Introduction
In August 2016, I started a thread here on the board entitled "Visigothic 1.0", in which I began posting some of my ideas for a modern descendant of Gothic spoken in Iberia (this one, not this one). That thread hasn't been updated since August 2017 (although I seem to have continued using that version of the language on the board until July 2018), and I'd rather forget that it exists. Even though my methods and ideas have changed a lot over the past 4-5 years, however, my desire to work on this project has never really died, so I'm trying again here. I don't have much to report so far, and I don't expect to be posting updates very frequently, but I'm starting this thread anyway in hopes of "forcing" myself to make some actual progress after years of false starts. I can be a bit of an indecisive perfectionist when it comes to my own work, I'm afraid.
Unlike the original version of the language ("Visigothic 1.0", if you will), I don't intend for this iteration of Visigothic to be a "bogolang", "graftlang", or whatever you'd prefer to call the result of applying some approximation of the sound changes between Latin and Spanish to Gothic. Nothing against anyone who likes conlanging that way, of course, but it's no longer a method that I personally enjoy or find satisfying. Instead, I want the languages I create to feel generally realistic and naturalistic, to whatever extent that's even possible for conlangs. I want Visigothic to be recognizably Germanic, although I'd like for its isolation from the rest of the family to be evident as well. Ideally, I'd like it to preserve at least some of the features that set Gothic apart from the North and West Germanic languages, but I realize that many of those features may only have been preserved in Gothic itself due to its early attestation relative to most of the rest of the family, and I don't want to make Visigothic unrealistically archaic, so to speak. Also, I don't want the language to feel completely out of place in Iberia, but I don't want to force it to look like an Iberian Romance language either.
Visigothic is intended to be a fictional, constructed East Germanic language. I'm not trying to reconstruct the natural, spoken language of the Visigoths that went extinct during the Middle Ages in real life, the "real Visigothic". From what I understand, I don't know if there's enough evidence for that to be possible. This "fake Visigothic" isn't necessarily intended to be a direct descendent of any particular natlang, but my general "starting point" will be "Biblical Gothic", given the fact that it's so much better attested than any other East Germanic variety. I also plan to take other Germanic languages and the languages of groups with whom speakers of Visigothic likely would have had contact over the centuries into account. My primary resources for this project, and really for a posteriori conlanging in general, are Wikipedia and Wiktionary. I know they're not the best options out there, but they're free, familiar, and convenient, and they're good enough for my purposes, I'd say. I'm not trying to trick anyone into thinking that I've somehow discovered an obscure natlang spoken in some remote village in Spain. Of course, those aren't my only resources, and while I may not always be actively looking, I am always open to finding new ones. Regarding how to approach creating this language, and a posteriori languages in general, I've been taking inspiration from Ray Brown's Britainese, the languages of Martin Posthumus (veche.net), and some of the most well-developed a posteriori projects that have been shared here on the CBB over the years.
My primary focus will be the language itself, so I don't know how deeply I'll get into alternate history or anything like that. Obviously, in order for an East Germanic language to survive and be spoken in present-day Iberia, the history of the "alternate universe" in which Visigothic is spoken must not be exactly the same as the history of the real world, but I admittedly haven't given it much thought yet. Unlike the original version, Visigothic 2.0 likely won't be the official and/or majority language of a country. I think I often set myself up for disappointment and dissatisfaction with a posteriori projects by trying to "rush" straight from the "starting point" to the modern stage of the language, so I want to try to take it slow here, so to speak. For instance, I want to start with developing "Old Visigothic" for a while until I feel comfortable enough with it to then move onto "Middle Visigothic", or whatever I end up calling it. I'll likely be keeping the historical context in which the language is spoken in mind as I try to decide on when, roughly, these periods/stages begin and end.
There are a number of topics regarding the phonology, lexicon, and morphosyntax of Visigothic that I'd like to take into consideration to start with, especially since I've been mulling them over indecisively for quite some time now, but I need to get back to work soon, and I don't want to overload what was originally meant to be just a brief introductory post even more, so I'll save these "issues" for later.
Finally, I'd like to acknowledge a few of the other East Germanic or Iberian Germanic languages that have had their own threads here on the CBB over the years. If the creators of any of these languages would like to have their threads removed from this list, please let me know and I will be happy to do so ASAP!
- Old Apsiska: Of the Axe by Znex
- Gotski or Modern Gothic by Shemtov
- Gotski and The History and People of Sortsberg by spanick
- Goþesch Razde by Ælfwine
- Modern Danubian Gothic Scratchpad by dva_arla
- Iberian West Germanic / Kastixex - WIP by felipesnark