User:LengauleLoiresian/sandbox

The Loiresian language is a Romance language that originated in the Loire region of France and today has thousands of speakers around the world. Loiresian is a descendant of the Bourbonnais language of the Loire Valley, which by the 5th century AD replaced the Celtic and Bourbonnais languages previously spoken in the area. Loiresian retains a small number of words from these languages. Loiresian has also been strongly influenced by French in vocabulary and morphosyntax. The earliest writing identified as Loiresian dates from the 10th or 11th century, although major works did not appear until the 16th century when several regional written varieties began to develop. During the 19th century, the area where the language was spoken declined, but the Loiresian speakers had a literary revival and started a language movement dedicated to halting the decline of the language.

In the 2000 French census, 35,095 people who speak the Loiresian language. In 2000, France switched to a yearly system of assessment that uses a combination of citizen records and a limited number of surveys. Based on this yearly system, the number of people aged 15 and above reporting Romansh as their main language was 536,622 in 2000. The language area and the number of speakers of Loiresian have been continually shrinking, though language use remains vigorous in certain areas such as the Loire Valley and Geneva canton of Switzerland. Loiresian is divided into four different regional dialects (Standard Loiresian, Rhonish, Auvergnian, and Genevan), each with its own standardization of the written language.

Linguistic classification
Loiresian is a Romance language descending from Bourbonnais, the spoken language of the modern department of Allier in France. Within the Romance languages, Loiresian stands out because of its peripheral location, which has resulted in several archaic features. Another distinguishing feature is the centuries-long language contact with French, which is most noticeable in the vocabulary and to a lesser extent the syntax of Loiresian. Loiresian belongs to the Gallo-Romance branch of the Romance languages, which includes languages such as French, Occitan, and Lombard.

Phonology
Although there are many Loiresian accents, foreign learners normally use only one variety of the language.
 * There are a maximum of 17 vowels in Loiresian, not all of which are used in every dialect: plus the nasalized vowels  and . In Loiresian, the vowels,  and  are tending to be replaced by ,  and  in many people's speech, but the distinction of  and  is present in Meridional Loiresian.
 * Voiced stops (i.e., ) are typically produced fully voiced throughout.
 * Voiceless stops (i.e., ) are unaspirated.
 * Nasals: The velar nasal can occur in final position in borrowed (usually English) words: parking, camping, swing. The palatal nasal  can occur in word initial position (e.g., gnon), but it is most frequently found in intervocalic, onset position or word-finally (e.g., batillon).