Sea (Kal.: ivulit iSangippuun) in Gorean and Laltīmāhia. There are about 40 million native Kalurilut speakers, the vast majority in iKalurilut. As the language of a people - the suKalurilut - with a long history of sea exploration and commerce, many words from it have entered languages of the whole Western coast of Isungatsuaq, and they were also for a few centuries the main power in intercontinental contacts with Evandor after the Evandorians discovered Isungatsuaq. In the next centuries, its importance on the continent began to sharply fall, as Western (Evandorian) powers began to colonize some areas of Isungatsuaq and the two main non-Western powers (the Empire of Greater Skyrdagor in the Northwest and the various Laceyiam-speaking states in the South) gained an ever increasing importance even in West-East contacts. Kalurilut still influenced both - Skyrdagor has lots of navigational terminology borrowed from it, while Laceyiam keeps the Kalurilut "descriptive" names for many Evandorian countries, now obsolete in Kalurilut itself. Terms for plants, animals, and features of Evandor have also often entered languages of Isungatsuaq through Kalurilut. Still, Kalurilut itself absorbed lots of loanwords, especially religious terminology and modern-day concepts from Laceyiam, starting from the suKalurilut's conversion to the Yūnialtei religion. Most notably, the name Isungatsuaq for the "Eastern" continent of Calémere is a Kalurilut word (in Kalurilut orthography, iSungatsuaq or i-suNgatsuaq): i- marks the land/natural singular noun class, sungaq means "people" (plural of kangaq), and (i)suaq means "(large) land, continent" (the i-X-suaq pattern is present in the Kalurilut names for most continents, like iNuuksuaq (Evandor, the main "Western" continent), i-nuuk-suaq "Western land/continent").
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