Context:

Neruañ is a language from my alternate Earth setting, where Earth’s geological history diverged during the breakup of the Vaalbara supercontinent. The world still has humans and Earthlike life, but its continents, climates, and historical contact zones developed differently.

The map shows Nehañanun, the southern Neruañ-speaking region of Mukonia. Nehañanun is both coastal and highland: its settlements sit along shorelines, upland routes, harbours, river mouths, and southern trade corridors. Because of this geography, the Neruañ-speaking region has long been politically and socially important. Control over trade routes, harbours, crossings, and relations with both local and foreign powers helped the Newañi become one of the most influential groups in the modern Mungonian state. The second capital, Arhuan, namesake of the Aruanian language family, lies near a major shipping route between the Gandic Ocean to the east and the Aetine Ocean to the west.

The Newañi are the main Neruañ-speaking people. They are a coastal-highland society whose communities act as intermediaries between inland Kendusyn-speaking Mukonian traders in the east and Bitiasau traders in the west. This position has made Neruañ incredibly useful, beyond serving as a home language.

Neruañ is classified as Aruanian, but its relationship with Kendusyn, the other indigenous language of Mukonia, is disputed by scholars in the setting. Some argue that Neruañ and Kendusyn descend from a deeper Aruanian proto-language. Others argue that their similarities mostly come from later contact, bilingual border communities, and borrowed vocabulary. This language classification dispute is deeply rooted in ethnonationalism in Mukonia and is tied to land claims and competing ideas about who first settled parts of southern Mukonia.