Gotski

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Gotski

Post by spanick »

Hi everyone, I’m new to CBB coming from ZBB. I noticed that Germanic Conlangs are all the rage here at CBB so I decided to share one I’ve been working on over at ZBB. There, the post is garbled so here there will be a much cleaner, straightforward presentation of the grammar. Most of it is verbatim from ZBB, but some has been edited when appropriate. I will note that méþru and Jal over at ZBB gave me lots of input and the orthography is basically the invention of méþru. Anyway, as you will see, what I have presented here is a liturgical language which I call Ekljeski Jęsük (Church Language) and is set in the early modern era. I am in the process of creating Tözski Jezük (Common Language) which is less conservative and set in the modern era.

External History
This was born of an idea I had a while back while I was studying Proto-Germanic. As we all know, PGmc split into North, West, and East branches; Gothic being the only real remnant of the East Germanic languages. My not so original idea was to create a South Germanic language which shared key features with East Germanic, such as no umlauting and lack of (pervasive) rhoticism as well as some of the grammatical features like a passive voice. Ultimately, I'd say I was not successful at creating a mythical South Germanic, but rather a variant East Germanic language. Indeed, in its initial stages of sound changes, it looked very similar to Gothic. At this stage, which is supposed to be spoken in the early modern era, it's still obviously related but pretty different. Ultimately, I decided this language is spoken somewhere in the Balkans; the speakers are Eastern Catholic; and the language is influenced by Old Church Slavonic (something analogous to Latin for English).

Internal History
Whatever original name this East Germanic tribe was, it has been lost to history. To their Balkan neighbors, they were known simply as Goths. Hence they now simply refer to themselves as Gotan "Goths" and their language as Gotisk "Gothic." They were, like other Goths, Arian Christians since the 4th and 5th centuries AD, thanks to the efforts of Wulfila and his Bible translation. At the time of its writing, Wulfila's Gothic was close enough to this language so as to be mutually intelligible.

However, beginning in the 9th century, with the mission of Ss. Cyril and Methodius to the Slavs, the Gotan would be converted to Nicean Christianity. By this time, their language had changed enough so as to make the old Gothic translation of Wulfila unintelligible. The decision was made to mission the Gotan not in their own, Germanic language but with Old Church Slavonic. The Gotan had not maintained any sort of political autonomy and were a minority amongst their Slavic neighbors. They were also largely bilingual, or at least conversant in the local Slavic language. Thus began several centuries of influence of Old Church Slavonic on Gotski.

Starting in the 15th century, the tide began to turn for Gotski. A Gotski hieromonk, St. Vereks happened upon several ancient manuscripts written in Gothic including fragments of the Gospels in Wulfila's translation. Vereks was an avid student of langauge, having mastered Greek, OCS, and Latin and studied Aramaic, and quickly recognized the importance of these manuscripts. this would inspire St. Vereks to begin his own translation of the Bible into Gotski. In his lifetime, he completed the New Testament, the Psalms, and several liturgical books. The remainder of the Bible was completed by subsequent monks who were his students. It is St. Vereks'language that comes down to us as Ekljeski Jęsük.

Amongst St. Vereks' students, a school of thought developed that the Gotan should conduct liturgy in their own language. The local Bishops agreed. They also began to demand their own, separate hierarchy. This this bishops would not agree to. Eventually, this would lead to the Gotan turning to Rome and establishing their own Eastern Catholic Church known as the Gothic-Greek Catholic Church. It was little known at the time, but the idea was not as novel as it seemed. Decades later, it was demonstrated from the private writings of St. Vereksthat his views on the Papacy were changing. This was apparently planted in the minds of his students, in particular St. Volfel, who would become the first Eastern Catholic bishop of the Gotan.
Last edited by spanick on 16 Nov 2017 23:15, edited 2 times in total.
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Re: Gutisk

Post by spanick »

Phonology and Orthography (Romanization and Cyrillic)
/p t k b d g/ <p t k b d g> <п т к б д г> (plus ѯ for /ks/ and ѱ for /ps/ in loanwords, only in Cyrillic)
/ts dz tʃ dʒ/ <c dz č dž> <ц ѕ ч ꙉ>
/f θ s ʃ ʒ x/ <f þ š ž h> <ф ѳ с ш ж х>
/m n ɲ/ <m n nj> <м н нг>
/ʋ j/ <v j> <в ь> (/j/ followed by a vowel is represented by an ioated form, except for /ji jü ju je jö jã/)
/l λ/ <l lj> <л ꙥ>
/r/ <r> <р>

/i y u/ <i ü u> <и ю у>
/e ø o/ <e ö o> <е ѡ о>
/a/ <a> <а>
/ẽ õ ã/ <ę ǫ ą> <ѧ ѫ ꙛ>
/ie uø uo/ <ie uö uo> <ѥ уѡ уо>
/oy ai au/ <oü ai au> <оу аі ау>

Nominal Morphology
The Various declensions of PGmc have collapsed into four declensions in Gutisk.

First Declension: Directly descended from a/o-stems. r-, z-, and consonant-stems all merge into this declension as well.
Second Declension: Essentially a simplification of PGmc i-stems which have been merged with ī/jo-stems.
Third Declension: From the original PGmc u-stem.
Fourth Declension: Merging of the an/on/in-stems.

First Declension
Masculine Singular/Plural
Nom. -s/-os
Acc. --/-ąs
Voc. --/as
Dat. -e/-ams
Gen. -s/-a
Ins. -a/-ames

Neuter Singular/Plural
Nom. --/-os
Acc. --/-as
Voc. --/-a
Dat. -e/-ams
Gen. -s/-a
Ins. -a/-ames

Feminine Singular/Plural
Nom. -a/-os
Acc. -a/-os
Voc. -a/-os
Dat. -ö/-oms
Gen. -os/-a
Ins. -a/-omes

Second Declension
Masculine & Feminine Singular/Plural
Nom. -s/-es
Acc. -i/-ęs
Voc. -i/-es
Dat. -i/-ems
Gen. -s/-(i)a
Ins. -i/-emes

Neuter
Nom. -i/-es
Acc. -i/-es
Voc. -i/-es
Dat. -i/-ems
Gen. -es/-(i)a
Ins. -i/-emes

Third Declension
Masculine & Feminine Singular/Plural
Nom. -us/-üs
Acc. -u/-ǫs
Voc. -u/-ü
Dat. -ü/-oms
Gen. -os/-ü
Ins. -u/-omes

Neuter
Nom. -u/-us
Acc. -u/-us
Voc. -u/-u
Dat. -ü/-oms
Gen. -os/-ü
Ins. -u/-omes

Fourth Declension
Masculine & Neuter Singular/Plural
Nom. -a/-an
Acc. -an/-an
Voc. -o/-anes
Dat. -eni/-ams
Gen. -enes/-ana
Ins. -ene/emes

Feminine Singular/Plural
Nom. -o/-on
Acc. -on/-on
Voc. -o/-ones
Dat. -oni/-oms
Gen. -ones/-ona
Ins. -one/-omes
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Re: Gutisk

Post by spanick »

Adjective Declension
Originally, I had articles but I’ve since decided to eliminate them. However, strong adjectives are used to help convey a sense of definiteness while weak adjectives convey a sense of indefiniteness.

Strong Endings
Masculine Singular/Plural
Nom. -s/-e
Acc. -an/-ąs
Dat. -ame/-ems
Gen. -as/-ero
Ins. -an/-emes

Neuter Singular/Plural
Nom. --/-a
Acc. --/-a
Dat. -ame/-ems
Gen. -as/-ero
Ins. -an/-emes

Feminine Singular/Plural
Nom. -a/-os
Acc. -a/-os
Dat. -erö/-ems
Gen. -eros/-ero
Ins. -ero/-emes

Weak Ending
Masculine & Neuter Singular/Plural
Nom. -a/-an
Acc. -an, -a/-an
Dat. -eni/-ams
Gen. -enes/-ana
Ins. -ene/emes

Feminine Singular/Plural
Nom. -o/-on
Acc. -on/-on
Dat. -oni/-oms
Gen. -ones/-ona
Ins. -one/-omes


Pronouns

Personal pronouns
First Person Singular/Plural
Nom. ek/ves
Acc. mek/ǫs
Dat./Ins. mes/ǫses
Gen. mens/ǫsers

Second Person Singular/Plural
Nom. þu/er
Acc. þek/erös
Dat./Ins. þes/esös
Gen. þens/erörs

Third Person Masculine/Neuter/Feminine/Plural
Nom. es/et/se/jos
Acc. ena/et/ja/jos
Dat./Ins. eme/eme/erö/ems
Gen. es/es/eros/ero

Interrogative Pronouns
who/what
Nom. hos/hot
Acc. hona/hot
Dat./Ins. home/home
Gen. hös/hös

Reflexive Pronoun
The reflective pronoun is selba and declines like a weak adjective. It is used alone as the reflexive for all persons and numbers.

Demonstrative Pronoun
The demonstrative pronoun is jens and is declined like a weak adjective. It functions for both this/that in English.

Relative Particle
Gutisk has retained the indeclinable, relative particle ðe which introduces relative clauses and covers English pronouns such as 'that, which, who, etc.'
Last edited by spanick on 04 Jan 2018 01:32, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: Gutisk

Post by spanick »

Verb Morphology

Personal Endings
Present Indicative Singular/Plural
1 -a/-am
2 -s/-aþ
3 -þ/-ąþ

Preterit Singular/Plural - Weak verbs generally add -eþ before personal endings.
1 --/-om
2 -s/-od
3 --/-on

Present Subjunctive Singular/Plural
1 -o/-em
2 -es/-eþ
3 -e/-en

Preterit Subjunctive Singular/Plural
1 -ü/-em
2 -es/-eþ
3 -i/-en

Passive Singular/Plural - may attach to a present stem or a preterit stem
All -aþe/-ąde

Participles
Present: -ąds
Past: -ans

Strong Verb Ablauts
The distinct ablauts for plural have collapsed and merged with the singular. Class 7 strong verbs collapsed and became weak. Class 3b and 4 strong verbs merged. Rounded variants in Classes 1, 4-6 are due to a phonological process which caused original PGmc unrounded vowels to round when preceded by Cw. This process was blocked by nasalization.

Class Infinitive/Past/Past Participle
1 ai, i, oü, ü/i, ü/i, ü
2a oü, ü/uo, o/u
2b au, u/uo, o/u
3 ę/ą/ǫ
4 e, ö/a, o/u
5 e, ö/a, o/e, ö
6 a, o/uo, o/a, o

Verbs: Perfective/Imperfective
The notion of inherently perfective/imperfective verbs has also be borrowed into Gutisk. For the most part, unmarked verbs are considered imperfective and perfectivity is marked with the prefix ga-.

Ex: sehan "to see (impf)" > gasehan "to see (perf)"

In some cases, the addition of the perfective prefix also slightly alters the meaning of the verb.

Ex: sican "to sit (impf)" > gasican "to sit down (perf)"

Verbs which take inseparable prefixes cannot take the perfective prefix and fall into a class of bi-aspectual verbs such as biköman "to arrive, to come around (impf/perf)". Borrowed verbs retain their aspect: ženan "to marry (impf)." Their perfective forms may also sometimes be borrowed oženan or they can be formed with the native perfective prefix gaženan, often this have slightly different meanings.

Normally irregular verbs are regularized by the perfective prefix.

Ex. vesan "to be (impf)" Ek em, þu er, es est
gavesan "to be (perf)" Ek gavesa, þu gavesas, es gavesaþ

Verb Tenses
Present: influenced from OCS, the unmarked present is by default imperfective while the perfective is marked with the prefix ga-: Ek maca "I am eating" but Ek gamaca "I eat".

Preterit: like the present, the unmarked preterit is imperfective and the perfective takes the perfective prefix. Ek maceþa "I was eating" but Ek gamaceþa

Perfect: periphrasic construction formed by the present imperfective form of vesan "to be" plus the past participle: Ek em macans "I have eaten"

Pluperfect: periphrasic construction formed by either the perfective or imperfective of the preterit form of vesan "to be" plus the past participle: Ek vas macans "I had eaten."

Future: the future can often be indicated by the perfective present form which in context or in conjunction with an adverb indicates the future: After ek em mik þohans, ek gamaca "After I wash myself, I will eat.". Alternatively, a periphrasic construction can be formed by the perfective present form of veljan "to want" plus the infinitive: Ek gavelj macan "I will eat."

Future Perfect: periphrasic construction formed by the perfective present form of veljan "to want" plus the infinitive of vesan "to be" plus the past participle: Ek gavelj macans vesen "I will have eaten."

Imperative
The imperative is typically formed by fronting the either the imperfective or perfective present form of the verb followed immediately by the pronoun: Macas þu "Eat!" This form however, is considered rather harsh and rude. The present imperfective subjunctive often functions as a mild command or suggestion: Maces þu "You should eat."

Passive
The simplest way to construct the passive is by applying the passive personal endings to the verb. These endings no longer distinguish between person but retain their number distinction: singular -aþe, plural -ąde: Boka meljaþe 'The book is being written'. Occasionally, these endings will follow the preterite endings to form passives of the various past tenses. When this construction is used it is most often (but not exclusively) used with strong verbs: Hǫds gasahaþe 'The dog was seen.' However, most often a periphrasic construction using the preterite form (either imperfective or perfective) of verþan followed by the past participle is used Gers gaverþaþe verpans 'The spear was thrown.' The periphrasic construction is always used when constructing the future passive: Mats gavelj macans verþan 'The food will be eaten.'

The agent of a passive is introduced as a prepositional phrase with fram (+dat): Boka meljaþe fram mes 'The book is being written by me.'

Syntax
Word order is relatively free due to the strong declension system and influence from OCS. The only fixed word order relates to verbs, which come second in independent clauses and are final in dependent clauses. There is a general tendency towards SVO in simple independent clauses but it is not a hard and fast rule and the object may be fronted to give it greater emphasis. There is also a tendency to put adverbial or prepositional phrases in the first position of clauses. Datives also have a tendency to precede accusatives.

Some examples:
Ek melja boka. or Boka melja ek. 'I am writing the book.'
Ek gameljaþ boka, þa þu ussęgs . or Boka, þa þu ussęgs, gameljaþ ek. 'I wrote the book that you are reading.'
Gestr meljaþ ek boka or Gestr meljaþ boka ek 'Yesterday I was writing the book.'
Ek gagab þes boka. but also Boka gagab ek þes. or þes gagab ek boke, etc. 'I gave you the book.'
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Re: Gutisk

Post by spanick »

Cardinal Numbers
The number 1-3 are still declined for gender

Masc/Neut/Fem
1 ens/en/ena
2 tuö/tos/tuo
3 þris/ þris/ þria
4 fedor
5 fęf
6 sehs
7 sevon
8 ahta
9 nevon
10 tehon
11 enlif
12 tolif
13 þritehon
14 feþortehon
15 fęftehon
16 sehstehon
17 sevǫtehon
18 ahtotehon
19 nevǫtehon
20 töcives
21 enjahtöcives
30 þricives
40 fedorcives
50 fęfcives
60 sehssives
70 sevǫcehǫd
80 ahtocehǫd
90 nevǫcehǫd
100 hǫd
1,000 þausǫde

Colors
rods - copper, orange-red, also translated as red when talking about hair, skin color, beer, wood, or soil.
čruvnek - red
gelu - yellow
grones - green
bruns - brown
svarts - dark, translated as black when talking about hair, skin color, beer, wood, or soil.
črin - black
narandžast - orange
golþ - gold, most commonly used to refer to a pale yellow, the color of hair, beer, or dried cereal grains
slato - gold
plav - pale, translated as white when talking about skin color and as white/grey when referencing hair color, also used to denote light colors (plavgrones - light green)
blös - blue
grös - grey
porpor - purple
hüts - white
asurna - sky blue, azure
rosa - rose, pink
bluögrones - blue-green, the color of the sea
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Re: Gutisk

Post by spanick »

Class VII Strong Verbs
There are three remaining Class VII strong verbs listed here with the infinitive followed by the preterite:
gągan ~ gejąg "to go"
saltan ~ seralt "to pickle"
hatan ~ hehatan "to call"

Dual Pronohns
Somehow I got this far and neglected dual pronouns so here they are. They no longer have their own verbal conjugations and simply use the first and second person plural endings.

First Person
Nom. vet
Acc. ǫk
Dat./Ins. ǫkes
Gen. ǫkers

Second Person
Nom. jut
Acc. ęk
Dat./Ins ękös
Gen. ękörs
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Re: Gutisk

Post by All4Ɇn »

Nicely done! I absolutely love the development of the perfective/imperfective aspects. I don't think I've ever seen someone do something similar in a Germlang before and it's definitely a really nice touch. You say that normally irregular verbs are regularized by the perfective prefix but do you currently have any exceptions? I'm curious.

Also I really love that only 3 class 7 strong verbs remained and one of them is as uncommon a verb as "to pickle". That feels like just kind of thing that would occur in a real language and is something that's often missing from conlangs.

Definitely hope to see more of this [:D]
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Re: Gutisk

Post by Lambuzhao »

This reminds me of the :con: efforts of CBBer Arskoul (R.I.P.).

He developed two :got: :con: langs : Gutiske Rajde and Gutesc.

Arskoul's Grammar, Glossary & Texts etc for Gutiske Rajde
http://www.geocities.ws/erwan-ar-skoul/gutgramm.html


Gutesc Grammar
viewtopic.php?f=6&t=2374

Sadly, he passed away in 2014 at 41 years. He will be greatly missed.

Glad to see the :got: Torch still shines bairhtaba in the East!

:mrgreen:
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Re: Gutisk

Post by elemtilas »

Lambuzhao wrote:Glad to see the :got: Torch still shines bairhtaba in the East!

:mrgreen:
[<3] [<3] [<3]
You should definitely exercise this language over at Salmoneus's Germanic Language Comparison Thread.

Haven't done it for Avantimannish yet, but plan to.
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Re: Gutisk

Post by spanick »

All4Ɇn wrote:Nicely done! I absolutely love the development of the perfective/imperfective aspects. I don't think I've ever seen someone do something similar in a Germlang before and it's definitely a really nice touch. You say that normally irregular verbs are regularized by the perfective prefix but do you currently have any exceptions? I'm curious.
As it turns out, yes. In fact, "vesan" is basically the only verb that does actually undergo this change. The modals get regularized in that they now do take first and third person farms in the singular (this may conflict with some examples (I'll fix them later if their are). Many verbs with long vowels in the infinitive alternate with diphthongs due to vowel breaking in stressed, open syllables. These alterations remain.
Also I really love that only 3 class 7 strong verbs remained and one of them is as uncommon a verb as "to pickle". That feels like just kind of thing that would occur in a real language and is something that's often missing from conlangs.

Definitely hope to see more of this [:D]
Thank you! I wanted to include the remnant of saltan only as an adjective "seralt" meaning "pickeled". Then I realized that the reduplication only effects the preterite and. It the past participle so I was like "hey, let's just keep the whole verb!" Haha anyway, There will be more! [:)]
Lambuzhao wrote:This reminds me of the :con: efforts of CBBer Arskoul (R.I.P.).

He developed two :got: :con: langs : Gutiske Rajde and Gutesc.

Arskoul's Grammar, Glossary & Texts etc for Gutiske Rajde
http://www.geocities.ws/erwan-ar-skoul/gutgramm.html


Gutesc Grammar
viewtopic.php?f=6&t=2374

Sadly, he passed away in 2014 at 41 years. He will be greatly missed.

Glad to see the :got: Torch still shines bairhtaba in the East!

:mrgreen:
His stuff looks great! Requiescat in pace.

You should definitely exercise this language over at Salmoneus's Germanic Language Comparison Thread.

Haven't done it for Avantimannish yet, but plan to.[/quote]
Thanks! I'll get around to it sometime this week hopefully. Great idea. Do you have a link to A antimannish?
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Re: Gutisk

Post by elemtilas »

spanick wrote:Do you have a link to Avantimannish?
There is a story here as well as quite a bit about life in Auntimoany and The World it's part of here. A little more information about the language and another story here. No grammar or anything online. But if you can handle Gothic, you should be able to sort this language real easy! [}:D]
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Re: Gutisk

Post by shimobaatar »

I've been quite caught up in "Germlanging" myself recently, so it's nice to have more company! I'm definitely looking forward to learning more about this language!
spanick wrote:/ie uø uo/ <ie uö uo> <ѥ уѡ уо>
/oy ai au/ <oü ai au> <оу аі ау>
Interesting set of diphthongs, particularly /uø oy/.
spanick wrote:The Various declensions of PGmc have collapsed into four declensions in Gutisk.
I like how you've made this happen. How much use, so to speak, do the vocative and instrumental cases get?
spanick wrote:Gen. -s/-(i)a
Regarding the genitive plurals of second declension nouns, when do they end in -ia vs. simply -a?
spanick wrote:Acc. -an, -a/-an
Similarly, what's going on with the accusative singular endings of weak masculine and neuter adjectives?
spanick wrote:Originally, I had articles but I’ve since decided to eliminate them.
There are two instances I can see where a definite article seems to appear in your first post. Was that written before you decided to eliminate the articles?
spanick wrote:Gutisk has retained the indeclinable, relative particle ðe which introduces relative clauses and covers English pronouns such as 'that, which, who, etc.'
Is <ð> part of the orthography? I don't see it above, but I could just be missing it?
spanick wrote:Passive Singular/Plural - may attach to a present stem or a preterit stem
All -aþe/-ąde
Does it make a difference which type of stem the endings are attached to?
spanick wrote:Preterit: like the present, the unmarked preterit is imperfective and the perfective takes the perfective prefix. Ek maceþa "I was eating" but Ek gamaceþa
I think "Ek gamaceþa" is missing an English translation.
spanick wrote:Pluperfect: periphrasic construction formed by either the perfective or imperfective of the preterit form of vesan "to be" plus the past participle: Ek vas macans "I had eaten."
Does the meaning change based on whether the perfective or imperfective of the preterite form of "vesan" is used?
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Re: Gutisk

Post by spanick »

shimobaatar wrote:I've been quite caught up in "Germlanging" myself recently, so it's nice to have more company! I'm definitely looking forward to learning more about this language!
Thanks! I'm glad to see so many Germlang enthusiasts here! I have a couple and I prefer them to my a priori conalngs haha. Looking forward to seeing what you have as well!
spanick wrote:The Various declensions of PGmc have collapsed into four declensions in Gutisk.
I like how you've made this happen. How much use, so to speak, do the vocative and instrumental cases get?
The vocative is, naturally, fairly less commonly used. The retention of these cases is due to the influence of OCS. The instrumental gets used quite often, mirroring the OCS usages: agentive Ek gasloh ena sverda. 'I killed him with a sword.' also accompaniment Ek gavesa menemes friondames "I am with my friends" and other cases of English 'with'. It may also be used in the sense "with respect to". Some borrowed verbs from OCS govern the instrumental and this was kept in Gutisk.
spanick wrote:Gen. -s/-(i)a
Regarding the genitive plurals of second declension nouns, when do they end in -ia vs. simply -a?
If it palatalizes the preceding consonant, the plural surfaces as -a, if the consonant is not palatalized, it surfaces as -ia. All the endings of simple -i palatalize the consonant however in this stage of the language, the -i also surfaces when it's word final. That being said, it is in the process of only surfacing as a palatalized consonant, so I do sometimes write these without the final -i.
spanick wrote:Acc. -an, -a/-an
Similarly, what's going on with the accusative singular endings of weak masculine and neuter adjectives?
You can read that as a masc/neut difference in the plural accusative. The -an ending ultimately will dominate this declension though.
spanick wrote:Originally, I had articles but I’ve since decided to eliminate them.
There are two instances I can see where a definite article seems to appear in your first post. Was that written before you decided to eliminate the articles?
Yes, I tried to take them all out but evidently I missed some [:P]
spanick wrote:Gutisk has retained the indeclinable, relative particle ðe which introduces relative clauses and covers English pronouns such as 'that, which, who, etc.'
Is <ð> part of the orthography? I don't see it above, but I could just be missing it?
No. That should be a thorn. I'll fix it.
spanick wrote:Passive Singular/Plural - may attach to a present stem or a preterit stem
All -aþe/-ąde
Does it make a difference which type of stem the endings are attached to?
Yes, it changes the tense. In the present, this is essentially the same as Gothic and PGmc but in the preterite, it avoids the periphrasic construction for past passives found in Gothic (although the periphrasic construction exists too as a parallel construction. The periphrasic construction is the more commonly spoken form while this fusional form is more literary.)
spanick wrote:Preterit: like the present, the unmarked preterit is imperfective and the perfective takes the perfective prefix. Ek maceþa "I was eating" but Ek gamaceþa
I think "Ek gamaceþa" is missing an English translation.
Whoops! "I ate"
spanick wrote:Pluperfect: periphrasic construction formed by either the perfective or imperfective of the preterit form of vesan "to be" plus the past participle: Ek vas macans "I had eaten."
Does the meaning change based on whether the perfective or imperfective of the preterite form of "vesan" is used?
Not in this case, no.
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Re: Gutisk

Post by spanick »

Irregular Verbs
The most common irregular verb in Gutisk is vesan 'to be (impf)' the full conjugation of which is:
Present Indicative
Singular/Plural
1 em/erom
2 er/erod
3 est/sęd
Preterite Indicative
Singular/Plural
1 vas/vierom
2 vast/vierod
3 vas/vieron
Present Subjunctive
Singular/Plural
1 ša/šim
2 šes/šeþ
3 še/šen
Preterite Subjunctive
Singular/Plural
1 vieri/vierem
2 vieres/viered
3 vieri/vieren
Present Participle: vesąds
Past Participle: vesans


There are also the preterite-present verbs which are partially regularized so that they follow the typical verbal paradigm except in that the first and third person singular, present indicative do not take endings. Below is a list of all the preterite-present verbs. Preterite-present verbs have retained singular/plural ablaut in the singular indicative. Preterite-present verbs are also inherently perfective, unlike other verbs. There is a lot of irregularity here that I won't go into now but may detail out later.
iejan - to own, posses
ganugan - to suffice
konan - to be able to, can
leran - to understand
majan - to be able to, may
muotan - to be allowed to, may
monan - to suppose
uojan - to fear
skolan - to ought to, shall
vetan - to know
þorban - to need

Vowel Breaking
Stressed long vowels break in open syllables according to the following paradigm:
ī > ai; ē > ie; ǖ > oü; ȫ > uö; ō > uo; ū > au
This leads to apparent irregularities in verbal conjugations and nominal/adjectival declension:
ek mielja "I am writing" vs þu meljs "you are writing"
broþ "bread (Nom. Sg.)" vs bruoþos "bread (Nom. Pl.)
Last edited by spanick on 03 Jun 2017 00:30, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: Gutisk

Post by shimobaatar »

spanick wrote:
shimobaatar wrote:I've been quite caught up in "Germlanging" myself recently, so it's nice to have more company! I'm definitely looking forward to learning more about this language!
Thanks! I'm glad to see so many Germlang enthusiasts here! I have a couple and I prefer them to my a priori conalngs haha. Looking forward to seeing what you have as well!
Yeah, I used to be a strictly a priori type of person, but now I too prefer what I've come up with in terms of a posteriori languages. Thank you!

Also, I appreciate all of your clarifications!
spanick wrote:There is a lot of irregularity here that I won't go into now but may detail out later.
Looking forward to it!
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Re: Gutisk

Post by spanick »

shimobaatar wrote:
spanick wrote:There is a lot of irregularity here that I won't go into now but may detail out later.
Looking forward to it!
Your wish is my command...haha

Irregular Verbs, Revisited
Previously, I mentioned that preterite-present verbs are highly irregular but didn't elaborate much. Gutisk is rather conservative and many of these irregularities stem from the original irregularities in PGmc. They then get compounded by the various sound changes that occurred in Gutisk. For this post, I will be marking vowel length with a macron. This is the dictionary form. Normally, Gutisk does not mark vowel length. Even though it will be lengthy, I have opted to fill out charts like I did for vesan for these other verbs. An illustrative approach seemed easier than a descriptive one. You'll notice that there has been some regularization in the conjugations by analogy to other verbs, but there is still a lot of variety.

iejan - "to own, possess"
Present Indicative
Singular/Plural
1 ēh/iejom
2 ēht/iejod
3 ēh/iejon
Preterite Indicative
Singular/Plural
1 ēhta/ēhtom
2 ēhtees/ēhtod
3 ēhta/ēhton
Present Subjunctive
Singular/Plural
1 iejo/iejem
2 iejes/iejeþ
3 ieje/iejen
Preterite Subjunctive
Singular/Plural
1 ēhtü/ēhtem
2 ēhtes/ēhteþ
3 ēhti/ēhten
Present Participle: iejąds
Past Participle: ēhts

ganujan - "to suffice"
Present Indicative
Singular/Plural
1 ganah/ganuhom
2 ganaht/ganuhod
3 ganah/ganuhon
Preterite Indicative
Singular/Plural
1 ganuhta/ganuhtom
2 ganuhtes/ganuhtod
3 ganuhta/ganuhton
Present Subjunctive
Singular/Plural
1 ganujo/ganujem
2 ganujes/ganujeþ
3 ganuje/ganujen
Preterite Subjunctive
Singular/Plural
1 ganuhtü/ganuhtem
2 ganuhtes/ganuhteþ
3 ganuhti/ganuhten
Present Participle: ganująds
Past Participle: ganuhts

konan - "to be able to, can"
Present Indicative
Singular/Plural
1 kan/konom
2 kąt/konod
3 kan/konon
Preterite Indicative
Singular/Plural
1 kǫda/kǫdom
2 kǫdes/kǫdod
3 kǫda/kǫdon
Present Subjunctive
Singular/Plural
1 kono/konem
2 kones/koneþ
3 kone/konen
Preterite Subjunctive
Singular/Plural
1 kǫdü/kǫdem
2 kǫdes/kǫdeþ
3 kǫdi/kǫden
Present Participle: konąds
Past Participle: kǫds

That's all for now. I do most of my conlanging at work and now I have to leave the office. More later!

Edit: I changed the preterite forms of konan from þ > d which it has by analogy to monan and serves to regularize the verbs a bit.
Last edited by spanick on 14 Jun 2017 20:07, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: Gutisk

Post by spanick »

leran - "understand"
Present Indicative
Singular/Plural
1 lēs/lerom
2 lēst/lerod
3 lēs/leron
Preterite Indicative
Singular/Plural
1 lesta/lestom
2 leses/lestod
3 lesta/leston
Present Subjunctive
Singular/Plural
1 lero/lerem
2 leres/lereþ
3 lere/leren
Preterite Subjunctive
Singular/Plural
1 lestü/lestem
2 lestes/lesteþ
3 lesti/lesten
Present Participle: lerąds
Past Participle: less

majan - "to be able to, may"
Present Indicative
Singular/Plural
1 mag/majom
2 maht/majod
3 mag/majon
Preterite Indicative
Singular/Plural
1 mahta/mahtom
2 mahtes/mahtod
3 mahta/mahton
Present Subjunctive
Singular/Plural
1 majo/majem
2 majes/majeþ
3 maje/majen
Preterite Subjunctive
Singular/Plural
1 mahtü/mahtem
2 mahtes/mahteþ
3 mahti/mahten
Present Participle: mająds
Past Participle: mahts

muotan - "to be allowed to, may"
Present Indicative
Singular/Plural
1 mōt/muotom
2 mōst/muotod
3 mōt/muoton
Preterite Indicative
Singular/Plural
1 muosa/muosom
2 muoses/muosod
3 muosa/muoson
Present Subjunctive
Singular/Plural
1 muoto/muotem
2 muotes/muoteþ
3 muote/muoten
Preterite Subjunctive
Singular/Plural
1 muosü/muosem
2 muoses/muoseþ
3 muosi/muosen
Present Participle: muotąds
Past Participle: muoss

monan - "to suppose"
Present Indicative
Singular/Plural
1 man/monom
2 mąt/monod
3 man/monon
Preterite Indicative
Singular/Plural
1 mǫda/mǫdom
2 mǫdes/mǫdod
3 mǫda/mǫdon
Present Subjunctive
Singular/Plural
1 mono/monem
2 mones/lereþ
3 mone/leren
Preterite Subjunctive
Singular/Plural
1 mǫdü/mǫdem
2 mǫdes/mǫdeþ
3 mǫdi/mǫden
Present Participle: monąds
Past Participle: mǫds

I'm going to leave it at that for today. That leaves me only four preterite-present verbs for later, but by now I think the patterns are clear enough to make some educated guesses as to their forms.

I have one fun fact I stumbled across the other day while translating something. PGmc *sunnǭ "sun" is an on-stem and thus its cognate <sona> is a fourth declension feminine in Gutisk. Sona is somewhat irregular in that it undergoes haplology. So, for instance, one would expect genitive singular to be *sononi but it actually surfaces as <soni>.
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Re: Gutisk

Post by Omzinesý »

I have been playing with Cyrillic orthographies lately.
How did the Cyrillic orthography develop in your lang's conhistory?
Why dies it have the letters it does?
My meta-thread: viewtopic.php?f=6&t=5760
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Re: Gutisk

Post by spanick »

The script developed in Cyrillic because the main figure in Gutisk's standardization and becoming a literary language was an Eastern Orthodox hieromonk living in what is now Serbia/Montenegro area. Using Cyrillic was not only the most obvious choice, but also served to elevate Gutisk into the realm of a respectable literary language by modeling it off of Old Church Slavonic.

I assume that the characters your the most interested in are the special ones for sounds unique to Gutisk...

<ѳ> i believe this letter did originally represent voiceless interdental fricatives (probably borrowed from Greek), certainly the character is derived from Greek Theta. Thus, it's a good candidate for the interdental fricative in Gutisk.
<ю> represents /ju/ in many Slavic languages and is occassionaly used to represent /y/ in other, nonslavic languages.
<ѡ> derived from Greek omega, this wasn't really being used as a letter in OCS but is derived form a rounded sound so serves as a front, rounded vowel well enough
<ѧ ѫ ꙛ> the first two (little yus and big yus) represented the same nasal sounds in OCS that they do in Gutisk. the last one is called blended yus.

I think that mostly covers the special characters. I will say that I actually didn't come up with the orthography. méþru from ZBB did.
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Re: Gutisk

Post by spanick »

I've been working a lot more with Tözisk, the modern version of Gutisk so I'm gonna post he sound changes here. There's also grammatical changes which put Gutisk more in line with ge Balkan Speachbund but I'll get to those later.

Phonological Changes: Eklješisk Jęsük > Tözisk Jezük

þ > t / #_
þ > z / V_V
þ > d (everywhere else)

Diphthong Leveling
ai, au > aː
uo > uː
ie > iː
uø > yː
oy> øː

Denasalization
Ṽ > V

L-vocalization
l > o / V_(C)(#)
This results in /ol/ > /oː/; /al/ > /ao/; and /el/ > /eo/

Sibilant Palatalization
s, z > ʃ, ʒ / _C[+hi]

Some examples of the above sound changes:

þ > t / #_ þausǫde > tasode 'thousand'
þ > z / V_V köþan > közn 'to say (impf)'
þ > d (everywhere else) mǫþs > mods 'mouth'

Diphthong Leveling
ai, au > aː snaivan > snavn 'to snow (impf)'
uo > uː huožan > hužn 'to hear (impf)'
ie > iː mieno > mino 'moon'
uø > yː tuö > 'two'
oy> øː þoüþisk > tözisk 'common'

Denasalization
Ṽ > V fęf > fef 'five'

L-vocalization
l > o / V_(C)(#)
golþ > god 'gold'
helpan > heopn 'to help (impf)'
dal > dao 'valley'
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