Noattȯč

[ixals]

I've been visiting this site for more than a year and I think it's time for me to become a part of this community, so I'll present you one of my projects which I work on from time to time and which I really like. I'm still a beginner in my opinion and some things confuse me so nothing will be perfect but I'm eager to learn more!

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Noattȯč

1. Phonology (Consonants, Vowels, Phonotactics, Stress), Regular Verbs (a-Conjugation, i-Conjugation, l-Conjugation), Irregular Verbs, "to be"
2. e-Conjugation, Imperative
3. Sound changes
4. Interrogative, Formal Indicative
5. Fourth Person, Vocabulary I

Since I'm still kind of new to all of this is one of the reason why I started working on Noattȯč. I wanted to work on something I'm familiar with and I also wanted to experiment. So there's Noattȯč which is a descendant of my native tongue, German. Hence the name Noattȯč which comes from norddeutsch. The pronunciation didn't change at all in some words, but in other words it did change a lot. Most changes will concern grammar because I assume that German will stay quite stable phonology-wise, but the few sound changes force the grammar to change. I don't have much stuff to talk about yet but I really like it and I hope I won't give up (sadly, I'm terrible at not giving up ), but we'll see!

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Phonology

Consonants

/m n ŋ/ <m n ƞ>
/p b t d k ɡ ʔ/ <p b t d k g q>
/ts tʃ ʈʂ/ <c ċ č>
/s z ʃ ʒ ʂ ʐ/ <s z ṡ ż š ž>
/f ç x/ <f ḥ h>
/w l ɾ j/ <v l r j>

• Some of the consonants can be geminated, those are: /m n ŋ p t k ç w l/. At least I haven't found any other geminated consonants yet, but I would really like to have at least a geminated voiceless velar fricative!
• All nasal consonants can be geminated. They also can be syllabic in some cases (but I'm trying to get rid of syllabic nasals, still not sure how).

I'm not sure if I should leave [ŋ] as it is or if I should change it to [ŋɡ] or [ɣ] in intervocalic position and in the beginning of a syllable.
I'm also not sure about the glottal stop because?

Vowels

/ɪ i ʏ y ʊ u/ <ı i y ẏ u u̇>
/ɛ e œ ø ɔ o/ <e ė w ẇ o ȯ>
/a a² ə/ <a ȧ ə>
/ɛ² ɔ²/ <ea oa>

• Every vowel is pronounced short except when in a stressed syllable. In a stressed syllable /i y u e ø o a² ɛ² ɔ²/ are pronounced as [iː yː uː eː oː øː aː ɛː ɔː], obviously.
• /a ɛ ɔ/ stay short, which differentiates them from /a² ɛ² ɔ²/.
• /ə/ also stays short everywhere since it can't be in a stressed syllable.
• This does not apply if the following consonant is geminated. The vowel remains short then.
• Diphthongs exist and almost every vowel plus /ɪ/ or /ʊ/ is allowed. Most of those stem from German /Vɪə/ or the old diphthongs at the end of a word.

Phonotactics

I'm still confused about this part but I guess it's most likely the same as in German. Really confused.

(s, ʂ) C (w, ɾ, j) V (m, n, ŋ, ts, tʃ, ʈʂ, s, ʂ, f, ç, l) C

Stress

Stress isn't fixed, but most words have their stress on the first syllable of the root word. There are also a lot of exceptions thanks to loanwords. Words not having their stress on the first syllable have secondary stress on the first syllable.

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Grammar

The grammar is not planned out at all yet. My main inspiration for this project was colloquial German and it's wonderful contractions like hast du > haste. All of this kind of started as a developed version of colloquial German and I try to get it kind of further than that. I haven't really done much of the grammar part yet but I'm really looking forward to that. It will most likely turn out more agglutinative regarding the verbs with a lot of suffixes I guess. I don't know about the rest, I only focused on the verbs.

Regular Verbs

There are three tenses which are past, present and future. Past tense and future tense will be created using suffixes. There are first, second and third person which can all be singular and plural. For third person singular, verbs can be conjugated for all of the three genders which are masculine, feminine and neuter. And again, everything is formed by suffixes. I plan on developing some moods, especially the imperative which I have already planned out since that was quite easy. There are also three main conjugations and some irregular verbs.

First Conjugation

Also called the a-conjugation since that's the vowel that differentiates this conjugation from the other two main conjugations. The a-conjugation is the most prominent conjugation and it stems from German verbs ending in -ern. It became applied to a lot of verbs to avoid extreme irregularities of normal German -en verbs which became irregular to a lot of sound changes. Most verbs of this conjugation have their stress on the first syllabe except in second person plural where it's on the penultimate syllable. Here's the example verb lȧman ( labern) meaning to talk:

Stem: lȧm-
1SG lȧm-ȧḥ [ˈlaː.maç] < laber ich
2SG lȧm-astə [ˈlaː.mas.tə] < laberste < laberst du
3SGm lȧm-ata [ˈlaː.ma.ta] < labert er
3SGf lȧm-acə [ˈlaː.ma.tsə] < labert se < labert sie
3SGn lȧm-ac [ˈlaː.mats] < labert's < labert es
1PL lȧm-avva [ˈlaː.ma.wwa] < labern wa < labern wir
2PL lȧm-atȧrə [ˌla.ma.ˈtaː.ɾə] < labert er alle < labert ihr
3PL lȧm-annə [ˈlaː.ma.nnə] < labern se < labern sie

Second Conjugation

Also called the i-conjugation because of the same reason. This conjugation is also often seen and has its origins in the good old German -ieren verbs and this conjugation mostly features verbs from Latin or French. One major feature of this conjugation is that most of the verbs aren't stressed on the stem, the stress falls on the first syllable of the suffix. The only exeption is the second person plural again. So here's the example verb kapin ( kapieren) meaning to understand:

Stem: kap-
1SG kap-iḥ [ka.ˈpiːç] < kapier ich < kapiere ich
2SG kap-istə [ka.ˈpiːs.tə] < kapierste < kapierst du
3SGm kap-ita [ka.ˈpiː.ta] < kapiert er
3SGf kap-icə [ka.ˈpiː.tsə] < kapiert se < kapiert sie
3SGn kap-ic [ka.ˈpiːts] < kapiert's < kapiert es
1PL kap-ivva [ka.ˈpiː.wwa] < kapiern wa < kapieren wir
2PL kap-itȧrə [ˌka.pi.ˈtaː.ɾə] < kapiert er alle < kapiert ihr
3PL kap-innə [ka.ˈpi.nnə] < kapiern se < kapieren sie

Third Conjugation

Also called the l-conjugations purely because of its origins. All the German verbs ending in -eln belong here, so they're stressed on the first syllable of the stem, just as the first conjugation. And as always: except in second person plural. The most visible changes are in the first and second person singular, the rest is pretty much the same as the other two conjugations just with another vowel again! And here's the example verb brıcın ( blinzeln) meaning to squint:

Stem: brıc-
1SG brıc-rıḥ [ˈbɾɪts.ɾɪç] < blinzel ich
2SG brıc-ıctə [ˈbɾɪ.tsɪts.tə] < blinzelste < blinzelst du
3SGm brıc-ıta [ˈbɾɪ.tsɪ.ta] < blinzelt er
3SGf brıc-ıcə [ˈbɾɪ.tsɪ.tsə] < blinzelt se < blinzelt sie
3SGn brıc-ıc [ˈbɾɪ.tsɪts] < blinzelt's < blinzelt es
1PL brıc-ıvva [ˈbɾɪ.tsɪ.wwa] < blinzeln wa < blinzeln wir
2PL brıc-ıtȧrə [ˌbɾɪ.tsɪ.ˈtaː.ɾə] < blinzelt er alle < blinzelt ihr
3PL brıc-ınnə [ˈbɾɪ.tsɪ.nnə] < blinzeln se < blinzeln sie

Irregular Verbs

There are some irregular verbs in Noattȯč which stem from irregular German verbs or verbs ending in -en which were used too often so they didn't change to verbs of the a-conjugation. Irregular verbs are e.g. to be, to have, to go, to be able or to become. A lot of irregular verbs have a different suffix for the second person plural because there wasn't a need to form a new one.

To be

Infinitive: zȧn
1SG bınıḥ [ˈbɪ.nɪç] < bin ich
2SG bıstə [ˈbɪs.tə] < biste < bist du
3SGm qısa [ˈʔɪ.sa] < is er < ist er
3SGf qısə [ˈʔɪ.sə] < is se < ist sie
3SGn qıss [ˈʔɪss] < is 's < ist es
1PL zıvva1 [ˈzɪ.wwa] < sind wa < sind wir
2PL zȧta [ˈzaː.ta] < seid er < seid ihr
3PL zıcə2 [ˈzɪ.tsə] < sind se < sind sie

1 It should have been zıntva but I thought that changing /zɪnt/ to /zɪn/ seems reasonable and it also yields a more regular ending plus it sounds better in my opinion!
2 The same change doesn't happen here because the combination of /t/ and /z/ quickly becomes /ts/ which stays this way.

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And that's it for now. I sat here way too long and I really want to see some reactions now! If you have any questions, ask. If you find any mistakes, please correct me!

[zyma]

I've been visiting this site for more than a year and I think it's time for me to become a part of this community, so I'll present you one of my projects which I work on from time to time and which I really like. I'm still a beginner in my opinion and some things confuse me so nothing will be perfect but I'm eager to learn more!

Hello, welcome to the board! I really like what you've shared here so far, and I hope we get to see more soon!

Since I'm still kind of new to all of this is one of the reason why I started working on Noattȯč. I wanted to work on something I'm familiar with and I also wanted to experiment. So there's Noattȯč which is a descendant of my native tongue, German. Hence the name Noattȯč which comes from norddeutsch. The pronunciation didn't change at all in some words, but in other words it did change a lot. Most changes will concern grammar because I assume that German will stay quite stable phonology-wise, but the few sound changes force the grammar to change. I don't have much stuff to talk about yet but I really like it and I hope I won't give up (sadly, I'm terrible at not giving up ), but we'll see!

Sounds very interesting! I assume you're from the north of Germany yourself (hence Norddeutsch instead of Süddeutsch, etc.)? How far in the future is this language meant to be spoken? Will the geographical setting in which the language is spoken change significantly from that in which modern German is spoken? Why do you assume the phonology won't change all that much, if you don't mind my asking?

I really hope you don't "give up", either!

/m n ŋ/ <m n ƞ>
/p b t d k ɡ ʔ/ <p b t d k g q>
/ts tʃ ʈʂ/ <c ċ č>
/s z ʃ ʒ ʂ ʐ/ <s z ṡ ż š ž>
/f ç x/ <f ḥ h>
/w l ɾ j/ <v l r j>

- Some of the consonants can be geminated, those are: /m n ŋ p t k ç w l/. At least I haven't found any other geminated consonants yet, but I would really like to have at least a geminated voiceless velar fricative!
- All nasal consonants can be geminated. They also can be syllabic in some cases (but I'm trying to get rid of syllabic nasals, still not sure how).

I'm not sure if I should leave [ŋ] as it is or if I should change it to [ŋɡ] or [ɣ] in intervocalic position and in the beginning of a syllable.
I'm also not sure about the glottal stop because?

I quite like the changes in the phonemic inventory and the orthography! Adding retroflex sibilants was an especially interesting choice. How did the geminate consonants come about? Why aren't you sure about the glottal stop? Regarding the velar nasal, I might recommend looking into possible realizations of /g/ in Japanese, which differ between speakers, but I believe two possible realizations are [ɣ] and [ŋ]; hopefully that can be at least somewhat helpful. As for the syllabic nasals, you could potentially have them become nasals followed or preceded by vowels, or you could have the syllabic nasals turn into nasal vowels, which you could either keep as nasalized or lower/lengthen/glottalize/denasalize/etc. There are other possibilities as well.

/ɪ i ʏ y ʊ u/ <ı i y ẏ u u̇>
/ɛ e œ ø ɔ o/ <e ė w ẇ o ȯ>
/a a² ə/ <a ȧ ə>
/ɛ² ɔ²/ <ea oa>

- Every vowel is pronounced short except when in a stressed syllable. In a stressed syllable /i y u e ø o a² ɛ² ɔ²/ are pronounced as [iː yː uː eː oː øː aː ɛː ɔː], obviously.
- /a ɛ ɔ/ stay short, which differentiates them from /a² ɛ² ɔ²/.
- /ə/ also stays short everywhere since it can't be in a stressed syllable.
- This does not apply if the following consonant is geminated. The vowel remains short then.
- Diphthongs exist and almost every vowel plus /ɪ/ or /ʊ/ is allowed. Most of those stem from German /Vɪə/ or the old diphthongs at the end of a word.

Again, the changes you've made look awesome; I love the differentiation between /a ɛ ɔ/ and /a² ɛ² ɔ²/ in particular! The way you've chosen to romanize /œ ø/ is also appealing.

I'm still confused about this part but I guess it's most likely the same as in German. Like, really confused. Please tell me if I've done that right. I think it's wrong?

(s, ʂ) C (w, ɾ, j) V (m, n, ŋ, ts, tʃ, ʈʂ, s, ʂ, f, ç, l) C

What are you concerned about having done wrong, exactly?

Stress isn't fixed, but most words have their stress on the first syllable of the root word. There are also a lot of exceptions thanks to loanwords.

Do any words ever have secondary stress? Is stress ever marked orthographically?

The grammar is not planned out at all yet. My main inspiration for this project was colloquial German and it's wonderful contractions like hast du > haste. All of this kind of started as a developed version of colloquial German and I try to get it kind of further than that. I haven't really done much of the grammar part yet but I'm really looking forward to that. It will most likely turn out more agglutinative regarding the verbs with a lot of suffixes I guess. I don't know about the rest, I only focused on the verbs.

There are three tenses which are past, present and future. Past tense and future tense will be created using suffixes. There are first, second and third person which can all be singular and plural. For third person singular, verbs can be conjugated for all of the three genders which are masculine, feminine and neuter. And again, everything is formed by suffixes. I plan on developing some moods, especially the imperative which I have already planned out since that was quite easy. There are also three main conjugations and some irregular verbs.

This looks lovely so far! It was an especially interesting surprise to find out that none of the regular conjugations were based on verbs originally ending in -en.

There are some irregular verbs in Noattȯč which stem from irregular German verbs or verbs ending in -en which were used too often so they didn't change to verbs of the a-conjugation. Irregular verbs are e.g. to be, to have, to go, to be able or to become. A lot of irregular verbs have a different suffix for the second person plural because there wasn't a need to form a new one.

2.2.1. To be

Infinitive: zȧn
1SG bınıḥ [ˈbɪ.nɪç] < bin ich
2SG bıstə [ˈbɪs.tə] < biste < bist du
3SGm qısa [ˈʔɪ.sa] < is er < ist er
3SGf qısə [ˈʔɪ.sə] < is se < ist sie
3SGn qıss [ˈʔɪss] < is 's < ist es
1PL zıvva1 [ˈzɪ.wwa] < sind wa < sind wir
2PL zȧta [ˈzaː.ta] < seid er < seid ihr
3PL zıcə2 [ˈzɪ.tsə] < sind se < sind sie

1 It should have been zıntva but I thought that changing /zɪnt/ to /zɪn/ seems reasonable and it also yields a more regular ending plus it sounds better in my opinion!
2 Although the same change could have been done here, too, (which would yield zınnə) I didn't do it because the /ts/ is too strong. If that makes sense?

If you don't mind my asking, what do you mean by this line: "A lot of irregular verbs have a different suffix for the second person plural because there wasn't a need to form a new one."?

The glottal stop looks quite cool when it's written, as in the third person singular forms here!

I agree that the first person plural form that you ended up with sounds better compared to the one you chose not to end up with. And I think I understand what you mean by saying the <c> was too strong… In these forms, /zɪnt/ became /zɪn/ before an approximant like /w/, but not before an obstruent like /s/.

[Creyeditor]

Wow, I had a similar idea floating around for years
Glad you made it become real , I really like the verb conjugations being derived from verb first word order

[ixals]

Sounds very interesting! I assume you're from the north of Germany yourself (hence Norddeutsch instead of Süddeutsch, etc.)? How far in the future is this language meant to be spoken? Will the geographical setting in which the language is spoken change significantly from that in which modern German is spoken?

Yes, I'm from the north of Germany and that's why it's Norddeutsch instead of Süddeutsch. I'm the most familiar with my variant, so I'll obviously use that one for this project! I haven't thought about when it's meant to be spoken because I don't know in which time it would fit in to be realistic. When I look at OHG, it doesn't look like a lot has changed over the last thousand years but of course everything could happen much faster in the future. I imagine Noattȯč being spoken mostly in Lower Saxony, but also in Hamburg and Schleswig-Holstein. The rest of Germany might develop another (or more) daughter language(s) of modern Germany.

Why do you assume the phonology won't change all that much, if you don't mind my asking?

Hm, it's just a feeling I have. I, of course, don't know anything about what will happen in the future of German, but it just seems realistic. Compared to English, German didn't change so much over the last centuries and it seems much more stable to me as I said before and as well the current development makes me assume that. I can't really say much more because I don't have evidence for that. I hope you'll understand!

How did the geminate consonants come about?

Geminated consonants aren't that common, but there are different origins. For example /nn/ derives from /nd/ and from /nən/ which is something like [nn̩] already here where I live. Geminated stops are found mostly in former compound words like norddeutsch or abprallen. [ww] stems from /mw/ and [çç] from /çj/, but those might just be allophones instead?

Why aren't you sure about the glottal stop?

Because it only appears before syllabic nasals and before a vowel at the beginning of a word so I thought it's just an allophone. But I forgot that I got rid of /h/ which makes /ʔ/ an own phoneme, so forget that I wasn't sure about that, it's my fault.

Regarding the velar nasal, I might recommend looking into possible realizations of /g/ in Japanese, which differ between speakers, but I believe two possible realizations are [ɣ] and [ŋ]; hopefully that can be at least somewhat helpful. As for the syllabic nasals, you could potentially have them become nasals followed or preceded by vowels, or you could have the syllabic nasals turn into nasal vowels, which you could either keep as nasalized or lower/lengthen/glottalize/denasalize/etc. There are other possibilities as well.

Thank you very much! I will think about your suggestions, they're really good.

What are you concerned about having done wrong, exactly?

It's a really confusing part for me and I'm not sure if this includes every possibility for syllables in Noattȯč.

Do any words ever have secondary stress? Is stress ever marked orthographically?

A lot of words have secondary stress, but I didn't focus much on that now. It's most likely that the first syllable will have secondary stress if the first syllable isn't primarily stressed. And no, it's never marked unless I'll find a way to do it but I don't want to mess up the current orthography.

If you don't mind my asking, what do you mean by this line: "A lot of irregular verbs have a different suffix for the second person plural because there wasn't a need to form a new one."?

No problem! I'll choose the verb lȧman/labern again for this example. Both 3SG and 2PL end in -t in modern German, so it's labert for both of them. But in unstressed positions the words for he and you (plural) are pronounced the same so the word alle was added to the 2PL form to avoid confusion. Similar to y'all. In irregular verbs, the forms for 3SG and 2PL are often different in modern German so there was no need to add alle so the ending -a stays.

labert er /laːbɐt ɐ/
labert ihr /laːbɐt ɐ/ > labert ihr alle /laːbɐt ɐ alə/

ist er /ɪst ɐ/
seid ihr /zaɪ̯t ɐ/

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Wow, I had a similar idea floating around for years
Glad you made it become real , I really like the verb conjugations being derived from verb first word order

I bet you can then judge if my future German is realistic or not! I like the verb conjugations as well but I just need to find a way to have them being used everywhere and not only in short answers, questions and subordinate clauses.

[zyma]

I haven't thought about when it's meant to be spoken because I don't know in which time it would fit in to be realistic.

That's OK; you don't have to specify a time if you don't want to.

Hm, it's just a feeling I have. I, of course, don't know anything about what will happen in the future of German, but it just seems realistic. Compared to English, German didn't change so much over the last centuries and it seems much more stable to me as I said before and as well the current development makes me assume that. I can't really say much more because I don't have evidence for that. I hope you'll understand!

No need for indisputable evidence or anything like that. The future's unknown, so if you feel that's something that could happen, that's perfectly fine!

Geminated consonants aren't that common, but there are different origins. For example /nn/ derives from /nd/ and from /nən/ which is something like [nn̩] already here where I live. Geminated stops are found mostly in former compound words like norddeutsch or abprallen. [ww] stems from /mw/ and [çç] from /çj/, but those might just be allophones instead?

Hmm, that's an interesting question. I'm personally not sure whether or not it would make more sense to call them allophones or not, especially if certain geminates only come from certain clusters, like [ww] and [çç].

Can anyone else weigh in on this?

Because it only appears before syllabic nasals and before a vowel at the beginning of a word so I thought it's just an allophone. But I forgot that I got rid of /h/ which makes /ʔ/ an own phoneme, so forget that I wasn't sure about that, it's my fault.

Oh, no worries! Thank you very much for the clarification!

It's a really confusing part for me and I'm not sure if this includes every possibility for syllables in Noattȯč.

Yeah, that can be a pretty confusing and uncertain part of describing a language's phonology. It's fine to update it as you go along, though, so I wouldn't worry too much about not having it 100% nailed down right from the beginning.

No problem! I'll choose the verb lȧman/labern again for this example. Both 3SG and 2PL end in -t in modern German, so it's labert for both of them. But in unstressed positions the words for he and you (plural) are pronounced the same so the word alle was added to the 2PL form to avoid confusion. Similar to y'all. In irregular verbs, the forms for 3SG and 2PL are often different in modern German so there was no need to add alle so the ending -a stays.

labert er /laːbɐt ɐ/
labert ihr /laːbɐt ɐ/ > labert ihr alle /laːbɐt ɐ alə/

ist er /ɪst ɐ/
seid ihr /zaɪ̯t ɐ/

Ahh, OK, thanks for the explanation! That should have been obvious to me, but for some reason I didn't see "alle" being used in the formation of the other conjugations. In addition to that accidental oversight, I don't know if I've ever heard "alle" used to differentiate er and ihr like that before (also, those two are almost always closer to /ʔeːɐ̯/ and /ʔiːɐ̯/, respectively, in my stiff, foreign, L2 pronunciation).

[cedh]

Looks cool! I've also been considering creating a descendant of German someday, and some of your ideas are similar to mine, so I'll be following this with interest.

One detail kind of surprised me though: Your reflex of labern shows a shift of /b/ to /m/ in intervocalic position, but your 1st person plural ending (from *-n vɐ) ends up as -/wwa/. Based on my own experience with colloquial German from several regions (I grew up near Cologne and have lived in Thuringia, Hamburg and Berlin for a few years each before moving to Baden-Württemberg three years ago), I would rather expect the opposite, so that labern wir would evolve into something like /ˈlaːvam(m)a/ or similar...

[Creyeditor]

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Wow, I had a similar idea floating around for years
Glad you made it become real , I really like the verb conjugations being derived from verb first word order

I bet you can then judge if my future German is realistic or not! I like the verb conjugations as well but I just need to find a way to have them being used everywhere and not only in short answers, questions and subordinate clauses.

I thought you might start with normalising subordinate clauses like, ",weil ... ich seh dich doch."
After that you could use the 'jokular word order', e.g. "Kommt'n Schwein in die Küche...", "Treffen sich zwei Päpste."
This could be tied to certain aspects or tenses at first, but will later be adopted for all sentences.
I've got no idea about the pronoun doubling though ...

[ixals]

Replies:

Spoiler:

I don't know if I've ever heard "alle" used to differentiate er and ihr like that before (also, those two are almost always closer to /ʔeːɐ̯/ and /ʔiːɐ̯/, respectively, in my stiff, foreign, L2 pronunciation).

I pronounce them similar to /ʔeːɐ̯/ and /ʔiːɐ̯/ as well except in unstressed position and most of the time there only unstressed when they follow the verb. Since verb first word order makes them unstressed all the time in Noattȯč, there's a need to differentiate them. I didn't here "alle" in that use as well yet (only really seldom to emphasize) but it seems like the easiest and most logical way to differentiate them in this scenario of future German!

One detail kind of surprised me though: [...], but your 1st person plural ending (from *-n vɐ) ends up as -/wwa/. [...], I would rather expect the opposite, so that labern wir would evolve into something like /ˈlaːmam(m)a/ or similar...

Yes, at first I had the ending /-m(m)a/ in my mind as well because it's already in use in some dialects and it's logical to change /nv/ to /m(m)/ but I changed it to /ww/ because I wanted Noattȯč to be a bit different and especially, I wanted it to be different from South German dialects. I think I've also never heard words like hammer for haben wir here before. Plus the ending became one of my favorite things in my conlang very quickly.

I thought you might start with normalising subordinate clauses like, ",weil ... ich seh dich doch."
After that you could use the 'jokular word order', e.g. "Kommt'n Schwein in die Küche...", "Treffen sich zwei Päpste."
This could be tied to certain aspects or tenses at first, but will later be adopted for all sentences.
I've got no idea about the pronoun doubling though ...

The jokular word order is a good idea. I thought about using words that require verb first word order like denn or dann and then they'll drop out because they're superfluous. The process could start with telling stories à la "Dann geh ich da lang und dann kommt sie so [...]".

What do you mean by pronoun doubling if you don't mind asking?

---

e-Conjugation

This is a small group of verbs, it currently includes three verbs as well as all the verbs that are derived from these. I totally forgot about these verbs but I don't think I should consider them regular since they're only three verbs? These three verbs are one of the few verbs that come from verbs ending in -en in German, or to be precise: they come from verbs ending in -ehen! They are all conjugated the same way and stressed on the first syllable except for the second person plural. The verb I use as an example is gėn ( gehen) meaning to go. The other two verbs are zėn ( sehen) meaning to see and štėn ( stehen) meaning to stand.

Stem: g-
1SG g-ėḥ [ˈɡeːç] < geh ich < gehe ich
2SG g-ėstə [ˈɡeːs.tə] < gehste < gehst du
3SGm g-ėta [ˈɡeː.ta] < geht er
3SGf g-ėcə [ˈɡeː.tsə] < geht se < geht sie
3SGn g-ėc [ˈɡeːts] < geht's < geht es
1PL g-ėvva [ˈge.wwa] < gehn wa < gehen wir
2PL g-ėtȧrə [ˌɡe.ˈtaː.ɾə] < geht er alle < geht ihr
3PL g-ėnnə [ˈɡe.nnə] < gehn se < gehen sie

Imperative

The imperative (or Qımpaƞatif) is the first mood apart from the indivative. It's simply created by adding the suffix -ma which is added after the suffix for person/number. The origin of the suffix is the wonderful short German word mal which is the colloquial form of einmal and is already pronounced as ma. The original German imperativ died out really early and the change happened like that:

Geh! > Geh mal! > Gehst du mal

The change to form the imperative by just using the stem did happen (like gib > geb) and became standardised but in the end it changed nothing important because the stem was changed to the form which indicates person and number since the mal also carried the function of the imperative. This replacement made it possible to use the imperativ on every person and not only for the second person as before. This allowed constructions like let's. Some examples:

Gėvvama!
[ˈge.wwa.ma]
g-ėvva-ma
go-1PL-IMP

Kapiḥma!
[ka.ˈpiːç.ma]
kap-iḥ-ma
understand-1SG-IMP

Brıcıctəma!
[ˈbɾɪ.tsɪts.tə.ma]
brıc-ıctə-ma
squint-2SG-IMP

---

That's it for today! It took so Long to write this post on my laptop but that's the only thing I can use here on holiday. I hope I did the glossing right! Have a good day (or night ).

[Prinsessa]

Haha, seeing the title I thought of Sami, not of Germanic. This is really cool.

[Creyeditor]

The jokular word order is a good idea. I thought about using words that require verb first word order like denn or dann and then they'll drop out because they're superfluous. The process could start with telling stories à la "Dann geh ich da lang und dann kommt sie so [...]".

That's also a really good idea. The 'dann' could become a sentence initial clitic indicating indicative mood

What do you mean by pronoun doubling if you don't mind asking?

I don't know if Noattȯč will be pro-drop or not (if not, requiring present time German sentences like: *Ich geh-ich nach Hause.) But if the agreement is real, we would have had present day German sentences like 'Der Elefant, geht er nach Hause.'

---

e-Conjugation

This is a small group of verbs, it currently includes three verbs in total. I totally forgot about these verbs but I don't think I should consider them regular since they're only three verbs? These three verbs are one of the few verbs that come from verbs ending in -en in German, or to be precise: they come from verbs ending in -ehen! They are all conjugated the same way and stressed on the first syllable except for the second person plural. The verb I use as an example is gėn ( gehen) meaning to go. The other two verbs are zėn ( sehen) meaning to see and štėn ( stehen) meaning to stand.

Stem: g-
1SG g-ėḥ [ˈɡeːç] < geh ich < gehe ich
2SG g-ėstə [ˈɡeːs.tə] < gehste < gehst du
3SGm g-ėta [ˈɡeː.ta] < geht er
3SGf g-ėcə [ˈɡeː.tsə] < geht se < geht sie
3SGn g-ėc [ˈɡeːts] < geht's < geht es
1PL g-ėvva [ˈge.wwa] < gehn wa < gehen wir
2PL g-ėtȧrə [ˌɡe.ˈtaː.ɾə] < geht er alle < geht ihr
3PL g-ėnnə [ˈɡe.nnə] < gehn se < gehen sie

You could also include figurative derivations in this class like übergehen, übersehen, untergehen, vergehen, verstehen, ...

[ixals]

Haha, seeing the title I thought of Sami, not of Germanic. This is really cool.

Thank you!

I don't know if Noattȯč will be pro-drop or not (if not, requiring present time German sentences like: *Ich geh-ich nach Hause.) But if the agreement is real, we would have had present day German sentences like 'Der Elefant, geht er nach Hause.'

I already thought about using sentence structures like in your example. I also thought about changing the word order to 'Geht er nach Hause, der Elefant' but it feels to weird (both sentences do but well). Both of them seem to be the only solution for that. I prefer your sentence though because the subject is closer to the verb.

You could also include figurative derivations in this class like übergehen, übersehen, untergehen, vergehen, verstehen, ...

Oh yeah, I totally forgot. Of course they'll be part of that conjugation so it's gėn, zėn and štėn plus derivations.

[zyma]

This is a small group of verbs, it currently includes three verbs in total. I totally forgot about these verbs but I don't think I should consider them regular since they're only three verbs?

Hmm, that's a good point. I'd probably do what you've done… that is, consider them a small group of irregular verbs that are irregular in the same way (regularly irregular verbs?).

The imperative (or Qımpaƞatif) is the first mood apart from the indivative. It's simply created by adding the suffix -ma which is added after the suffix for person/number. The origin of the suffix is the wonderful short German word mal which is the colloquial form of einmal and is already pronounced as ma. The original German imperativ died out really early and the change happened like that:

Geh! > Geh mal! > Gehst du mal

The change to form the imperative by just using the stem did happen (like gib > geb) and became standardised but in the end it changed nothing important because the stem was changed to the form which indicates person and number since the mal also carried the function of the imperative. This replacement made it possible to use the imperativ on every person and not only for the second person as before. This allowed constructions like let's. Some examples:

I love this so much!

That's it for today! It took so Long to write this post on my Laptop but that's the only Thing I can use here on Holiday. I hope I did the glossing right! Have a good day (or night ).

I hope you're enjoying yourself! And yes, the glossing looks good as far as I can tell.

[ixals]

Reply:

Spoiler:

I love this so much!

Thank you! I really like it as well.

I hope you're enjoying yourself! And yes, the glossing looks good as far as I can tell.

Yes, it was a wonderful week! I didn't want to leave. That was the first thing I've ever really glossed but it's good to know that I understood how to do it!

---

Sound changes

I didn't work on the grammar but I wanted to post something again so I thought I'll show you some of the major sound changes from German to Noattȯč. There were a lot of things I want to think about again while I did this list so changes are likely to happen! It's more detailed in the beginning because most of them are changes that are happening or have happened so you know where I started of with Noattȯč. I divided it into some phases for clarity's sake.

Phase 1: From "some kind of standard German of the past I guess" to "some kind of colloquial northern standard German"

• /ʁ/ > /ɐ̯/ when following a vowel as well as not being followed by another vowel - I think this change is obvious but I thought I'll include it anyways because there are still some dialects that don't do that.
• /əɐ̯/ > /ɐ/ everywhere - This happened in every non-rhotic dialect with /ʁ/, right? The only thing to add is that the prefix ver- is pronounced as /fɐ/ and not as /fɛɐ̯/ which is supposed to be the standard.
• /əl/ > /l̩/; /ən/ > /n̩/ everywhere - As the one before, doesn't need any more description I guess.
• /a(ː)ɐ̯/ > /aː/ everywhere - Not much to add here.
• /ɛː/ > /eː/ everywhere (except in subjunctives but they aren't used that much in speech) - So Käse is pronounced /keːzə/ instead of /kɛːzə/. This is also an obvious change.
• /ɔʏ̯/ > /ɔɪ̯/ everywhere - Almost every site lists it as the former one but I don't think anyone pronounces it like that anymore? The young people at least.
• /Vns/ > /Vnts/; /Vms/ > /Vmps/; /Vŋs/ > /Vŋks/ in the same syllable - Simply the insertion of a stop between a nasal and /s/. This makes Gans and ganz homophones.
• /Vls/ > /Vlts/ in the same syllable - It's the same change as before but with /l/ instead of a nasal. This makes Hals and halt's homophones.
• /ŋkt/ > /ŋ̩t/ in the same syllable - Not sure if there are any other combinations of a nasal followed by two stops that simplify but I definitely know this one. This makes singt[/] and sinkt homophones.
• /ʁ/ > /ɐ/ when following a vowel as well as not being followed by another vowel - Actually the same change as the first because of /ʁl̩/ and /ʁn̩/. I listed it again because I don't think everybody does it here yet. The words irren and Hirn rhyme due to this change.
• /l̩/ > /l/; /n̩/ > /n/ after a vowel - Syllabics only exist when following a consonant because of this. A word like gehen now consists of only one syllable instead of two.
• /ɪɐ̯/ > /ʏɐ̯/ everywhere - One of my favorite sound changes of the north. Both words from the previous change end in /-ʏɐ̯n/.
• /n̩/ > /m̩/ when following a labial consonant; /n̩/ > /ŋ̩/ when following a velar consonant - A simple assimilation progress that's done by almost everyone who has those syllabic nasals.
• /pf/ > /f/; /tʃ/ > /ʃ/; /dʒ/ > /ʒ/ at the beginning of a word - Simplification of clusters. The /pf/ is really common here and I think the /tʃ/ one as well.
• /mpf/ > /mf/; /nf/ > /mf/ when following a vowel - Might be more like /ɱf/ though.
• /ə/ > /ɐ/ before /ʁ/ - I don't know if this should be here or in the next phase because I do that.
• /ɪ/ > /ʏ/ when preceding /ʃ/ or when following /ʃt/ or /ʃw/ - Due to the labialised /ʃ/ the vowel becomes rounded as well. Stimme, schwimmen and Tisch have /ʏ/ now.

Phase 2: From "some kind of colloquial northern standard German" to "Old Noattȯč"

• /tn̩/ > /ʔn̩/; /pm̩/ > /ʔm̩/; /kŋ̩/ > /ʔŋ̩/ everywhere - Stops turn to a glottal stop before a syllabic nasal. This will be extended later.
• /dn̩/ > /n̩ː/; /bm̩/ > /m̩ː/; /gŋ̩/ > /ŋ̩ː/; /nn̩/ > /n̩ː/; /mm̩/ > /m̩ː/; /ŋŋ̩/ > /ŋ̩ː/ everywhere - The combination of a voiced consonant plus a syllabic nasal yields a long syllabic nasal. As well as the combination of a nasal and a syllabic nasal.
• /dʒ/ > /ʒ/ everyhwere - Because simplifying /dʒ/ only at the beginning of a word isn't enough!
• /sts/ > /ss/ everywhere - A simplication which mostly affects foreign words like Szene.
• /ɐ/ > /a/ everywhere - Only the normal version of this, not the one found in diphthongs.
• /ps/ > /ts/; /ks/ > /ts/ at the beginning of a word (or syllable?) - Seems likely since it's easier to pronounce. I still cringe when I hear Psychologe being pronounced as /tsyʃoloːgə/. This will be extended later as well.
• /oː/ > /ɔː/; /eː/ > /ɛː/ before /ɐ̯/ - This makes a lot of words with diphthongs containing /ɐ̯/ sound really similar but there's still an audible difference.
• /l/ > /ɪ̯/ after a vowel aka everywhere - Assimilation? A lot of new diphthongs are created because of this sound changes.
• /ɪɪ̯/ > /ɪː/ everyhwere - Only affects a few words. Milch and mich are minimal pairs now because their only difference is vowel length.
• /ɝ/ > /œɐ̯/; /eɪ̯/ > /eː/; /oʊ̯/ > /oː/ everywhere - The first one is already really common now but I put all of the vowels of English loanwoards here. The last two are done by older people I think but not by younger people but they'll make a comeback here.
• /ɛ̃ː/ > /ɛN/; /ɔ̃ː/ > /ɔN/ before stops, nasals and fricatives; /ɛ̃ː/ > /ɛː/; /ɔ̃ː/ > /ɔː/ everywhere else - And now the French loanwords with nasals that haven't been changed to a normal vowel and a velar nasal in modern German.
• /Vɐ̯/ > /Və̯/; /Vɪ̯/ > /Və̯/ everywhere - A lot of words might become homophones because of this change but don't know how many yet. I only know of Hort and heut(e).
• /i̯/ > /j/; /u̯/ > /w/ before a vowel - Not much to add here.
• /ɻ/ > /w/ everywhere - Another phoneme from loanwords only. This would merge Rage and Wage (both with English pronunciation) if the last one would be a loanword.
• /ʃ/ > /ʂ/; /ʒ/ > /ʐ/ everywhere - I really wanted to have a big change in this period and I like retroflex sibilants. It starts next to back vowels and first and then spreads everywhere. Affricates are affected by this as well.
• /tj/ > /tʃ/; /sj/ > /ʃ/; /dj/ > /dʒ/; /zj/ > /ʒ/ everywhere - And the palato-alveolar sibilants have a comeback after the old ones became retroflexes. Only words of foreign origin are affected by this change.
• /ɛːə̯/ > /æː/; /ɔːə̯/ > /ɒː/ everywhere - Just so they don't be too similar to their short counterparts. The next change would have made them way more similar but I wanted them to be differentiated.
• /Və/ > /Vː/ everywhere - This also affects /Vːə/ but the overlong vowels will turn into normal long vowels.
• /ɪ̯/ > /j/; /ʊ̯/ > /w/ between two vowels - Is this even a sound change because they're mostly the same if not at all?
• /f/ > /v/ between vowels - I don't like /f/.

Phase 3: From "Old Noattȯč" to "Middle Noattȯč"

• /n̩/ > /n/; /m̩/ > /m/; /ŋ̩/ > /ŋ/; /l̩/ > /l/ following a vowel as well as preceding a vowel - Not much to add here again.
• /Vː/ > /V/ in closed syllables - It's important that this change precedes the next change. This way they're more /ʊ/ and /ɪ/ and the other way around a lot of vowels would have been different.
• /ʊː/ > /uː/; /œː/ > /øː/; /ʏː/ > /yː/; /ɛː/ > /eː/; /ɔː/ > /oː/; /ɪː/ > /eː/ - everywhere Massive simplifaction of the vowel system. I quite loved the centralised long vowels but there were just too many vowels so I had to simplify the vowel system a bit.
• /æː/ > /ɛː/; /ɒː/ > /ɔː/; /aʊ̯/ > /ɔː/ everyhwere - To fill in the empty space a bit. This is the origin of /ɛ²/ and /ɔ²/.
• /v/ > /ʋ/ everywhere - The internet says that /ʋ/ exists in the south of Germany but why not having it spread from south to north or from the Netherlands? But this is only a temporary pronunciation which will change again later.
• /kn/ > /n/ at the beginning of a word - A simplification just like it happened in English. I had it shift to /xn/ at first in an earlier version and maybe I'll change it back to that again.
• /h/ > // everywhere - Simply deleting /h/. This makes the glottal stop become a phoneme on it's own.
• /Cʁ/ > /Cː/ everywhere - Another deletion but with lengthening the preceding consonant. So more geminated consonants, whoo!
• /ʁ/ > /ɣ/ everywhere else - Not much to add here.
• /zn/ > /n/; /lz/ > /ll/; /nz/ > /nn/; /mz/ > /mm/; /ŋz/ > /ŋŋ/ everywhere - Various changes containing the voiced alveolar fricative. This creates also some more geminated consonants, especially nasals.
• /ltS/ > /tS/; /ntS/ > /tS/ everywhere - Before dental affricates, other dental consonants disappear. In combinations like /lnts/ or /nlts/ the change happens only once so /n/ and /l/ can still appear in front of those affricates but they're seldom.
• /t/ > /ʔ/; /p/ > /ʔ/; /k/ > /ʔ/ before a nasal - The change to a glottal stop now happened everywhere before a nasal and not only before syllabic nasals as it had been before.
• /n/ > /m/ before /ʋ/ - Just a simple assimilation.

Phase 4: From "Middle Noattȯč" to "Modern Noattȯč"

• /ʋ/ > /w/ everywhere - Continuation of the older change that happened in the preceding phase.
• /dd/ > /tt/; /bb/ > /pp/; /gg/ > /kk/ everywhere - Just a fortition!
• /Cː/ > /C/ when followed or preceded by another consonant - Because consonant clusters with geminated consonants are too much. This makes Abend and Amt homophones after all this time.
• /ɣ/ > /ŋ/ between vowels; /ɣ/ > /x/ everywhere else - Now all the nasals can appear between vowels and all the fricatives are now voiceless except for the sibilants which adds some more symmetry to the phoneme inventory.
• /jə/ > /ɪ̯/; /wə/ > /ʊ̯/ after a vowel - After every diphthong disappeared, some new diphthongs are created by this change but they don't appear that often and mostly at the end of words.
• /ps/ > /ts/; /ks/ > /ts/ everywhere - I put it in the late phase because it thought it might take a long time because of careful pronunciation of scientific words. This makes setz and sechs homophones.
• /l̩/ > /ɪ/ between consonants - Currently the first and only syllabic consonant to turn into a vowel. I still need to think about how I want the other syllabic consonants to turn out.
• /l/ > /ɾ/ between two vowels or after a consonant - Simple rhotacism.
• /d/ > /n/; /b/ > /m/; /g/ > /ŋ/ between two vowels - Not much to explain here I guess. It's quite a big change and the most notable one for this phase.
• /n/ > /d/; /m/ > /b/; /ŋ/ > /g/ when preceding /ɾ/ - Simplifies all of the ı-conjugations.
• /mw/ > /ww/ everywhere - Although this might just be an allophone just like the following change.
• /çj/ > /çç/ everywhere - The last change! Nothing more to add.

[hr][/hr]
Well, that was a lot to type. Now I need a break. Have a good day!

Edit: Added missing sound changes and changed some a bit! They're marked in red.

[HoskhMatriarch]

Haha, seeing the title I thought of Sami, not of Germanic. This is really cool.

Thank you!

I don't know if Noattȯč will be pro-drop or not (if not, requiring present time German sentences like: *Ich geh-ich nach Hause.) But if the agreement is real, we would have had present day German sentences like 'Der Elefant, geht er nach Hause.'

I already thought about using sentence structures like in your example. I also thought about changing the word order to 'Geht er nach Hause, der Elefant' but it feels to weird (both sentences do but well). Both of them seem to be the only solution for that. I prefer your sentence though because the subject is closer to the verb.

If you do „Geht er nach Nause, der Elefant“ you could end up with VOS as the dominant word order if the pronouns first cliticize to the verb and then are reanalyzed as suffixes, which would be super weird for a language that comes from German (or for any language at all for that matter since objects before subjects is just weird, but especially for German since it's IMO more of a head-final language since everything generally comes before nouns, compounds are left-branching, and dependent clauses and auxiliaries put the verb(s) at the end, as well as the fact that there are particles at the end with particle verbs, negation towards the end of the sentence, and the time-manner-place order that generally happens in head-final languages like Japanese).

[zyma]

Yes, it was a wonderful week! I didn't want to leave.

Yay, I'm glad you had fun!

I didn't work on the grammar but I wanted to post something again so I thought I'll show you some of the major sound changes from German to Noattȯč. There were a lot of things I want to think about again while I did this list so changes are likely to happen! It's more detailed in the beginning because most of them are changes that are happening or have happened so you know where I started of with Noattȯč. I divided it into some phases for clarity's sake.

Looks great! I like all of the directions you've taken here, but I'll try to comment more specifically on some of the changes.

• /kn/ > /n/ at the beginning of a word - A simplification just like it happened in English. I had it shift to /xn/ at first in an earlier version and maybe I'll change it back to that again.

Personally, I'd go with /xn/, but that's just me.

• /ʁ/ > // after a consonant - Another deletion. I played with the thought of geminating the preceding consonant before the loss of /ʁ/ but I don't know if this is a logical sound change. I'd like to have a response to this if someone is gracious enough!

I wouldn't call it illogical; much weirder things have happened in natlangs.

[cedh]

How does your language handle early loanwords (from English and other languages)? In my experience, colloquial German currently tends to adapt loanwords to the native phonology only partially, so that words of foreign origin may contain a few sounds which don't exist in native vocabulary, e.g. [ɻ ɝ eɪ̯ oʊ̯] in loans from English, or nasalised vowels in words from French. Do you have any rules for the adaptation of these sounds planned out?

(In my own sketchy plans for a descendant of German, I'd probably adapt English [ɻ ɝ eɪ̯ oʊ̯] and French [ɛ̃ ɑ̃ ɒ̃] as /ʒ œɐ̯ eː oː ɛɐ̯ ɔɐ̯ ɔɐ̯/ respectively...)

[ixals]

Replies:

Spoiler:

If you do „Geht er nach Nause, der Elefant“ you could end up with VOS as the dominant word order if the pronouns first cliticize to the verb and then are reanalyzed as suffixes, which would be super weird for a language that comes from German (or for any language at all for that matter since objects before subjects is just weird, but especially for German since it's IMO more of a head-final language since everything generally comes before nouns, compounds are left-branching, and dependent clauses and auxiliaries put the verb(s) at the end, as well as the fact that there are particles at the end with particle verbs, negation towards the end of the sentence, and the time-manner-place order that generally happens in head-final languages like Japanese).

The word order is definitely one of the trickiest things in this conlang. I really want to have the verb at the beginning but VOS is indeed really weird. I try to get a VSO order now but it's still hard to find a way to do it. "Geht er nach Hause, der Elefant" was just a thought. But particle verbs can easily be changed by emphasising "Er geht vor" to "Vor geht er" and so particles don't change when conjugated and stay where they were in the infinitive. But thank you for your comment! It really made me think about everything and forced me to dig a bit deeper.

Personally, I'd go with /xn/, but that's just me.

I have to think about it again, Knie /xniː/ sounds really good.

I wouldn't call it illogical; much weirder things have happened in natlangs.

Ok, thank you. I changed it so now consonants become geminated and later fortified.

How does your language handle early loanwords (from English and other languages)? In my experience, colloquial German currently tends to adapt loanwords to the native phonology only partially, so that words of foreign origin may contain a few sounds which don't exist in native vocabulary, e.g. [ɻ ɝ eɪ̯ oʊ̯] in loans from English, or nasalised vowels in words from French. Do you have any rules for the adaptation of these sounds planned out?

(In my own sketchy plans for a descendant of German, I'd probably adapt English [ɻ ɝ eɪ̯ oʊ̯] and French [ɛ̃ ɑ̃ ɒ̃] as /ʒ œɐ̯ eː oː ɛɐ̯ ɔɐ̯ ɔɐ̯/ respectively...)

I didn't think about the nasalised vowels but I had the English diphthongs in my personal list of sound changes but I forgot to add them in the post. I changed /ɝ eɪ̯ oʊ̯/ to /œɐ̯ eː oː/ as well. Nasalised vowels change to a normal vowel followed by a nasal vowels depending on what consonant follows. At the end of a word they simply denasalise. And /ɻ/ becomes /w/ in my conlang like in Cockney. Sometimes it also becomes /ʁ/. I think this will depend on who uses it. Words that are used by older people as well rather change to /ʁ/ while more newer words relating to "young" things like computers or lifestyle rather change to /w/.

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Interrogative

The interrogative (or Qıntaƞȯƞatif) is the second mood in Noattȯč. It's a relatively new "mood" because all the other moods had their own way to be marked. In other words the old interrogative mood was just formed by adding the suffix for person and number and that was it (like the indicative is formed now. But the suffix -nn was sometimes used for making it clear that it's a serious question. It stems from the German word denn which received alternative unstressed pronunciation /dən/ in this case. This suffix follows the suffix for person and number, just like the imperative. A schwa is added when a consonant precedes the suffix. Some examples:

Štėmavvann?
[ˈʂʈeː.ma.wwann]
štėm-avva-nn
die-1PL-Q

Qıssənn?
[ˈʔɪss.ənn]
qıss-nn
be.3SG-Q

Kapistənn?
[ka.ˈpis.tənn]
kap-istə-nn
understand-2SG-Q

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Formal Indicative

The formal indicative (or Tectınnikatif which comes/would come from Textindikativ) is only used in formal texts that's why the Tectınnikatif was coined in modern Noattȯč. It's never used in normal speech and only found in written forms of Noattȯč if at all. It's found in the UHDR for example. Most of the time the word dan from German dann is placed before the verb to signify the indicative mood. In older sources and texts there are also other words found like dȧ or zȯ. This was the normal way to use the indicative in the past but after the increased use of the interrogative used with -nn made the marker less used. Reason for that is that sentences are a bit shortened because of all the dan's that were deleted. Now just one example, because I'm a bit lazy:

Dan gėḥ!
[ˌdan.ˈɡeːç]
dan gė-ḥ
IND go-1SG

I thought I'll better show the change in case it might be confused:

Interrogative: Kapistə? > Kapistənn? > Kapistənn?
Indicative: Dan kapistə. > Dan kapistə. > Kapistə.

There's also one thing I like about this change as well. Modern Noattȯč speakers might have trouble reading older texts when there's a question in the text because they'd think it's a statement, not a question. A question mark may hint that it's a question but it could also be taken as doubt.

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As always: Have a good day! I try to have one as well but it's just to hot for me.

[zyma]

Interrogative

The interrogative (or Qıntaƞȯƞatif) is the second mood in Noattȯč. It's a relatively new "mood" because all the other moods had their own way to be marked. In other words the old interrogative mood was just formed by adding the suffix for person and number and that was it (like the indicative is formed now. But the suffix -nn was sometimes used for making it clear that it's a serious question. It stems from the German word denn which received alternative unstressed pronunciation /dən/ in this case. This suffix follows the suffix for person and number, just like the imperative. A schwa is added when a consonant precedes the suffix. Some examples:

Spoiler:

Štėmavvann?
[ˈʂʈeː.ma.wwann]
štėm-avva-nn
die-1PL-Q

Qıssənn?
[ˈʔɪss.ənn]
qıss-nn
be.3SG-Q

Kapistənn?
[ˈka.pis.tənn]
kap-istə-nn
understand-2SG-Q

Cool, that's an interesting way to derive a new interrogative mood!

Formal Indicative

The formal indicative (or Tectınnikatif which comes/would come from Textindikativ) is only used in formal texts that's why the Tectınnikatif was coined in modern Noattȯč. It's never used in normal speech and only found in written forms of Noattȯč if at all. It's found in the UHDR for example. Most of the time the word dan from German dann is placed before the verb to signify the indicative mood. In older sources and texts there are also other words found like dȧ or zȯ. This was the normal way to use the indicative in the past but after the increased use of the interrogative used with -nn made the marker less used. Reason for that is that sentences are a bit shortened because of all the dan's that were deleted. Now just one example, because I'm a bit lazy:

Spoiler:

Dan gėḥ!
[ˌdan.ˈɡeːç]
dan gė-ḥ
IND go-1SG

I thought I'll better show the change in case it might be confused:

Interrogative: Kapistə? > Kapistənn? > Kapistənn?
Indicative: Dan kapistə. > Dan kapistə. > Kapistə.

There's also one thing I like about this change as well. Modern Noattȯč speakers might have trouble reading older texts when there's a question in the text because they'd think it's a statement, not a question. A question mark may hint that it's a question but it could also be taken as doubt.

I quite like what's explained in this section, especially because of how it's only really used in writing and how modern speakers might get confused over questions and statements in older texts.

As always: Have a good day! I try to have one as well but it's just to hot for me.

You too! Hopefully things cool off soon.

[Birdlang]

I've been visiting this site for more than a year and I think it's time for me to become a part of this community, so I'll present you one of my projects which I work on from time to time and which I really like. I'm still a beginner in my opinion and some things confuse me so nothing will be perfect but I'm eager to learn more!

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Noattȯč

1. Phonology (Consonants, Vowels, Phonotactics, Stress), Regular Verbs (a-Conjugation, i-Conjugation, l-Conjugation), Irregular Verbs, "to be"
2. e-Conjugation, Imperative
3. Sound changes
4. Interrogative, Formal Indicative
5. ...

Since I'm still kind of new to all of this is one of the reason why I started working on Noattȯč. I wanted to work on something I'm familiar with and I also wanted to experiment. So there's Noattȯč which is a descendant of my native tongue, German. Hence the name Noattȯč which comes from norddeutsch. The pronunciation didn't change at all in some words, but in other words it did change a lot. Most changes will concern grammar because I assume that German will stay quite stable phonology-wise, but the few sound changes force the grammar to change. I don't have much stuff to talk about yet but I really like it and I hope I won't give up (sadly, I'm terrible at not giving up ), but we'll see!

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Phonology

Consonants

/m n ŋ/ <m n ƞ>
/p b t d k ɡ ʔ/ <p b t d k g q>
/ts tʃ ʈʂ/ <c ċ č>
/s z ʃ ʒ ʂ ʐ/ <s z ṡ ż š ž>
/f ç x/ <f ḥ h>
/w l ɾ j/ <v l r j>

• Some of the consonants can be geminated, those are: /m n ŋ p t k ç w l/. At least I haven't found any other geminated consonants yet, but I would really like to have at least a geminated voiceless velar fricative!
• All nasal consonants can be geminated. They also can be syllabic in some cases (but I'm trying to get rid of syllabic nasals, still not sure how).

I'm not sure if I should leave [ŋ] as it is or if I should change it to [ŋɡ] or [ɣ] in intervocalic position and in the beginning of a syllable.
I'm also not sure about the glottal stop because?

Vowels

/ɪ i ʏ y ʊ u/ <ı i y ẏ u u̇>
/ɛ e œ ø ɔ o/ <e ė w ẇ o ȯ>
/a a² ə/ <a ȧ ə>
/ɛ² ɔ²/ <ea oa>

• Every vowel is pronounced short except when in a stressed syllable. In a stressed syllable /i y u e ø o a² ɛ² ɔ²/ are pronounced as [iː yː uː eː oː øː aː ɛː ɔː], obviously.
• /a ɛ ɔ/ stay short, which differentiates them from /a² ɛ² ɔ²/.
• /ə/ also stays short everywhere since it can't be in a stressed syllable.
• This does not apply if the following consonant is geminated. The vowel remains short then.
• Diphthongs exist and almost every vowel plus /ɪ/ or /ʊ/ is allowed. Most of those stem from German /Vɪə/ or the old diphthongs at the end of a word.

Phonotactics

I'm still confused about this part but I guess it's most likely the same as in German. Really confused.

(s, ʂ) C (w, ɾ, j) V (m, n, ŋ, ts, tʃ, ʈʂ, s, ʂ, f, ç, l) C

Stress

Stress isn't fixed, but most words have their stress on the first syllable of the root word. There are also a lot of exceptions thanks to loanwords. Words not having their stress on the first syllable have secondary stress on the first syllable.

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Grammar

The grammar is not planned out at all yet. My main inspiration for this project was colloquial German and it's wonderful contractions like hast du > haste. All of this kind of started as a developed version of colloquial German and I try to get it kind of further than that. I haven't really done much of the grammar part yet but I'm really looking forward to that. It will most likely turn out more agglutinative regarding the verbs with a lot of suffixes I guess. I don't know about the rest, I only focused on the verbs.

Regular Verbs

There are three tenses which are past, present and future. Past tense and future tense will be created using suffixes. There are first, second and third person which can all be singular and plural. For third person singular, verbs can be conjugated for all of the three genders which are masculine, feminine and neuter. And again, everything is formed by suffixes. I plan on developing some moods, especially the imperative which I have already planned out since that was quite easy. There are also three main conjugations and some irregular verbs.

First Conjugation

Also called the a-conjugation since that's the vowel that differentiates this conjugation from the other two main conjugations. The a-conjugation is the most prominent conjugation and it stems from German verbs ending in -ern. It became applied to a lot of verbs to avoid extreme irregularities of normal German -en verbs which became irregular to a lot of sound changes. Most verbs of this conjugation have their stress on the first syllabe except in second person plural where it's on the penultimate syllable. Here's the example verb lȧman ( labern) meaning to talk:

Stem: lȧm-
1SG lȧm-ȧḥ [ˈlaː.maç] < laber ich
2SG lȧm-astə [ˈlaː.mas.tə] < laberste < laberst du
3SGm lȧm-ata [ˈlaː.ma.ta] < labert er
3SGf lȧm-acə [ˈlaː.ma.tsə] < labert se < labert sie
3SGn lȧm-ac [ˈlaː.mats] < labert's < labert es
1PL lȧm-avva [ˈlaː.ma.wwa] < labern wa < labern wir
2PL lȧm-atȧrə [ˌla.ma.ˈtaː.ɾə] < labert er alle < labert ihr
3PL lȧm-annə [ˈlaː.ma.nnə] < labern se < labern sie

Second Conjugation

Also called the i-conjugation because of the same reason. This conjugation is also often seen and has its origins in the good old German -ieren verbs and this conjugation mostly features verbs from Latin or French. One major feature of this conjugation is that most of the verbs aren't stressed on the stem, the stress falls on the first syllable of the suffix. The only exeption is the second person plural again. So here's the example verb kapin ( kapieren) meaning to understand:

Stem: kap-
1SG kap-iḥ [ka.ˈpiːç] < kapier ich < kapiere ich
2SG kap-istə [ka.ˈpiːs.tə] < kapierste < kapierst du
3SGm kap-ita [ka.ˈpiː.ta] < kapiert er
3SGf kap-icə [ka.ˈpiː.tsə] < kapiert se < kapiert sie
3SGn kap-ic [ka.ˈpiːts] < kapiert's < kapiert es
1PL kap-ivva [ka.ˈpiː.wwa] < kapiern wa < kapieren wir
2PL kap-itȧrə [ˌka.pi.ˈtaː.ɾə] < kapiert er alle < kapiert ihr
3PL kap-innə [ka.ˈpi.nnə] < kapiern se < kapieren sie

Third Conjugation

Also called the l-conjugations purely because of its origins. All the German verbs ending in -eln belong here, so they're stressed on the first syllable of the stem, just as the first conjugation. And as always: except in second person plural. The most visible changes are in the first and second person singular, the rest is pretty much the same as the other two conjugations just with another vowel again! And here's the example verb brıcın ( blinzeln) meaning to squint:

Stem: brıc-
1SG brıc-rıḥ [ˈbɾɪts.ɾɪç] < blinzel ich
2SG brıc-ıctə [ˈbɾɪ.tsɪts.tə] < blinzelste < blinzelst du
3SGm brıc-ıta [ˈbɾɪ.tsɪ.ta] < blinzelt er
3SGf brıc-ıcə [ˈbɾɪ.tsɪ.tsə] < blinzelt se < blinzelt sie
3SGn brıc-ıc [ˈbɾɪ.tsɪts] < blinzelt's < blinzelt es
1PL brıc-ıvva [ˈbɾɪ.tsɪ.wwa] < blinzeln wa < blinzeln wir
2PL brıc-ıtȧrə [ˌbɾɪ.tsɪ.ˈtaː.ɾə] < blinzelt er alle < blinzelt ihr
3PL brıc-ınnə [ˈbɾɪ.tsɪ.nnə] < blinzeln se < blinzeln sie

Irregular Verbs

There are some irregular verbs in Noattȯč which stem from irregular German verbs or verbs ending in -en which were used too often so they didn't change to verbs of the a-conjugation. Irregular verbs are e.g. to be, to have, to go, to be able or to become. A lot of irregular verbs have a different suffix for the second person plural because there wasn't a need to form a new one.

To be

Infinitive: zȧn
1SG bınıḥ [ˈbɪ.nɪç] < bin ich
2SG bıstə [ˈbɪs.tə] < biste < bist du
3SGm qısa [ˈʔɪ.sa] < is er < ist er
3SGf qısə [ˈʔɪ.sə] < is se < ist sie
3SGn qıss [ˈʔɪss] < is 's < ist es
1PL zıvva1 [ˈzɪ.wwa] < sind wa < sind wir
2PL zȧta [ˈzaː.ta] < seid er < seid ihr
3PL zıcə2 [ˈzɪ.tsə] < sind se < sind sie

1 It should have been zıntva but I thought that changing /zɪnt/ to /zɪn/ seems reasonable and it also yields a more regular ending plus it sounds better in my opinion!
2 The same change doesn't happen here because the combination of /t/ and /z/ quickly becomes /ts/ which stays this way.

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And that's it for now. I sat here way too long and I really want to see some reactions now! If you have any questions, ask. If you find any mistakes, please correct me!

What does the superscript 2 mean. Is it mid low tone?

[zyma]

It's explained right underneath the vowel inventory that /a ɛ ɔ/ and /a² ɛ² ɔ²/ are two sets of phonemes that are pronounced identically to one another in unstressed syllables, but differentiated in stressed syllables, where /a² ɛ² ɔ²/ are lengthened, but /a ɛ ɔ/ are not.