Gotesch

[Ælfwine]

Gotesch (natively: готəш /ˈɣotəʃ/, hereon referred to primarily as "Gothish," is the last surviving Ostrogothic (East Germanic) language. It is spoken by approximately 4,000 people in the southern part of the Crimean peninsula, largely in the city of Doros (Mangup). History made short, the Ostrogoths reportedly first settled the Crimean peninsula in the 3rd century AD. Likely they became subjects of the Roman Empire, and later the Byzantine Empire in the Principality of Theodoro. In the 8th century, John of Gothia led an unsuccessful revolt against the Khazars. Little is heard of them until Busbecq sought them out and recorded many words in their language. In our timeline, the language probably died out at the tail end of the 18th century, although it is possible it survived as a "Haussprache" until the mid-20th century. For this scenario, I've altered history only so much to keep a handful of Goths alive until the present day.

This conlang is a reboot of my older Goþesch Razde: my attempt to reconstruct what little is known of the Crimean Gothic language. Because a true reconstruction is impossible due to the sparse attestation of Crimean Gothic, I will be filling in the blanks (the actual conlanging part.) Anyway, as is usual today we start with the phonology.

The Gothic phonemic inventory is quite modest, contrasting only 20 consonants. It uses a Cyrillic alphabet inspired by Ukrainian and Russian:

/m n/ м н
/pʰ b tʰ d kʰ (g)/ п б т д к
/f v θ s z ʃ x ɣ/ ф в ѱ с з ш х г
/l r/ л р
/w j/ ў й

Before a velar consonant, /n/ is a velarized [ŋ]. Initially, /b d g/ are partially devoiced: [b̥ d̥ g̊]. /g/ is rare and almost exclusively found in loanwords, while /ɣ/ is the far more common phoneme that represents <г>. In some speakers consonants are allophonically palatalized before front vowels, this is considered nonstandard.

Cyrillic psi (ѱ) was adopted into this language to represent the voiceless dental fricative /θ/ due to its similarity with the biblical gothic letter thiuth – 𐌸. Compare for example Old English and Icelandic adopting runic þ as their letter for /θ/.

Relative to most other Germanic languages, Gotesch has an incredibly simple 6 vowel system:

/i u/ и у
/e ə ɔ/ е э о
/a/ а

In open syllables, vowels are lengthened and diphthongized c.f. ал /aəl/ stone-ACC.S but алс /аls/ stone-NOM.S

And that's it for now. My next post will feature a more detailed list of sound changes. Then we will take a look at declensions, conjugations and adjectives, as well as features like clitic object pronouns, three set of demonstratives for distance (ир, ѱар and єнэр), the very Greek and Turkish influenced number system, amongst other things.

[VaptuantaDoi]

I'm a sucker for a posteriori languages. I probably even tried a modern gothic at some point, but even more probably I gave up after a few hours of work due to my laziness.

In our timeline, the language probably died out at the tail end of the 18th century, although it is possible it survived as a "Haussprache" until the mid-20th century.

That's interesting, didn't realise it might of continued on so long.

Cyrillic psi (ѱ) was adopted into this language to represent the voiceless dental fricative /θ/ due to its similarity with the biblical gothic letter thiuth – 𐌸. Compare for example Old English and Icelandic adopting runic þ as their letter for /θ/.

Very sage of the goths.

In open syllables, vowels are lengthened and diphthongized c.f. ал /aəl/ stone-ACC.S but алс /аls/ stone-NOM.S

Has this been phonemicised?

And that's it for now. My next post will feature a more detailed list of sound changes.

I await this with baited breath