Kyrian was the native language of most of the Kyros sector. It shared a common ancestry with Basic, although it used a different alphabet. From the time of the Old Republic and forward, most Kyrians also spoke Basic.
History[]
Kyrian evolved from Old Benian, a trade language of the Benian sector that was also an ancestor of Galactic Basic. At the time of joining the Republic, shortly after the Mandalorian Wars, Kyrian had evolved separately for long enough to have become all but unintelligible to the typical speaker of Basic. The Kyrian sector adopted Basic as its standard administrative language, but culture and religion remained Kyrian. During the Imperial era, and especially under Moff Neponov's governorship, Kyrian was actively suppressed and forbidden in education. The various governments of the short-lived Independent Kyros Sector typically used Kyrian as their official language. After the partitioning of the Sector, Kyrian was suppressed in the New Republic occupation zone, but not in the Imperial zone.
Description[]
Kyrian morphology was similar to Basic, i.e. that words had comparatively few inflections; there were two genders, two cases, and a distinction between plural and singular. Adjectives were compared as in Basic, and were also inflected according to gender, number and definiteness. The definiteness of nouns was marked primarily through suffixes (endings), complemented with separate definite and indefinite articles.
The speaking speed of Kyrian was typically slower than that of Basic, giving many Kyrian Basic-speakers a very distinct accent. The prosody (intonation, stress, tone, etc.) of Kyrian, and to a lesser degree Kyrian-accented Basic, was much broader than that of typical Basic, rendering it a quality frequently described as "melodic".