Dostiskj

Thustic (dst.  dostiskj  /'dostiʃ/) is a Germanic language, spoken on the island of Thustland (dst.  Dostland  /'dostlanː/). It has some features in common with the West-Germanic languages - English, Dutch, German and Frisian - and others with the North-Germanic languages - Swedish, Danish, Norse and Icelandic. Therefore linguists struggle to classify the language in one of the language families and as a 'compromise' it is often referred to as a "North West" Germanic language.

Classification and Dialects
Thustic has two major dialect groupes: Western Thustic (Werstländiskj) and Eastern Thustic (Ústländiskj), which differ mostly in pronunciation and vocabulary.
 * e.g. dst. ou ('eye') in W.Th. is oy (/oʏ̯/) and in E.Th. is öu (/œʊ̯/). (phon.);
 * e.g. dst. männ ('men') in W.Th. is minn and in E.Th. is männ. (phon.);
 * e.g. the word for 'bed' in W.Th. is bedd, in E.Th. it is legin. (lex.);
 * e.g. bord in W.Th. means 'shelf', while in E.Th. it means 'table'. (sem.).

Writing System

 * Geminant consonants are written as double letters: e.g. männ 'men';
 * Long vowels are marked with an acute accent (´): e.g. úst 'east';
 * Some sounds have no letter to indicate it, and are represented by a group of letters: e.g. the sound /ʃ/ is represented by  before /e/, /i/, /æ/, /ø/ and /y/ and before other vowels, consonants or at the end of a word (e.g. skjute /ʃutə/, 'to shoot' vs. skyld /ʃylt/, 'guilt').

Nouns
Standard Thustic has three grammatical genders (masculine, feminine and neuter). In the singular form, the article precedes the noun. In the plural form, however, a clitic determiner marker -en is put at the end of the noun (similarly to the North Germanic languages).
 * Masculine articles: ein, 'a(n)' and da, 'the' (e.g. ein/da bók, 'a/the book');
 * Feminine articles: ei, 'a(n)' and da, 'the' (e.g. ei/da frö, 'a/the wife');
 * Neuter articles: ein, 'a(n)' and ät, 'the' (e.g. ein/ät rost, 'a/the horse').

As can be seen, the regular nouns differ only in the singular form. There are, however, many (semi-)irregular nouns, which take irregular plural forms (such as umlauting, other forms etc.). A typical Thustic feature are the 'clitical pronouns', which can occur with a small group of nouns: Clitical pronouns are considered a bit archaical and formal and are primarily used in formal written language. The Thustic name for the 'Our Lord' is Fadrýr.
 * mín fader → fammín, 'my father'
 * ýr dohter → dohtrýr, 'our daughter'
 * sín sune → sussín, 'his son'
 * her muder → mudrer, 'her/their mother'
 * dín kynni → kyndín, 'your family'

Lexicon


Example text
