Kostish

 



General information
Gastisc (Modern English "Modern Gastish", or simply "Gastish") is a West-Germanic language immediately descended from Middle Gastish(Gas. Middel Gastisc) in the Gastig language branch(see Gastig Languages). It is also related to the natural languages Dutch, English, German, and Swedish. It is being carefully constructed with affixes to be in compound words that are in place of Romance words. The language has strict grammar and a huge range of sounds. I will probably be working on this for years to come, but as it develops more, the updates might become less frequent.



Plans

 * more words
 * rewrite dictionary
 * runic set
 * verb conjugations (classes)
 * positions for palatal and velars
 * germanic umlaut(with diaeresis)
 * possible use of macrons to indicate long vowels

Phonology
There are common occurences from the development of Old English:
 * ǣ --> ee
 * ēo --> ee
 * ō --> eo
 * j --> g (only where j was an allaphone of g in Old English)
 * ɣ --> g (Voiced velar Fricatives became voiced velar stops)
 * Syncopes were lost, e. g. the plural of Engel is Engelas, not Englas.

Alphabet
It can also be written in the Middle Gastish rune set.

Other Digraphs
These "double letters" are very important, the language won't truly make sense without them.
 * gh - originally a voicless velar fricative the same as above pronounced as a voicless labio-dental fricative "f"
 * n(g) / n(k) - velar nasal(same as English "ng") plus the final consonant. ng also pronounces the g as in "E ng lish" meaning it is just an allaphone of n.
 * sc - voicless postalveolar fricative(English "sh", German "sch" Old English "sc")
 * zj - Voiced postalveolar fricative(an example in the English word fi ss ure)
 * ts - ts
 * dz - dz

Vowels
the official pronunciation of vowels is maintained as so:

Punctuation
Punctuation is almost the same as English with the only exception that, like German, all nouns are capitalized, not just proper nouns. Also, Marks that end the sentence come after quotes(unless the punctuation mark is in the quoted sentence.

Conjunctions
They connect clauses as with English.

Adjectives This is the simplest of all declensions.
 * 1) Positive - (none)
 * 2) Comparative -er
 * 3) Superlative - ist

follow with the particle "ðæn" meaning and pronounced the same as"than". It can then be followed by a word in whichever case. The word is then being compared to the other word of the same case in the sentence.comparative

Adverbs
They generally end in -lic. Use the equivalent of "more" and "most" (mora & most respectively) to denote comparative and superlative degrees. The comparative grammar applies here as well.

Determiners
This is probably the hardest of all declensions. Sometimes it is more inflected do to multiple roots for one word. This, however, is the standard declension.

Of those mentioned or implied
Because both of these are regular and for the sake of space, I won't provide declension tables sorry. These come from the three germanic stems: t-, s-, and w-, + "like". *The usage of such is somewhat different. It is used without the indefinite article, as in "which pen", the answer is "such pen", not "such a pen".
 * alc /æl tʃ/ - each
 * silc /sɪltʃ/ - such*
 * ƕilc /ʍ ɪltʃ / - which

Articles
All articles are irregular. There is no negative definite article. One simply negates the verbs and uses the definite article.

The Proto-Germanic s-stem forms completely took over masculine and feminine genders. Every form of both PGmc s-stem and t-stem forms are represented however(suprisingly).

Both indefinite articles feature odd plural forms.

Demonstratives
 The distal demonstrative is "yon". It is completely regular, so for the sake of space, I won't provide a table.

 (Distal) yon /jɑn/ - that, yon, yonde

<p style="border-style: initial; border-color: initial;">(Proximal) ðes, ðisen, ðisses, ðissem, ðees, ðisse, ðase, ðissa - this

<p style="border-style: initial; border-color: initial;"> ​ The proximal demonstrative is irregular. The equivalent word in Middle Gastish is much more inflected however and especially in feminine.

Quantifiers
The declension of these are regular so I won't provide tables. If any ommision is used with determiners, it is especially with quantifiers. There are two forms for more and most each, being the different comparatives and superlatives of the two different quantifiers. This distinction is not found in English.

Nouns
Noun declension can be omitted in informal writing by placing an asterisk at the end of the noun(which explains the unique look), and relying on determiner declension. These come from a mixed declension of Middle Gastish. Weak and some strong declension, as well as gender(in noun declension) collapsed; this created case breaking between nominative and accusative.

Demonstrative
Use noun declension with the demonstrative determiner adjectives to form these.

<h4 style="border-style: initial; border-color: initial;">Personal <p style="border-style: initial; border-color: initial;">As with English, the norse third person plural took over. The dual pronouns of second person and first person in the object case became the accusative case. The plural pronouns of second person and first person in the object case became the dative case.

Relative
ðe (from Old English "þe"), The clause comes before the noun it modifies, after the determiner. This word is completely uninflected.

Word Order
<p style="border-style: initial; border-color: initial;">This is a basic standard for word order, but it is not very necessary because words are declined for case. Basically everything that describes something else comes before that something else.

Verbs
The conjugation is similar to that of Dutch, English, and German.

<h4 style="border-style: initial; border-color: initial; margin-top: 1em; margin-bottom: 1em;">Aspect Simple indicates a specific time or action in past or non-past. Perfect and Progressive work like English. Habitual indicates a recuring action(times may be specified).

<h4 style="border-style: initial; border-color: initial; margin-top: 1em; margin-bottom: 1em;">Morphology of To Be, To Have, and To Do

To be is the most irregular verb. Fourteen positions are from the w- root(blue). Five are from the s- root(grey). Ten are from the b- root(green). Two are from the a- root(red). To clear confusion, am is in fact from the s- root and not the a- root. It is considered informal to form passive voice with to be. The perfered verb is "werðen".

To have is irregular but comes from only a single root.

*had is the subjunctive form; hadst is indicative, while the rest are identical.

To do is somewhat more irregular than have, but less than be. In the first person singular the -m suffix is used like in the first person singular b- root of to be, and its a- root.

<h4 style="border-style: initial; border-color: initial; margin-top: 1em; margin-bottom: 1em;">Negation There are two methods of negation. Double negatives formed using the negative particle and the negative indefinite article as in "I did not see no one" would be posititve as in "I saw someone".

The particle "neght" is added before the verb, this method of negation is used with definite articles because there are no negative definite articles. The negative definite articles can also be used and a listed under articles.

Dictionary
Mark that OE - Old English, Ger - German, Du - Dutch, ON - Old Norse.

great-grandparents
the prefixes far- and mor- are used to identify multiple generations in this case.

Affixes
Some morphmemes. not including inflections

Conjunctions
<h3 style="border-style: initial; border-color: initial;">Noun List

<p style="border-style: initial; border-color: initial;">The noun count is at 72:

Prepositions
<p style="border-style: initial; border-color: initial;">prepositions tend to have only one single meaning and cannot be easily translated therefore from Modern English.

<p style="border-style: initial; border-color: initial;">The preposition count is at 31:

<h4 style="border-style: initial; border-color: initial;">Genitive The object of these prepositions are in the genitive. This is more rare in prepositions, and it is considered more literary.

Dative
The object of these prepositions are in the dative. This is the general case for most prepositions.

<h3 style="border-style: initial; border-color: initial;">Verb list

Example text
<p style="border-style: initial; border-color: initial;">...


 * manig - many
 * flera - (many) more
 * flest - (many) most
 * mekel - much
 * mora - (much) more
 * most - (much) most