Vandalic

General information
Vandalic constitutes the surviving Romance speech of the North Africa based Vandal Kingdom. It is a Western Romance language, influenced strongly by Punic and other Afro-Asiatic languages spoken in the region.

Historical phonology
It was noted early on in the late Roman Empire that the Latin of North Africa was strongly innovating. Augustine of Hippo observed that his Latin speaking contemporaries in Africa paid no heed to the shortness or length of Latin vowels. Graffiti from the period contain broad departures from classical orthographical norms; in several inscriptions the form oze appears for Latin hodie.

Vowels
Vandalic native words distinguish between four primary vowels: /a e i u/. Vowel length is not phonemic; vowels are long in open syllables and short in checked, with the exception of /e/. The language is syllable-timed rather than stress-timed. One diphthong exists, /au/. Note that the vowel /e/ is always pronounced long, as if it were a diphthong; it represents proto-Vandalic /ai/: mema "seawater" represents *maima; exa "wife" represents *ai.ʃa.

'O' does not exist in native words; when borrowed, it is usually realized as /u/.

Alphabet
The spelling of Vandalic is strongly phonemic and regular.

Phonotactics
The stressed syllable in Vandalic is very regular. Multisyllabic words that end in a vowel are stressed on the next to last syllable. Multisyllabic words that end in a consonant are stressed on the last syllable. The vowel e is an exception to this rule; e can only appear in a stressed syllable, so it always draws the stress accent whenever it appears.

Nouns
The grammatical cases of Latin have generally been lost, as they have been in all the other Western Romance languages. On the other hand, it inflects nouns for number, possessed status, and indefinite status. Adjectives agree in gender and number with their nouns.

Vandalic nouns are either masculine or feminine. As in other Western romance languages, the masculine gender contains the Latin neuters as well as the masculine nouns. Most words borrowed into Vandalic become masculine.

Vandalic nouns have five declensions, each of which will be obvious from the citation form. They are:


 * The first declension, with nouns ending in -a. These tend to be uniformly feminine.
 * The second declension, with nouns ending in -u. These tend to be uniformly masculine.
 * The third declension, with nouns ending in -i or -e. These may be of either gender.  Nouns in -e exhibit a number of irregularities.
 * The fourth declension, with nouns ending in -θ. These are all feminines.
 * The fifth declension, with nouns ending in a consonant other than -θ. These may be of either gender.

Gender and number
The gender of most Vandalic nouns is apparent from their citation form.

Masculine nouns take the definite article a, or al if the noun begins with a vowel: a xvalu /a ʃva.lu/ "the horse"; al ilu /al i.lu/ "the god". If this article follows a vowel, it takes the form ha /ʔa/.

Feminine nouns take the definite article ya: ya xvala /ja ʃva.la/ "the mare"; ya ilaθ /ja i.laθ/ "the goddess".

All of the three vowel declensions take a plural in -s. In the two consonant declensions, the plural is almost always -is. The definite article in the plural is always a: a xvalus "the horses\", a xvalas "the mares", a taliθis "the girls" a agafis "the wings". Nouns in -e have plurals in -as: a pile "the cap" > a pilas.

The genitive construction
The genitive inflection of Vandalic is essentially a possessed, rather than a possessive case. The marked form is the possessed noun rather than the possessor. Where Latin says equus patri, "the father's horse", Vandalic marks the horse rather than the father: xval a patxu (horse- POSSESSED the father), "the horse of the father". The possessor always takes a definite article in the construction, even if it is a personal name: xval a Piθru "Peter's horse". The possessed form never takes a definite article.

Rules for the formation of the possessed case are as follows:

In the first declension, drop the -a:
 * exa "wife" > ex: ex a bahalu /eːʃ a ba.ʔa.lu/ "the husband's wife".

In the second declension, drop the -u:
 * xvalu > xval: xval a Piθru /ʃval a pi.θʁu/ "Peter's horse''.

In the third declensionm, drop -i. For the few nouns in -e, turn that to -a:
 * dinti > dint; dint ya xvala /dint ja ʃva.la/ "the mare's tooth".
 * pile > pila; pila ya duzint /pi.la ja du.zint/ "the professor's (f) cap".

In the fourth declension, change -θ to -t:
 * beθ "house" > bet; bet ya exa /be:t ja e:ʃa/ "the wife's house"

In the fifth declension, no change:
 * sul "sun" > sul: sul a planiθi /sul a pla.ni.θi/ "the planet's sun".

Note also that the construction can be used with infinitives as a verbal noun. The infinitive takes a definite article when used in this construction as well:
 * xval a yagaz /ʃval a ja.gaʒ/ "a horse for hunting".

The indefinite construction
Ziyam i uzi - "One of these days, and in fact, today." The indefinite construction affects the first, second, and third declensions of nouns. Vandalic allows three levels of definiteness. The first is definite, a noun appears with the definite articles a (m. sing, all plurals) or ya (f. sing). The definite article conveys less syntactical information than in some other Romance language.

The first level of indefiniteness is defined by the absence of the definite article. Since the definite article is required by syntax in some constructions, it is not always available.

The second level of indefiniteness is the inflected indefinite. In all of the vowel stems, the first, second, and third declensions, it is inflected the same way: by adding -m to the vowel stem. It can appear with the definite article and keep indefinite meanings, and will appear with the article when required by syntax. The meaning of the suffix is somewhat stronger than an English definite, and is often best translated as "some kind of" or "a ____ of some sort or another".


 * (ya) ziyam - "some day"
 * (a) xvalum - "some kind of horse"
 * (ya) nuttim - "one of these nights"

Plural potentiality is indicated by the suffix itself, and nouns so modified generally do not take plurals. One exception is pirsunu, "person", which distinguishes a singular pirsunum "someone or another" and pirsunumis "some people".

Example text
Pirqi Ilu a mundu tantu amau, q'si a Banu su dunau, al unighiniθu, affini s' ci qiqunc criθinti innilu ni halaqira nuskam, me avira ulam ya viθa.

/piʁ.ki i.lu a mun.du tan.tu a.mau, ksi a ba.nu su du.nau al u.ni.ɣi.ni.θu, a.fi.ni.sʧi ki.kuŋk kʁi.ðin.ti i.ni.lu ni ʔa.la.ki.ʁa nus.kam, me: a.vi.ʁa u.lam ja vi.ða/