Pan-Germanic Logograms

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Ephraim
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Re: Pan-Germanic Logograms

Post by Ephraim »

tezcatlip0ca wrote:Is there an online source where I can find Proto-Germanic endings reconstructed with final *-n and *-t and medial *-j- conserved, like we are using here? I found Orel’s "A handbook of Germanic etymology" on Gutenberg, but that just shows the lexemes, not the endings.
I'm afraid there's no one resource available. There is Lehmann's introduction to PG which is useful for some things but it can differ quite a bit from other reconstructions.
http://www.utexas.edu/cola/centers/lrc/ ... gmc01.html

The best thing to do is probably to use the Wiktionary reconstructions (mostly based on Ringe) and work backwards. For the stems, you can look them up in Orel and for the endings, comparison with PIE (also available at Wiktionary and Wikipedia) takes you a long way. The version of PG I've used above (which I call Proto Germanic Proper, PGP) is very close to Wiktionary/Ringe (Wkn/Ringe) except it lacks the following changes:
  • Loss of final *n in unstressed syllables, leaving only nasalization of the vowel. In Wkn/Ringe nasalization is indicated by an ogonek on the vowel (ą etc.), PGP has final *n instead. Note that PIE final *m had become *n at an earlier time (before PGP), already before the loss of final *e and *a (often from *o). After the vowel loss, new final *m was created which remained as such, even to the present day in some languages.
  • Loss of final *t in unstressed syllables. This introduced new final *n from previous *nt. In PGP, final *t and final *nt remains. Note that at some point before Grimm's Law, final *t had become *d (perhaps already in late PIE), which again became *t due to Grimm's Law. This is the reason for some alternation between *þ/*d and *t, for example in the the noun *alut (later *alu) but gen.sg *aluþiz.
  • Loss of unstressed intervocalic *j, except in *ijV. However, *iji become *ī. This causes alternations such as *ija:*ī in the verbal paradigm. The loss is also notably found in the weak class II verbs with infinitives in *ōjanan. PGP retains *j in all these instances.
  • Loss of *j before *i. This causes some alternation between *i and *ja. For example that Wkn/Ringe has *farjanþi:*fariþi for PGP *farjanþi:*farjiþi.
  • I-umlaut of *e in stressed syllables, before a following nasal and before *i or *j in the following syllable. Due to umlaut, the diphthong *ei always became *ī in Wkn/Ringe. PGP does not include any of these umlaut effects (but it does include the shift *e > *i in unstressed syllables).
Final *n corresponds to final nasalization in Wkn/Ringe so it's very easy to tell where it should be. Final *nt in PGP corresponds to final *n in Wkn/Ringe (like the 3pl verb ending in *-unt). Lehmann and Orel have final *n. Lehmann also has final *m that has not shifted to *n.

Other instances of final *t require a bit more thought. Comparison with PIE is sometimes necessary. But there aren't a lot of instances of final *t. The most important cases, I think, are the strong neuter nominative and accusative singular of adjectives and pronouns, which is *-at. There's also the third person singular of verb forms that stem from the secondary endings in PIE, like the present subjunctive *-ait, past subjunctive *īt and weak past *-dēt. There may also be the adverbal endings *-ôt and *-êt, if they are from PIE ablative endings as they are frequently thought to be. There are also a few *þ-stem nouns that end in *t > 0 in the nominative singular but *þ in other forms, like *alut, *aluþiz and *ilit, *iliþiz.

The loss of *j is even trickier. Comparison with PIE is of help for the nominal i-stem, where PIE *eye corresponds to PGP *iji, Wkn/Ringe *ī. In the verbal inflection, it's often easy to tell where the *j should be if you look at forms followed by a vowel other than *i. Also, Orel is of great help here as the *j is actually part of the stem. For the weak class 2 verbs, he writes *-ōjanan for example. Wiktionary has *-ōną for these verbs, which is actually different from Ringe who has *-ôną (or <ō̄ną> in his notation). I think all weak verbs of this classes used to have *-ōjanan so this shouldn't be a problem.

Non-umlauted words are found in Orel and Lehmann. Also, comparison with PIE is helpful. Generally, PIE did not have *i before nasals so Wkn/Ringe *in almost always corresponds to earlier *en. Also, since we're mostly using logograms anyway, and maybe not writing short vowels, this might not be particularly important except for glossing.

Apart from online resources, Don Ringe, From Proto-Indo-European to Proto-Germanic does tell a lot about where the lost consonants used to be in the descriptions of the development of PG. They're just not part of Ringes version of Proto-Germanic (which appears to me to be a bit anachronistic), so they're not found in the tables.

Ringe has a chart of the relative chronology of sound changes which is quite useful. It can be matched against Heikkilä's attempt at an absolute dating of some sound changes:
https://helda.helsinki.fi/bitstream/han ... dragti.pdf
(In Swedish, but even if you can't read it the list of sound changes should be understandable)

Another good source for the endings is Dirk Boutkan, The Germanic ‘Auslautgesetze’.

Both Ringe and Boutkan may be available on-line at places where you can find e-books.

Also, it may mostly be me who's using this slightly more archaic (and I think less anachronistic) version of Proto-Germanic. But since this is a writing system that's meant to be able to write all Germanic languages, it should actually be able to handle using different versions of PG.

The idea behind using <ᴛ> and <ɴ> is in part to make it easier to just use the Wkn/Ringe reconstruction. The rune <ɴ> can be thought of as just marking nasalization. The rune <ᴛ> still requires some thought but I imagine it can be dropped in the later languages, so it is mostly of interest for early Germanic.

Dealing with *j is trickier but I think there are som major advantages to writing *j that's been lost in Wkn/Ringe, because it makes paradigms more consistent, and it means that languages that analogically reintroduce *j don't have to change their spelling.
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Re: Pan-Germanic Logograms

Post by tezcatlip0ca »

Ephraim wrote:Also, it may mostly be me who's using this slightly more archaic (and I think less anachronistic) version of Proto-Germanic. But since this is a writing system that's meant to be able to write all Germanic languages, it should actually be able to handle using different versions of PG.

The idea behind using <ᴛ> and <ɴ> is in part to make it easier to just use the Wkn/Ringe reconstruction. The rune <ɴ> can be thought of as just marking nasalization. The rune <ᴛ> still requires some thought but I imagine it can be dropped in the later languages, so it is mostly of interest for early Germanic.

Dealing with *j is trickier but I think there are som major advantages to writing *j that's been lost in Wkn/Ringe, because it makes paradigms more consistent, and it means that languages that analogically reintroduce *j don't have to change their spelling.
I understand the advantages of using a conservative reconstruction.

Would the past tense of class 1 and 2 weak verbs then be, say *hauzjidēt, *þankōjidēt, etc., or is the *j inappropriate here (*hauzidēt, *þankōdēt, etc.)?
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Re: Pan-Germanic Logograms

Post by Ephraim »

tezcatlip0ca wrote:Would the past tense of class 1 and 2 weak verbs then be, say *hauzjidēt, *þankōjidēt, etc., or is the *j inappropriate here (*hauzidēt, *þankōdēt, etc.)?
That is a good question. It seems like the dental suffix was added directly to the stem without any thematic vowel. This can be seen in the suffixless weak verbs like *brenganan (*bringaną) which have a present in *brengidi:*brengandi with a thematic vowel, but a past in *branhtēt.

So for *hauzijanan, I think the past should be *hauzidēt. In this case, *i is simply the *j of the stem that has been vocalized. Same for the past participle which should be *hauzidaz. For weak verbs, the form of the indicative and subjunctive past always follow the past participle in this way.

For this particular verb, we can actually tell that the PGP could not have been **hauzijidēt. Note that the initial syllable is heavy, which means that *j became *ij by Sievers' law. Note that the verb had forms like *hauzijō, *hauzijiþi, *hauzijanþi which later became *hauzijō, *hauzīþi, *hauzijanþi with the shift *ij > *ī. A form **hauzijidēt would have become **hauzīdē but I think the daughter languages point to *hauzidē with a short vowel.

Orel does not write the alternation *j:*ij from Sievers' law in his dictionary, but the law must have applied at least before the loss of medial *j. It was basically an allophonic alternation, though, so you can always tell if it should be *j or *ij.

I'm less sure about the class II weak verbs. But the class II weak verbs were basically formed the same way as the class I verbs, with a denominal *-j (the class 1 weak verbs have *j from multiple PIE suffixes that merged phonologically) added to *-ō which appears to be from the feminine *-ō stem nouns.

So I would think that the past of *þankōjanan was *þankōidēt. However, in this form the long diphthong *ōi would have regularly remained so I think there may have been some levelling of the paradigm at some stage.
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CMunk
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Re: Pan-Germanic Logograms

Post by CMunk »

I had an idea for some random nouns:

Image
<*akwisī> <*arwīts>
"axe" and "pea"

Axes were quite important to the Germanic people, so I figured it had to have a quite simple pictographic symbol. But I don't know about peas; maybe they should be a compound symbol like "vegetable" + "seed" or something, instead of an actual pictogram.
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Re: Pan-Germanic Logograms

Post by tezcatlip0ca »

Nothing?
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Thrice Xandvii
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Re: Pan-Germanic Logograms

Post by Thrice Xandvii »

tezcatlip0ca wrote:Nothing?
The thread hit a dry-spell, it happens.

I'm sure if someone comes up with something worth posting they'll necro the thread out of retirement.

Anything you had to add? (I know I don't.)
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Ephraim
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Re: Pan-Germanic Logograms

Post by Ephraim »

Here's my library of word runes so far. I think I've included almost all proposals in this thread. Feel free to have opinions about any of them.

Image

I added three new runes: <rauk/iz>, <*kwen/ōn> and <*wer/az>, the latter inspired by Swedish bronze age petroglyphs:
Spoiler:
Image
Nordic petroglyphs ("hällristningar" is a good Swedish term to Google) may be a source for inspiration.

People did not seem to have a lot of opinions about some design alternatives, so I picked one design for the following runes: <*hand/uz> and derived runes, <*hūs/an> and derived runes, <*jain/az>, <*geb/anan> and <*dō/nan>.
For <*hald/anan> I made a new design entirely, but still derived from <*hand/uz>.

The following runes had uncertain assignment but I assigned them to a PG word: <*mann/az>, <*ehw/az>, <*werz/anan> (same root as war), <hul/az> (the old stone-rune, now supposed to represent a cave).

Sound runes and sound bind runes are not included, neither are number runes.
CMunk wrote:Axes were quite important to the Germanic people, so I figured it had to have a quite simple pictographic symbol. But I don't know about peas; maybe they should be a compound symbol like "vegetable" + "seed" or something, instead of an actual pictogram.
I think pea can have it's own logogram. If you imagine that one of the early uses of the writing system (in this alternative reality) was bookkeeping, it makes sense that concrete objects that could be stored and traded have their own runes.

Actually, generic roots for plant, vegetable and fruit are hard to find in Germanic. The best I could come up with earlier was *basj·an or *bazj·an for ‘berry’. So it may be that some specific objects will have basic runes, while generic terms are derived.

Actually, *arwīt·s may be a loanword from a non-IE language, but I think it's old enough to have an old rune.
https://www.academia.edu/7041551/Non-In ... Hypothesis
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Re: Pan-Germanic Logograms

Post by Ephraim »

Here are five more proposals for word runes. I also included two sentences in no particular Germanic language (it's more or less Proto-Germanic with a modern word order).

Image

The first four runes are inspired by petroglyphs (hällristningar).

This is a common shape on petrohlyphs:
Spoiler:
Image
This was described as depicting Thor in a chariot pulled by a goat:
Spoiler:
Image
Ships are very commonly depicted on petroglyphs:
Spoiler:
Image
tezcatlip0ca
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Re: Pan-Germanic Logograms

Post by tezcatlip0ca »

I am particularly fond of the *arwīts glyph. I suggest using it as a phonetic element of a glyph for *arbaidiz, with either *meganan or *dōnan being the signific.
Spoiler:
Fedwōr werōz būdēdunt midi newun andi twai tigiwiz gaitamaz in hūsai. Hwarfuri iz būdēdunt in swalīkammai lītilammai hūsai skulum wīz ne aiwaz witanan.
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Re: Pan-Germanic Logograms

Post by tezcatlip0ca »

Here are four more word rune proposals. I was thinking about how "hart", "heart" and "hearth" could form some sort of word progression while bored at school, so I decided to create runes for these, "hearth" being "fire" bounded by parallel lines, like "sea" from "water". I guess "fire" used as a radical can be reduced to its left half only.

*herut/az "hart, deer", *hert/ô "heart", *fōr "fire", *herþ/az "hearth":
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Re: Pan-Germanic Logograms

Post by Ephraim »

It's nice to see this project developing again!

Here are my interpretation of tezcatlip0ca's four proposals, alongside a slightly updated goat and some new rune proposals. Also two alternative bind runes for <*arbaid/iz> as proposed above. Which one is better?

Image
Edit: I removed one proposal.
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Re: Pan-Germanic Logograms

Post by Lambuzhao »

Did you make one for *kwenon woman?
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Re: Pan-Germanic Logograms

Post by Znex »

Lambuzhao wrote:Did you make one for *kwenon woman?
There's a logogram for it in Ephraim's post: third row, second from the right.
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Re: Pan-Germanic Logograms

Post by Lambuzhao »

Thanks!
[:)]
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Re: Pan-Germanic Logograms

Post by Znex »

Did this project die? Damn, it was so good too [:'(]
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Re: Pan-Germanic Logograms

Post by clawgrip »

Some key players have been off the site for several years.
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Re: Pan-Germanic Logograms

Post by LinguaPhiliax »

Image

"um"
-um (dative plural) = futhark-M
-um (masc. dative singular) = futhark-M with "were" line
um (adposition) = futhar-M with vertical line inside
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