Niu-Sahsisc

General information
Neo-Saxon (in NS: Niu-Sahsisc) is a Germanic language that descends from Old Saxon. It is a reconstruction of what this could be like as a modern language if it were not heavily influenced by German or Dutch.

Consonants
1 d is pronounced as /t/ at the end of a word or if it comes right before a voiceless consonant.

2 /j/ is written as g before e and i and otherwise as j: ja /ja/, ge /je/, gi /ji/, jo /jo/, ju /ju/

/g/ is written as gh before e and i and otherwise as g: ga /ga/, ghe /ge/, ghi /gi/, go /go/, gu /gu/

Diphthongs
Neo-Saxon monophtongises Proto-Germanic *ai to ē /eː/ and *au to ō /oː/. Other Proto-Germanic diphthongs remain diphthongs: *eu to eo /eʊ/ and *iu to iu /iʊ/.

Nouns
Neo-Saxon has three grammatical genders: masculine, feminine and neuter. There are 4 noun cases: nominative, accusative, genitive and ''dative. Nominative and accusative'' have the same declension.

Declension depends on the form that a noun belongs to:

A-form
This form is used for any noun that ends in a vowel a, i, o or u.

S-form
This is the majority of the nouns. Nouns that end in e in nom/acc singular are always feminine. Some neuter nouns have no nom/acc plural ending.

R-form
These nouns are rare and can only be masculine or neuter.

Verbs
The infinitive form of Neo-Saxon verbs has endings in -ian, -on and -an (with a few irregular exceptions). The part before this ending is called the stem. For examle: cenn-ian, ðeon-on, feht-an. There are 4 types of verbs that you will find described below.

Weak verbs
Weak verbs use a d or t in the ending of the past tense and the vowel in the stem remains unchanged.

There are 3 classes of weak verbs:

Weak verbs - class I
Most verbs that end in -ian are class I weak verbs. There are 4 exceptions that you will find below at Weak verbs - class III.

The present tense always keeps the whole stem and adds -ie, -is, -id and -iad (see above).

The imperative is just the stem. Words never end in double consonants (of the same), so in that case one consonant will be removed.

Like for every verb, the present participle is the infinitive form of the verb followed by -de.

The past tense is constructed in a few ways:

The past participle is formed by preceding the stem with i- and following the stem with -ed, -d or -t (following the same rules as for the past tense): cennian -> icenned; lēvian -> ilēvd; sōcian -> isōct; settian -> iset
 * Stems ending in a double voiced consonant are followed by -ede (singular) and -eden (plural): cennian -> cennede, cenneden
 * Stems ending in a single voiced consonant are followed by -de (singular) and -den (plural): lēvian -> lēvde, lēvden
 * Stems ending in a single or double voiceless consonant lose one consonant (if double) and are followed by -te (singular) and -ten (plural): sōcian -> sōcte, sōcten; settian -> sette, setten
 * Some consonant (and vowel) combinations have an exceptional rule, more information below.

Weak verbs - class II
All verbs that end in -on are class II weak verbs.

The present tense always keeps the whole stem and is followed by -en, -es, -ed, -eod (see above).

The imperative is just the stem. Words never end in double consonants (of the same), so in that case one consonant will be removed.

Like for every verb, the present participle is the infinitive form of the verb followed by -de.

The past tense always keeps the whole stem and is followed by -ode and -oden (see above).

The past participle is formed by preceding the stem with i- and following the stem with -od.

Weak verbs - class III
There are only 4 class III week verbs: hebbian, hugghian, libbian and segghian. They use the same rules as class I weak verbs, but their stems change in the past tense:

Strong verbs
Strong verbs always end in -an and change the stem vowel in the past tense and past participle. There is no addition of d or t in the past tense or past participle. There are 5 classes of strong verbs, each defined by their stem vowel.

The present tense is formed by adding -e, -es, -ed and -ad (see above).

The imperative is just the stem. Words never end in double consonants (of the same), so in that case on consonant will be removed.

Like for every verb, the present participle is the infinitive form of the verb followed by -de.

The past tense is the stem with a vowel change, depending on the class (see below). In plural, this is followed by -en.

The past participle is formed by preceding the infinitive with i-. A vowel change can occur, depending on the class (see below).

Strong verbs - class ī/ē/ī
This class corresponds to Old Saxon class I. These can be recognised by a stem with the vowel ī followed by 1 consonant.

The stem vowel changes to ē in the past tense. The past participle uses the same vowel ī as the present tense and infinitive.

Example: livan -> ic live, ic lēv, ic hebbie ilivan

Strong verbs - class eo-ū/ō/ō
This class corresponds to Old Saxon class II. These can be recognised by a stem with the vowel eo or ū followed by 1 consonant.

The stem vowel changes to ō in both the past tense and past participle.

Example 1: dreopan -> ic dreope, ic drōp, ic hebbie idropan.

Example 2: brucan -> ic bruce, ic brōc, ic hebbie ibrocan.

Strong verbs - class e-i/a/o
This class corresponds to Old Saxon class III and IV. These can be recognised by a stem ending with -er, -el or the vowel e or i followed by 2 consonants. There are 3 exceptions of words that also belong to this class: brecan, cuman and niman.

The stem vowel changes to a in the past tense and o in the past participle.

Example 1: fehtan -> ic fehte, ic faht, ic hebbie ifohtan

Example 2: ghinnan -> ic ghinne, ic gan, ic hebbie igonnan

Strong verbs - class ē/ā/ē
This class corresponds to Old Saxon class V. These can be recognised by a stem with the vowel e followed by 1 consonant.

The stem vowel changes to a in the past tense. The past participle uses the same vowel e as the present tense and infinitive.

Example: sprecan -> ic sprece, ic sprac, ic hebbie isprecan

Strong verbs - class x/eo/x
Class x/eo/x corresponds to Old Saxon class VI and VII. These are strong verbs that don't belong to any other classes.

The stem vowel changes to eo in the past tense. The past participle uses the same vowel as the present tense and infinitive.

Example: standan -> ic stande, ic steond, ic hebbie istandan

Semistrong verbs
There are only 9 verbs in this class: cunnan, diugan, durran, motan, mugan, mugan, nugan, scullan, uitan (irregular) and unnan.

These verbs change their vowel in the present tense and imperative. Unlengthened u becomes a, but there are no fixed rules that apply to the rest of these verbs.

In the present tense, the first and third person singular are just the stem with the vowel change. The present tense plural uses the strong verb conjugation.

The imperative is just the stem with the vowel change.

Like for every verb, the present participle is the infinitive form of the verb followed by -de.

The past tense changes the vowel to o (with an exception for uitan, which uses the infinitive stem vowel i). The rest of the past tense changes to resemble an irregular weak verb conjugation.

The past participle is created by preceding the infinitive with i- without a vowel change.

Irregular verbs
There are a number of verbs that are highly irregular. There are also a few verbs that have irregularities but do belong to one of the previous classes.

Highly irregular verbs are dōn, gān, sīn, stān and uesan.

Syntax
Neo-Saxon uses V2 word order (finite verb in second position).


 * Ðe cinderes spiloden fore der scole in ðem felde fōtbal.
 * Fōtbal spiloden ðe cinderes fore der scole in ðem felde.
 * Fore der scole spiloden ðe cinderes in ðem felde fōtbal.
 * In ðem felde spiloden ðe cinderes fore der scole fōtbal.