Nortsääenglisch

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spanick
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Nortsääenglisch

Post by spanick »

External History
This is the a revision of a previous version of this conlang which I called Hálélannish and which was spoken on the island of Heligoland. That can be viewed at ZBB here http://www.incatena.org/viewtopic.php?f=4&t=44337. Hálélannish showed a lot of influence from Faroese, especially in the orthography, which has since been excised from Nortsääenglisch. It also included much more conservative nominal morphology which is pretty much completely gone now. These two projects are, I suppose, different enough as to be considered separate conlangs. There's a possibility that I will, in world, keep both as closely related languages but at the moment I tend to think of Nortsääenglisch as conceptually replacing Hálélannish.

To the best of my ability, I try derive these words from the Northumbrian dialect of Old English specifically. The sound change rules below include rules for sounds from West Saxon even though I am trying to avoid using WS as my base. Nortsääenglisch is meant to have broken off from the rest of Old English between the 10th and 13th centuries.

Internal HIstory
Nortsääenglisch /noɐtzɛːeŋglɪʃ/ or "North Sea English" is an Anglic language which evolved from Late Old English by speakers who settled along the northern coast and islands of Holland and Germany. It shares many characteristics of Middle English, including a number of sound changes. Due to its isolation from other English dialects and closer contact with Middle Low German, Frisian, and Middle Dutch, North Sea English has retained some older features while also innovating in unique ways.

Sound Changes
Spoiler:
Trisyllabic laxing
Pre-cluster shortening (CCC clusters)

ī > iː > ɛɪ
ȳ > yː > œɪ
ē > eː > i
ā > aː
ǣ > ɛː
ū > uː
ō > oː > øː
i > ɪ
y > ʏ
e > e
a > a (closed)
a > ɛ (open)
æ > ɛ
u > u
o > o (closed)
o > ɔː (open)

ēo > øː > yː
eo > ø
ēa > ɛː
ea > ɛ
eg > eɪ > ɛɪ
ag > au
og > ou
iw > iu
ew > eu > iu
ǣw > ɛu
ēaw > ɛu

Breaking: an /ɪ/ is inserted between a front vowel and /x/ and a /u/ is inserted between a back vowel and /x/.


h > Ø > #_C
w > Ø / _U
w > v
l > u / U_(C/#)
S > Z / #_
ð > d
θ > t
r > ɾ /C_
r > ɐ /V_(C/#)
CC > C
ND > NN / _#

C=any consonant
U=rounded vowels
S=voiceless fricatives
Z=voiced fricatives
N=any nasal
D=voiced plosives
Orthography
There is no standard orthography for Nortsääenglisch. The orthography presented here is what I will be using. I will indicate different orthographic options after each section following an asterisk *.

Consonants
/p t k b d g/ <p t k b d g>
/f s~z ʃ~ʒ h~x v/ <f s sch h~ch v~w>
/m n ŋ/ <m n ng>
/mː nː ŋː/ <mm nn nng>
/l/ <l>
/r/ <r>

<v> descends from historical /f/ while <w> descends from historical /w/ and /ʍ/
/h/ and /x/ are in complimentary distribution

*Other writers may:
- represent /z/ as <z> and /ʒ/ as <zh>
- represent /v/ as either <v> or <w> but not both


Long Vowels
/iː yː uː/ <ii üü uu>
/ɛː øː ɔː/ <ää öö oo>
/aː/ <aa>

*Some May:
- represent /iː/ with <ij>, especially word finally
-represent /iː/ with <ie>

Short Vowels
/ɪ ʏ u/ <i ü u>
/e ɛ ə ø o/ <e ä e ö o>
/a/ <a>

<e> is pronounced as a schwa in unstressed environments

Diphtongs
/ɛɪ œɪ/ <ei öi~üi>
/iu ɛu ou/ <iu eu ou>
/au/ <au>

*Some May:
- represent /ɛɪ/ as <äi> and /ɛu/ as <äu>
- represent /œɪ/ as <oi>
- use <j> word finally in representing diphthongs (eg: hei v. hej)

Allophones
/l/ surfaces as /ɫ/ after vowels.
/r/ surfaces as /ɾ/ when preceded by a consonant and as /ɐ/ following a vowel.
<s> is pronounced /z/ at the beginning of a word when followed by a vowel and between vowels. It is pronounced /s/ before consonants and word finally
<sch> is pronounced /ʒ/ at the beginning of a word when followed by a vowel and between vowels. It is pronounced /ʃ/ before consonants and word finally
Unlike in Hochdeutsch, voiced consonants are not devoiced word finally.
/x/ has the ich/ach-laut allophones

Grammar
Personal Pronouns
Subject S/P
1 ik/wii
2 duu/jii
3 hii, hüü, hit/hei

Oblique S/P
1 mii/uus
2 dii/jou
3 him, hir, him/hem

Possesive S/P
1 mein/uur
2 dein/jour
3 his, hir, his/hör

Verbal Morphology
Infinitive -e
Past Participle -enn
Present Participle -ed/-e
<-ed> is for weak verbs while <-e> is for strong

Personal Endings - Present Tense
S/P
1 --/-es
2 -(e)st/-es
3 -(e)s/-es

Personal Endings - Past Tense (Weak)
S/P
1 -ed/-des
2 -dest/-des
3 -ed/-des

Personal Endings - Past Tense (Strong)
S/P
1 --/-es
2 -(e)st/-es
3 --/-es

Up Next: Strong Verb Vowel Ablaut, Noun Morphology, and Articles
Last edited by spanick on 13 Jul 2018 00:19, edited 6 times in total.
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Re: Nortsääenglisch

Post by spanick »

Strong Verb Ablauts

Class Infinitive/Past/Past Participle
I ei/aa/i
II üü, uu/ää/o
IIIa i/a/u
IIIb ö/ä/o
IIIc e/a/o
IIId e/ä/o
IIIe e/ä/o
IV e/ä/o
V e/ä/e
VI a/üü/a
VII ii/üü/ii

Noun Morphology
Nortsääenglisch no longer marks for case and now only marks for number. Unlike Modern English and like German, there are a number of ways to form plurals. Unlike Modern Enlgish, the -s plural is not very common. The plural ending -e is by far the most common followed by -en. Below I will give examples of the variety of plural endings available:

-(e)r
kälf, kauver "calf, calves"
ei, eir "egg, eggs"
lamm, lamber "lamb, lambs"

-(e)n
ii, iin "eye, eyes"
ber, beren "bears, bears"
knäv, knäven "boy, boys"

Vowel Changes
büük, beik "book, books"
muus, möis "mouse, mice"
gaat, gäät "goat"

-e
bärn, bärne "child, children"
köiz, köisz "cheese, cheeses"
baat, baate "boat, boats"

-(e)s
enn, endes "end, ends"
veder, vedres "feather, feathers"

No ending
diir, diir "deer, deer"

There are no hard and fast rules on how to predict which plural ending will appear for any given word. Furthermore, since Nortsääenglisch has no standard dialect, it is quite common for plural endings to mix together. For example:

-(e)r + -(e)n
ei, eiren "egg, eggs" (dialectical)

Vowel Changes + -(e)n
kuu, köin "cow, cows"

-(e)s + Vowel Changes (int his case, the vowel change is innovated by analogy)
buuk, böikes "stomach, stomachs"

etc.

Articles

Definite Article
The definite article no longer marks for case but still marks for gender and number:
M/F/N/Pl
de/döö/dät/daa

Ex:
de man -- daa men
döö kuu -- daa köin
dät ii -- daa iin


Indefinite Article
The indefinite article no longer marks for case and is either aan or oon depending on dialect. Feminine is marked by the ending -e.
Last edited by spanick on 13 Jul 2018 00:20, edited 3 times in total.
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Herra Ratatoskr
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Re: Nortsääenglisch

Post by Herra Ratatoskr »

I gotta say I'm digging this and looking forward to more. The only thing I will point out is that survival of grammatical gender in a Northumbrian derived lang with a point-of-divergence between the 10th and 13th centuries seems a bit unrealistic (gender died out in Northumbrian first, with evidence for it starting in the mid 10th century). Maybe something like a common/neuter system, like in modern Dutch or Frisian, could work? Or (maybe more realistically) you could combine that with the shift to natural gender that regular English experienced and have "de" refer to nouns that would take either "he" or "she", and have "dat" be used with nouns that would take "it". Or, if you're going that route, you could keep "de" and "döö" separate, referring to "he" nouns and "she" nouns respectively.

Hope it more comes soon!
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Re: Nortsääenglisch

Post by spanick »

Herra Ratatoskr wrote: 03 Jul 2018 19:24 I gotta say I'm digging this and looking forward to more.
Thanks! I've been kinda busy the last few days so I haven't had time for a decent sized post but I'm hoping to get to work on it more this weekend.
The only thing I will point out is that survival of grammatical gender in a Northumbrian derived lang with a point-of-divergence between the 10th and 13th centuries seems a bit unrealistic (gender died out in Northumbrian first, with evidence for it starting in the mid 10th century).
That's good to know. The 10th century is about the time I'm shooting for here. I agree that I need to rework the gender system.
Maybe something like a common/neuter system, like in modern Dutch or Frisian, could work? Or (maybe more realistically) you could combine that with the shift to natural gender that regular English experienced and have "de" refer to nouns that would take either "he" or "she", and have "dat" be used with nouns that would take "it". Or, if you're going that route, you could keep "de" and "döö" separate, referring to "he" nouns and "she" nouns respectively.
Of those, I think the second option you've given is the most realistic given the areal influences and the features of OE. It also suites the total lack of nominal morphology (except for plural) and helps solve what the heck I should do about adjectives! haha

Thanks for your input! I really appreciate it. I'm glad to know some people like how this is coming along.
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Re: Nortsääenglisch

Post by spanick »

The following post is an update to teh gender system based on the recommendation of Herra Ratatoskr. I'd also like to point out that Herra made a killer West Saxon language which originally inspired me to make the predecessor to Nortsääenglisch. Hopefully we get to see a little of that around here!

-----------------

Gender
Nortsääenglisch distinguishes between two grammatical genders, common and neuter. The common gender is, with some exceptions, used with nouns which have natural gender (i.e. those nouns which would take the pronouns he or she). Neuter nouns are all other nouns.

As stated above, nouns are not marked for gender. A noun's gender affects three things: the definite singular article, the pronouns used to refer to the nouns, and the weak adjective declension. Below, I will explain the use of the definite article and weak adjective declension.

Definite Articles
Common nouns take the singular definite article de. Neuter nouns take the singular definite article dät. Both genders take the plural definite article daa.

Ex.
de man "the man"
de väif "the woman"
dät barn "the child"
dät brääd "the bread"

Adjective Declension
The Old English weak adjective declension survives only for common nouns. Whenever an adjective follows the definite article or a possessive pronoun it takes the ending -e in the singular and -en in the plural.

Ex.
aud man "old man" -- aud men "old men"
de aude man "the old man" -- de auden men "the old men"
bruun kuu "brown cow" -- bruun köin "brown cows"
mäin bruune kuu "my brown cow" -- mäin bruunen köin "my brown cows"

NB: kuu "cow" is common gender because it refers specifically the female bovine. When referring to cows in general, the plural form köincan be used as a collective noun to mean "cattle". It is also possible to use veich (cognate to English "fee") for this purpose.

but

kaud väter "cold water"
dät kaud väter "the cold water"
mäin kaud väter "my cold water"

Comparatives and superlatives of most adjectives are formed by adding the endings -er and -est, respectively. When the weak adjective ending is added to these endings, it is common but not required for the first schwa to be deleted.

Ex.
-ere > -re
-este > -ste

de aude man
de äudre man or de äudere man
de äudste man or de äudeste man

dät kaud väter
dät kauder väter
dät kaudest väter

Irregular Comparatives and Superlatives and Umlaut
Like other Germanic languages, Nortsääenglisch has some common adjectives which form their comparatives and superlatives irregularly. The most obvious example of this is güüd "good" > beter > best.

For the most part, adjectives maintain the umlaut in the comparative and superlative. However, some dialects have eliminated this distinction.

Ex.
lanng "long" > lenger > lengest

NB: The expected comparative form of aud would be *elder because /l/ only vocalized after back vowels. However, the comparative was reformed through analogy from *elderto äuder. Some dialects maintained the umlauted vowel here while others eliminated that as well yielding aud > auder > audest.
Last edited by spanick on 06 Jul 2018 00:48, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: Nortsääenglisch

Post by shimobaatar »

spanick wrote: 27 Jun 2018 01:35 Internal HIstory
Nortsääenglisch /noɐtzɛːeŋglɪʃ/ or "North Sea English" is an Anglic language which evolved from Late Old English by speakers who settled along the northern coast and islands of Holland and Germany. It shares many characteristics of Middle English, including a number of sound changes. Due to its isolation from other English dialects and closer contact with Middle Low German, Frisian, and Middle Dutch, North Sea English has retained some older features while also innovating in unique ways.
Looks great so far! I'm glad I finally have time to comment on this.
spanick wrote: 27 Jun 2018 01:35 Orthography
There is no standard orthography for Nortsääenglisch. The orthography presented here is what I will be using. I will indicate different orthographic options after each section following an asterisk *.
I like this; it adds to the feeling of realism, for me.
spanick wrote: 27 Jun 2018 01:35 Consonants
/p t k b d g/ <p t k b d g>
/f s~z ʃ~ʒ x h v/ <f s sch ch h v~w>
/m n ŋ/ <m n ng>
/mː nː ŋː/ <mm nn nng>
/l/ <l>
/r/ <r>
I like that only the nasals can be geminated, but only word-finally, and that both /s ʃ/ voice initially before vowels. I also find the /x h/ contrast interesting. I assume that the language's phonotactic constraints are pretty similar to English's?
spanick wrote: 27 Jun 2018 01:35 Long Vowels
/iː yː uː/ <ii üü uu>
/ɛː øː ɔː/ <ää öö oo>
/aː/ <aa>

[…]

Short Vowels
/ɪ ʏ u/ <i ü u>
/e ɛ ə ø o/ <e ä e ö o>
/a/ <a>

<e> is pronounced as a schwa in unstressed environments
Interesting how the short <o> is higher than the long <oo>, even though <ö> and <öö> are the same height, and <i ü u> are all lower than <ii üü uu>. Also, something about the fact that the language has short <e ä> but only long <ää> caught my attention.

Is it correct to assume that stress is unpredictable?
spanick wrote: 27 Jun 2018 01:35 Allophones
/l/ surfaces as /ɫ/ after vowels.
/r/ surfaces as /ɾ/ when preceded by a consonant and as /ɐ/ following a vowel.
<s> is pronounced /z/ at the beginning of a word when followed by a vowel and between vowels. It is pronounced /s/ before consonants and word finally
<sch> is pronounced /ʒ/ at the beginning of a word when followed by a vowel and between vowels. It is pronounced /ʃ/ before consonants and word finally
Unlike in Hochdeutsch, voiced consonants are not devoiced word finally.
Do /l r/ > [ɫ ɐ] occur intervocalically as well, or only V_(C,#)? I like the lack of word-final obstruent devoicing.
spanick wrote: 27 Jun 2018 01:35 Grammar
Personal Pronouns
Subject S/P
1 ich/wii
2 duu/jii
3 hii, höö, hit/hei
Since you didn't mention any allophones of /x/ above, I assume the first person singular subject pronoun is /ɪx/, not something like [ɪç] (which is how my brain immediately wants me to pronounce it, because of German)?

Also, are the third person pronouns "masculine, feminine, neuter/plural"?
spanick wrote: 27 Jun 2018 01:35 Verbal Morphology
Infinitive -e
Past Participle -enn
Present Participle -ed/-e
<-ed> is for weak verbs while <-e> is for strong
Regarding the endings with -(e), when is that <e> used, and when is it not?
spanick wrote: 28 Jun 2018 00:29 Strong Verb Ablauts

Class Infinitive/Past/Past Participle
Oh, I like the way you've organized this.
spanick wrote: 28 Jun 2018 00:29 Noun Morphology
Nortsääenglisch no longer marks for case and now only marks for number. Unlike Modern English and like German, there are a number of ways to form plurals. Unlike Modern Enlgish, the -s plural is not very common. The plural ending -e is by far the most common followed by -en. Below I will give examples of the variety of plural endings available:
Cool! I especially like that -s isn't very common. Was that the case in Old English?
spanick wrote: 28 Jun 2018 00:29 -(e)r
kelf, kauver "calf, calves"
ei, eir "egg, eggs"
lamm, lamber "lamb, lambs"
Nice consonant alteration in "lamb, lambs".
spanick wrote: 28 Jun 2018 00:29 Vowel Changes
büük, beik "book, books"
muus, möis "mouse, mice"
gaat, gäät "goat"
I particularly like the way these sound.
spanick wrote: 28 Jun 2018 00:29 No ending
diir, diir "deer, dears"
Was this perhaps meant to be "deer, deers"? If so, I wasn't aware that some English speakers have "deers" as the plural of "deer"!
spanick wrote: 28 Jun 2018 00:29 There are no hard and fast rules on how to predict which plural ending will appear for any given word. Furthermore, since Nortsääenglisch has no standard dialect, it is quite common for plural endings to mix together. For example:
I quite like this. This is something else that I feel adds to the feeling that this could hypothetically be an obscure minority language in the real world.
spanick wrote: 05 Jul 2018 20:17 Gender
Nortsääenglisch distinguishes between two grammatical genders, common and neuter. The common gender is, with some exceptions, used with nouns which have natural gender (i.e. those nouns which would take the pronouns he or she). Neuter nouns are all other nouns.
Love this. I see you mention cows below, but how do other animal terms fit into this system? Are köin, as a collective noun, and veich neuter nouns?
spanick wrote: 05 Jul 2018 20:17 Adjective Declension
The Old English weak adjective declension survives only for common nouns. Whenever an adjective follows the definite article or a possessive pronoun it takes the ending -e in the singular and -en in the plural.

Ex.
aud man "old man" -- aud men "old men"
de aude man "the old man" -- de auden men "the old men"
bruun kuu "brown cow" -- bruun köin "brown cows"
mäin bruun kuu "my brown cow" -- mäin bruunen köin "my brown cows"
I like this as well. I might be missing something, but wouldn't it be "mäin bruune kuu"?
spanick wrote: 05 Jul 2018 20:17 For the most part, adjectives maintain the umlaut in the comparative and superlative. However, some dialects have eliminated this distinction.

Ex.
lanng "long" > lenger > lengest

NB: The expected comparative form of aud would be *elder because /l/ only vocalized after back vowels. However, the comparative was reformed through analogy from *elderto äuder. Some dialects maintained the umlauted vowel here while others eliminated that as well yielding aud > auder > audest.
Gotta love that dialectal variation.
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Re: Nortsääenglisch

Post by spanick »

shimobaatar wrote: 06 Jul 2018 00:21 Looks great so far! I'm glad I finally have time to comment on this.
...
This is something else that I feel adds to the feeling that this could hypothetically be an obscure minority language in the real world.
Thanks! I really appreciate your comments. I'm also glad that is has a realistic feel to it. That line about it feeling like a real world obscure minority language is probably the highest compliment I could ask for because that's what I was aiming for.
I like that only the nasals can be geminated, but only word-finally, and that both /s ʃ/ voice initially before vowels. I also find the /x h/ contrast interesting. I assume that the language's phonotactic constraints are pretty similar to English's?
The /h x/ contrast is an oversight. They share the same relationship to each other that those phonemes do in German. That is, they have a complimentary distribution with /h/ being syllable initial and /x/ is every where else.
Interesting how the short <o> is higher than the long <oo>, even though <ö> and <öö> are the same height, and <i ü u> are all lower than <ii üü uu>. Also, something about the fact that the language has short <e ä> but only long <ää> caught my attention.
Thanks. This was something I stumbled upon when doing some studying of the phonological history of Scots. It shares many of the same features as middle English but ended up fronting /oː/ and eventually raising /eː/. In Scots, this odd imbalance was resolved in various ways but I just liked it so I never sought to resolve it. I like to think that, while odd, it's not a wholly unrealistic situation. As for the lowered, short high vowels, I don't remember exactly why I did that initially other than I like the idea that the length difference is giving way to a quality difference.
Is it correct to assume that stress is unpredictable?
I haven't yet put too much thought into the prosody. That will be an interesting can of worms but for the moment, I'm comfortable saying that the primary stress of most words falls on the first syllable, following similar rules to Modern German.
Do /l r/ > [ɫ ɐ] occur intervocalically as well, or only V_(C,#)? I like the lack of word-final obstruent devoicing.
I hadn't thought about it, but yeah they could occur intervocalically as well.
Since you didn't mention any allophones of /x/ above, I assume the first person singular subject pronoun is /ɪx/, not something like [ɪç] (which is how my brain immediately wants me to pronounce it, because of German)?
Woops! I took ich/ach-laut for granted. I'll update the allophone list.
Also, are the third person pronouns "masculine, feminine, neuter/plural"?
Yes.
spanick wrote: 27 Jun 2018 01:35 Verbal Morphology
Infinitive -e
Past Participle -enn
Present Participle -ed/-e
<-ed> is for weak verbs while <-e> is for strong
Regarding the endings with -(e), when is that <e> used, and when is it not?
This was meant to be a sort of optional schwa which could be dropped in most environments but was mandatory after sibilants, much like Modern English. I didn't show the plural -es ending that way though. This is something I need to work out a little bit more.
Cool! I especially like that -s isn't very common. Was that the case in Old English?
No. Many strong masculine nouns did use an -s plural in the Nom/Acc cases though. Whereas Middle English went the route of generalizing -s to nearly everything, Hochdeutsch went the other route and started innovating umlauts to words that never had them and expanded the -en plural. That's what I was going for.
spanick wrote: 28 Jun 2018 00:29 No ending
diir, diir "deer, dears"
Was this perhaps meant to be "deer, deers"? If so, I wasn't aware that some English speakers have "deers" as the plural of "deer"!
haha yes...I have no idea what was going on there! I must've totally blanked that deer has no plural.
Love this. I see you mention cows below, but how do other animal terms fit into this system? Are köin, as a collective noun, and veich neuter nouns?
Other animals are mostly all neuter unless they have a specific, gendered name for the male/female. A good example would be de kok "cock, rooster" and de hen "hen" but dät tschiken "chicken". Pets are in a kind of special category because for instance, in general "dog" is neuter dät hunn but one might refer to one's own dog as common de hunn due to knowing the dog's actual gender, calling it he/she, and due to the anthropomorphizing of pets typical of pet owners.
I like this as well. I might be missing something, but wouldn't it be "mäin bruune kuu"?
Yes, typo. It's been corrected.
Last edited by spanick on 07 Jul 2018 16:41, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: Nortsääenglisch

Post by Herra Ratatoskr »

My digging of this continues, glad to see more of it. I did notice a couple other things I had questions about.
First, having "I" be "ich" seems a bit odd to me. I've seen "ih" listed a couple times for a variant of "ik" found in the north of England, but I'd think that, given that "ik" was the most common form in northern Old English, as well as the form used in all its nearby languages (Dutch, West Frisian, North Frisian, Low German), I'd have expected Nortsääenglisch to use "ik" as well. Is there an in-universe reason why not, or did you just prefer it that way?

Second, I'm guessing "büüt" a borrowing from Dutch or one of its neighbors (since it has yː from what I'm assuming is an earlier oː, rather than aː)? If so, is there a native form like baat, maybe with a slightly different meaning?

Finally, am I right in assuming that adjectives are uninflected except for the weak common inflections? So a full declension of the positive form of bruun would be:

Code: Select all

Common   Strong      Weak
Singular bruun kuu   de bruune  kuu
Plural   bruun köin  de bruunen köin

Neuter   Strong      Weak
Singular bruun büüt  dät bruun büüt
Plural   bruun büüte de  bruun büüte
spanick wrote: 05 Jul 2018 20:17 The following post is an update to teh gender system based on the recommendation of Herra Ratatoskr. I'd also like to point out that Herra made a killer West Saxon language which originally inspired me to make the predecessor to Nortsääenglisch. Hopefully we get to see a little of that around here!
Glad you liked the suggestion! And I'm flattered you liked West Saxon so much. I've been working on a quick sketch of Contemporary Standard West Saxon that I hope to get post-worthy sometime soon. I've got a decent handle on the morphology and the phonology, but the spelling system has gotten a little bit baroque and I'm trying to come up with a way of translating the pronunciation rules into something that makes a lick of sense. West Saxon has become something of a massive project on my end (between the 9 dialects and the 4 time periods I'm developing, it's like I'm making 36 closely related conlangs at once) and every time I try to make a change it winds up having a massive ripple effect.
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Re: Nortsääenglisch

Post by spanick »

Herra Ratatoskr wrote: 06 Jul 2018 20:27 First, having "I" be "ich" seems a bit odd to me. I've seen "ih" listed a couple times for a variant of "ik" found in the north of England, but I'd think that, given that "ik" was the most common form in northern Old English, as well as the form used in all its nearby languages (Dutch, West Frisian, North Frisian, Low German), I'd have expected Nortsääenglisch to use "ik" as well. Is there an in-universe reason why not, or did you just prefer it that way?
So in my draft of the OP, I did have "ik". I was trying to confirm that that was the common Northumbrian form but I could only find reference to "ih"! Im.just gonna change it back to "ik" with that info you've given me...it makes the most sense anyway.
Second, I'm guessing "büüt" a borrowing from Dutch or one of its neighbors (since it has yː from what I'm assuming is an earlier oː, rather than aː)? If so, is there a native form like baat, maybe with a slightly different meaning?
This appears to be a goof on my part. I think I had German "Boot" on my mind when I wrote that.
Finally, am I right in assuming that adjectives are uninflected except for the weak common inflections? So a full declension of the positive form of bruun would be:

Code: Select all

Common   Strong      Weak
Singular bruun kuu   de bruune  kuu
Plural   bruun köin  de bruunen köin

Neuter   Strong      Weak
Singular bruun büüt  dät bruun büüt
Plural   bruun büüte de  bruun büüte
Yea, you're correct. However, the plural definite article for both genders is "daa".
Glad you liked the suggestion! And I'm flattered you liked West Saxon so much. I've been working on a quick sketch of Contemporary Standard West Saxon that I hope to get post-worthy sometime soon. I've got a decent handle on the morphology and the phonology, but the spelling system has gotten a little bit baroque and I'm trying to come up with a way of translating the pronunciation rules into something that makes a lick of sense. West Saxon has become something of a massive project on my end (between the 9 dialects and the 4 time periods I'm developing, it's like I'm making 36 closely related conlangs at once) and every time I try to make a change it winds up having a massive ripple effect.
Whoa! That is a massive project. Best of luck with your revisions. I'll definitely be interested to see what you come up with.
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Re: Nortsääenglisch

Post by Herra Ratatoskr »

spanick wrote: 07 Jul 2018 16:30
Second, I'm guessing "büüt" a borrowing from Dutch or one of its neighbors (since it has yː from what I'm assuming is an earlier oː, rather than aː)? If so, is there a native form like baat, maybe with a slightly different meaning?
This appears to be a goof on my part. I think I had German "Boot" on my mind when I wrote that.
Ah. Still, it could be fun to have a doublet like that in the language ("boat" wound up being borrowed by a crapton of other nearby languages, so it wouldn't be too strange to have something like "baat" means a small craft like a canoe, and "büüt" means something more robust, like a fishing vessel (or maybe the other way around). I mean in English we've got "ship" that comes straight from Proto-Germanic and "skiff" that went Lombardic "skif" -> Old Italian "schifo" -> Middle French "esquif" -> Middle English "skif". Or the English/Norse doublet "shirt vs skirt"
spanick wrote: 07 Jul 2018 16:30 Yea, you're correct. However, the plural definite article for both genders is "daa".
D'oh! I knew I was messing something up.

Oh, I also found a couple old books on the Lindisfarne Gospel glosses (which were glossed into 10th Century Northumbrian, aka the language about when and where your point-of-departure is). Figured they might be useful.
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Re: Nortsääenglisch

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Herra Ratatoskr wrote: 07 Jul 2018 17:09 Ah. Still, it could be fun to have a doublet like that in the language ("boat" wound up being borrowed by a crapton of other nearby languages, so it wouldn't be too strange to have something like "baat" means a small craft like a canoe, and "büüt" means something more robust, like a fishing vessel (or maybe the other way around). I mean in English we've got "ship" that comes straight from Proto-Germanic and "skiff" that went Lombardic "skif" -> Old Italian "schifo" -> Middle French "esquif" -> Middle English "skif". Or the English/Norse doublet "shirt vs skirt"
That would be particularly interesting because IIRC "Boot" was a borrowing into Low German from Middle English.
Oh, I also found a couple old books on the Lindisfarne Gospel glosses (which were glossed into 10th Century Northumbrian, aka the language about when and where your point-of-departure is). Figured they might be useful.
Whoa! Thank you! These will be super helpful.
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Re: Nortsääenglisch

Post by spanick »

Wow! Thanks again.

----------

I'm hoping to get some more substantive posts on verbs going soon.
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Re: Nortsääenglisch

Post by Herra Ratatoskr »

Hey, one thing I noticed looking at your sound changes a little closer, where does long /ø/ come from? Judging by your vocab I'd imagine it's from Old English /e:o/d, but your sound changes have that moving onto /y:/, along with /ø:/ from earlier /o:/
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Re: Nortsääenglisch

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Herra Ratatoskr wrote: 11 Jul 2018 01:05 Hey, one thing I noticed looking at your sound changes a little closer, where does long /ø/ come from? Judging by your vocab I'd imagine it's from Old English /e:o/d, but your sound changes have that moving onto /y:/, along with /ø:/ from earlier /o:/
Shoot, you're right. I'm sure that any instances of it which have showed up in words are just an oversight in spying the rule. How it ended up in my phonology section... I don't know. A big oversight I guess. It shouldn't be there. It's possible I found a way to resolve that bit I never wrote it down and have subsequently forgotten.
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Re: Nortsääenglisch

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So, I decided I would like to keep /øː/. So, there‘s a chain shift OE /eːo/ > /øː/ > /yː/ but OE /oː/ > /øː/.

I have also noticed that when the breaking rule is applied, this creates a diphthong /yɪ/ which is not allowed. I’ve decided that this results in the allowable diphthong /œɪ/. In this etymological environment, it can be spelled <üi> as well as <öi>.

It is also worth noting that /iɪ/ results in /iː/ and /uu/ in /uː/ and ultimately end in /ɛɪ/ and /au/ respectively. In the rules list, this rule is listed after the changes to vowels but it should be considered contemporaneous with the final diphthongization of long, high vowels.
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Re: Nortsääenglisch

Post by Herra Ratatoskr »

I'm assuming the original /ø:/ from i-umlaut of /o:/ and rounding of /e:/ by a preceding /w/ follow the same development to /y:/ as /ø:/ from /e:o/?
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Re: Nortsääenglisch

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Herra Ratatoskr wrote: 14 Jul 2018 22:46 I'm assuming the original /ø:/ from i-umlaut of /o:/ and rounding of /e:/ by a preceding /w/ follow the same development to /y:/ as /ø:/ from /e:o/?
Yes, so *grōniz > grōene > grüün

With grōene being the Northumbrian equivalent of West Saxon grēne
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Re: Nortsääenglisch

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For the like two people who were following this, sorry for my absence. New job, second kid...I've been busy. I do intend to keep working on this project.
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Re: Nortsääenglisch

Post by spanick »

NB: This post is an addendum to the verbal section above.

Nortsääenglisch follows what is known as the “Northern Subject Rule” meaning that present tense verbs are conjugated differently depending on whether there is an adjacent pronoun. Below, I’ve made two separate tables which indicate the pronoun-adjacent conjugation and the regular conjugation.
Regular Conjugation
S/P
1 --/-es
2 -(e)st /-es
3 -(e)s/-es

Pronoun-Adjacent
1 --/-e
2 -(e)st /-e
3 --/-e

The e in parentheses indicates an optional schwa. It is mostly retained only following sibilants.

A couple examples to illustrate how the rule works.

Ex:
Daa auden men etes dät brääd ann drinkes dät büür. “The old men eat the bread and drink the beer.”
---but---
Hei ete dät brääd ann drinkes dät büür. “They eat the bread and drink the beer.”

Ex:
De knäv sliips. “The boy sleeps.”
---but---
Hii sliip. “He sleeps.”

Note how in the first example, both verbs take the plural ending –es but in the second example the verb immediately adjacent to the pronoun is marked is –e while the verb disconnected from the pronoun still takes the –es ending.
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