The Remarkable Evolution of Narasha 'Oshenna

The Remarkable Evolution of Narasha 'Oshenna is a Lovian linguistic book written by Oos Wes Ilava in 2013. The book deals with the quick transition from Old to Middle Oceana, and the comparably long stable period of Modern Oceana. Ilava brings forth several points which, in his opinion, explain the rapid changes within the language.

Situation sketch

 * In the early days, Oceana consisted of several hamlets and a few larger settlements that all had their own unique demographic composition.
 * The language of older texts written in Oceana dialects is often strongly based on own literary language, most often Slovak or Polish, with only remarkably few changes from the standard languages. Most other texts from Oceana were either in standard English or standard Dutch.
 * Present-day Oceana is more or less centralized and shows clear influences from Russian, Dutch, and Czech; while its base consists mostly of English, Scots (in ethnic countings often ignored, as the Scottish people often grouped with the Slovaks against the Americans), Polish, and Slovak.

From Old through Middle to New
Old Oceana was pretty much similar to continent Slovak or continent Polish. However, with intermarriage being rather frequent, quickly some kind of creole developed, which was mostly based on Slovak, but which had been discarded of all difficulties, such as vowel length, several cases, and irregularities. In the 1880's, a list with frequently-used English words was published. In order to be able to learn the words well, many Eastern Europeans used the words in everyday communication with their ethnic congeners, often with spelling pronunciations. By 1900, most people had already shifted to the Slovak-based creole, except for the area near Dubnitz, which was mostly inhabited by Polaks, and the Beaver River Mouth, which was almost exclusively inhabited by Slovaks.

As the Slovak-based creole mixed with the Polish-based creole, three cases were lost: instrumental, vocative and accusative; irregular verbs were taken over from English (though some of them later became regular again, such as find); the gerund was taken over from English; a unification of the verb conjugation in the present and the past occured; and the three verb roots of Slovak, -iť, -ať, -ieť, did not longer have a different conjugation, making the endings practically useless, which often led to phonological erosion. The most remarkable change was the introduction of the past particle circumflex e- -en, most likely taken from Dutch strong verbs, f.e. gelopen (from the root loop).

By 1910, even more changes occured in a rapid tempo. The middle-class and upper-class residents of Hurbanova started speaking a more English-influenced language, which later on developed into Hurbanovan English, while the lower-class residents, most of them being either farmers or mine workers, maintained their Slovak-based creole. While linguists have often argued that Old Oceana and Middle Oceana were two different stages in the Oceana language, with the split of Hurbanovan English as a border, it should be noted that from the beginning to the 1950's, there was continual development, as more and more immigrants came and absorped into the community, bringing with them their unique linguistic features, which were eventually taken over by others, as can be seen currently with Limburgish and Romanian influence in the Oceana language.

By 1950, Oceana could be considered one language with several dialects. All traces of separately developing creoles had disappeared, and most of the core vocabulary was present in all dialects in more or less the same form. Even though Oceana has not been standing still since the 1950's, mainly due to political "language planning" through primary and secondary education, it is to be noted that the fast developments which quickly followed each other have stopped. This can be connected to the fact that since the 1950's, most people consider themselves "Oceana" and no longer Slovak or Polish. Intermarriage and political sentiments have created one single ethnicity of the diverse ethnic composition in the early twentieth century. Nowadays, everybody is Oceana and speaks Oceana.