Mark Stefan wrote:
Yeah, here are some common terms:
Pre-historic: Proto, Ancient, Pre
Came before: Proto, Pre
So it seems you might have three versions:
Old Ertian: Spoken in the Ertian Empire in the old days in the far north. You wouldn't use proto here because as you said yourself, it was well documented by scholars. Ancient doesn't work well either, as that implies that it was thousands of years ago before recorded history. Proto and ancient can kind of be used interchangeably. Pre- would need to be used in conjunction with another word, possibly "Pre-Imperial" for this version of Ertian or "Pre-Unraveling" Ertian for the category below.
Middle Ertian: Ertian spoken in the old world before the present age.
"Insert descriptive word" Ertian: Ertian spoken currently, with significant Mercurian language influence. You could use any number of words to describe this era, as someday it won't be Modern Ertian despite its status at this time.
These are just suggestions, as it is your language to describe.
Excellent points! I'll be sure to update my post when I get back to my computer at home. Thanks for the insight!