Mitlerian

Mitlerian is a West Germanic language but influenced by Slavic languages. It is the official language of Mitleria, Montagna and Tajonbukt. It was originated from Middle High German.

Old Mitlerian
Altmitelriska 14th century - ca. 1609

In the 14th century, Mitlerian gradually separated itself from German and became a language with its own vocabulary and grammar. Old Mitlerian (Altmitelriska) was very similar to German, but more complicated. There were many cases such as locative, instrumental, accusative, vocative etc. However, there wasn't a standard orthography. The same word could be written in many different ways in one text. Even Old Mitlerian was widely spoken, German was the official language of the Kingdom of Mitleria.

New Mitlerian
Nœmitelriska ca. 1609 - ca. 1871

The first standard Mitlerian text is the Mitlerian Bible (Biblia Mitelriskja) published in ca. 1609. It set a standard of New Mitlerian (Nœmitelriska). In the beginning of the 18th century, Mitleria was annexed by the Habsburg Empire and its language was banned. All the schools only taught German, while Mitlerian is only spoken at home or written by nationalist writers.

High Mitlerian
Hokmitelriska ca. 1871 - now

Since 1871, the Mitlerian nationalist movement against the Austrian-Hungarian Empire led to a wave of Mitlerian literature, that completed the grammar and vocabulary of Modern High Mitlerian (Hokmitelriska). After the independence of the Republic of Mitleria in 1919, Mitlerian finally became the official language.

Dialects
There are many dialects of Mitlerian. The standard Mitlerian or high Mitlerian (Hokmitelriska) is based on the dialect of Nordcentra, the capital of Mitleria. There are four groups of dialects: the mountain dialects (Montagnaska), the isles dialects (Inslarska), Northern (Nordlandska) and Southern (Sjudlandska) dialects.

Northern Dialects
Nordlandska is the closest to the standard Mitlerian. It is mostly spoken in the north-west and centre of Mitleria, as well as some part of Hungary and Austria. This group of dialect includes the dialect of Nordcentra downtown, Kojla, Frankia etc.

Mountain Dialects
Montagnaska is spoken in the Alps, including Sorland, Montagna, partially Nordland and Friburg. It is hugely influenced by German. Commonly, ⟨r⟩ is pronounced /ʁ/ instead of the standard /r/. ⟨k⟩ is usually written as ⟨ch⟩. In grammar, Mountain dialects put the verb at the end of the sentence in dependent clauses like in German. There are also many German vocabularies such as "Servus", "Danke", "Genau", etc.

Southern Dialects
Sjudlandska is the funniest sounding accent because it was mainly spoken in the country in Sjudland and Vjutemberg, in cities such as Mingastad, St. Gaard, Friburg, etc. The letter ⟨œ⟩ is written as ⟨ö⟩ usually. ⟨s⟩ before consonants and soft vowels (e, i, œ) is pronounced as /ʃ/ instead of /s/. ⟨b⟩ is pronounced /β/ similar to /v/ instead of /b/ or /p/. There are also many unique words in the southern accents, such as "Morgn", "Cjao".

Isles Dialects
Inslarska is spoken on the Sjudostinslar and Hafenstad, partially Tajonbukt, too. It is very different from the standard accent and has more Slavic influences. Both grammar and vocabulary are a bit different from the standard. It only has three verb forms: present tense, past tense, and subjunctive. Other verb tenses and moods are expressed with auxiliary verbs. In some areas, the archaic accusative case is still preserved.

Consonants
* Southern dialects; ** Mountain dialects and sometimes in the northern dialect.

Vowels
* Southern dialects

Phonotactics

 * "ng" is pronounced /ng/. The /g/ sound can be heard.
 * "s" before a consonant is pronounced /ʃ/.
 * "h" as the first letter of a word is pronounced /h/, but "h" after a vowel is pronounced /x/.
 * "e" is pronounced /ə/ at the end of a word, /ɛ/ in the middle, and /e/ as the first letter of a word.
 * "u" is pronounced /y/ after a voiceless consonant (p, t, k, f, s), "r" or "c".

Latin Alphabet
Modern High Mitlerian is written in latin alphabet. After the simplification of the alphabet in the 19th century, there are only 17 consonants and 6 vowels. Letters such as x, y, and w only exists in foreign words.

Cyrillic Alphabet
Old Mitlerian and New Mitlerian were also written in Cyrillic Alphabet, because of the influence from Slavic immigrants and the Orthodox Church:

Gender
There are two genders in modern high Mitlerian: masculine and feminine. The neutral gender existed in old Mitlerian, but it was later combined with masculine. Masculine nouns can end in every sound, but feminine always ends with "a".

Masculine

 * Objects and substances, such as bet (bed), brot (bread), kovb (head), vagn (car), tjur (door) etc.
 * Male and neutral human such as mansk (person or a male person), skribsk (a writer or a male writer), man (man), knab (boy), Mitelrisk (Mitlerian person)

Feminine

 * Abstract ideas, such as friheta (freedom), hungra (hunnger).
 * Nominalization. spreken (speak) -> spreka (language), skinen (appear) -> skina (appearance)
 * Group of people such as skribska (writer in general or a female writer)
 * Female person such as magda (woman), majdla (girl).
 * Countries and languages such as Mitelrika (Mitleria), Mitelriska (Mitlerian language or ethnic group), Dœtskrika (Germany), Ojsterrika (Austria), Ungarrika (Hungary), Frankrika (France), Rusrika (Russia), Kina (China), Japana (Japan), Svederika (Sweden), Njedrrikara (the Netherlands).

Abstraction
Abstraktena is when an object or person was turned into an abstract idea by changing the gender.


 * lun (m. moon as an celestial body) -> luna (f. moon as the light at night)
 * mansk (m. a person) -> manska (f. human)
 * tanzk (m. a dancer or a male dancer) -> tanzka (f. dancer in general or as a profession, or a female dancer)

Plural
The plural for both gender is the same. A suffix -(a)r is added to the end of the word.

Cases
There are only three cases in modern Mitlerian: nominative, dative, and genitive. Accusative, locative, and instrumental were no longer used. Only personal pronouns have accusative. Most of the declensions are regular. Genitive ends with "s" and dative ends with "m".

Example: Man (m. man), Magda (f. woman), Taksi (m. taxi)

Nominative
It is the basic form of a noun. Nominative marks the subject of the verb or the predicate of the noun.

Accusative
It marks the object in a sentence, but also the direction of movement. It is also used as vocative case in some dialects when calling someone.

Genitive
It shows that a noun is modifying another noun.

Dative
This is very complicated. Dative shows location, time, but also means indirect objects and replaces conjunctions such as "to", "for", "compared to" etc.

Personal Pronouns
Personal pronouns are tricky in Mitlerian. There is a singular and a plural form for 1st, 2nd, and 3rd person. Other than that, there is a formal version of 2nd person and a neutral version of 3rd person. There are also two kinds of 3rd person plural: one for neutral and one for masculine and feminine. * Si. = Singular; Pl. = Plural; for. = Formal; col. = colloquial; n. = neutral; m. = masculine; f. = feminine. ** Genitive cases act like an adjective and have adjective suffix

Adjective
All adjectives end with -aj, -ja or -jar and it changes according to the number, case and gender. Example: velkaj tisk (m. big table), rojtja avbla (f. red apple), miskja/(col.)mja nama (f. my name)

e- Words
e-Words is a special category that ends with -e and modifies the whole sentence. Almost all the adverbs are in this category and sometimes conjunctions too.


 * Noun: vintra (Winter) -> vintre (in the Winter)
 * Verb: renen (run) -> rene (while running)/ renatite (past perfect | when he/she was running) / renakie (future | preparing to run) / renatie (subjunctive | as if running)
 * Adjective: skojnaj (beautiful) -> skojne (beautifully)
 * Conjunction: oke (also), dene (when)

Verbs
There is a subject-verb agreement for every personal pronoun except for the gender in 3rd person. There are only two forms of 3rd person verb: singular and plural. The tense is complicated. Other than present, present progressive, simple past, and past perfect, there are also subjunctive and simple future as in Latin.

Present
A simple idea of an action. e.g. Majdla esat (The girl eats)

Present Progressive
An action that is happening. e.g. Majdla esak (The girl is eating)

Past Simple
An action that happened in the past. Used in storytelling, telling about something in the past. e.g. Majdla esatet (The girl ate)

Past Perfect
An action that was happening continuously or happened during a long period in the past. e.g. Majdla esatit (The girl was eating/has eaten)

Subjunctive
Expressing wishes, proposal, or an uncertain situation, but also used as imperative. e.g. Majdla esati (The girl might/could/would eat; Imperative: The girl should eat, please.)

Future
An action that is pretty sure going to happen in the future. e.g. Majdla esaki (The girl is going to eat/will eat)

Syntax
The syntax of Mitlerian is very random. The only rule is that the object must be after the subject in a sentence.

Declarative sentence
SVO, SOV, or VSO. The meaning is the same but the emphasize is a bit different:

Example:


 * Knab S (boy) esat V (eats) avbla O(apple): this event happens
 * Knab S (boy) avbla O(apple) esat V (eats): emphasizes the apple
 * Esat V (eats) knab S (boy) avbla O(apple): emphasizes the action “eat”

The verb sejen (be) or the personal pronoun can usually be ignored.

Example: (I am a man) Jag sejo man = Jag man = Sejo man

Interrogative Sentence
Yes/No question is stated with a “ve” at the beginning or at the end of the sentence. The order of SVO can remain the same.

Example: Sa skribak (She is writing) / Ve sa skribak? (Is she writing?)

In 5W2H questions, the question words can be anywhere in a sentence.

Examples:


 * Sklafoksi vene? (When are you going to sleep?)
 * Va sejat? (What is it?)

Question words:


 * Va (What)
 * Vaj (Which) like an adj.
 * Vask (Who) “what person”
 * Vaskaj (Whose) like an adj.
 * Vame (Where) “in/at/on what”
 * Forvam (Why) “for what”
 * Vene (When)
 * Vjevam (How) “like what”
 * Vajcahle (How much) “at which number”

Imperative Sentence
Using subjunctive verb.

Negation
Add ne (not) before the verb or the noun.

Lexicon
Swadesh list of Mitlerian

Example text
Mitlerian: Artikla 1 Universjas Erklajras Manskrektars

Alja Manska frija u glikja dignitiam u rektarm. Borantit mi vanunftam u visatitam u geganki andrarm mi spiritam brudraskas.

Cyrillic Mitlerian: Аrтiкла 1 Uнiвеrсяс Еrклаjrас Манскrектаrс

Аля манска фriя u глiкя дiгнiтiам u rектаrм. Боrантiт мi ванuнфтам u висатiтам u геганкi андrаrм мi спiriтам бruдrаскас.

Gross: Artikla f.article 1 Univers/ja/s f.universe-adj.-GEN. Erklajr/a/s explain-noun-GEN. Mansk/rekta/r/s f.human-f.right-pl.-GEN.

Al/ja all-f.adj. manska f.human fri/ja free-f.adj. u and glik/ja equal-f.adj. dignitia/m f.dignity-DAT u and rekta/r/m f.right-pl.-DAT.. Bor/an/tit born-3p.Pl.-past perfect mi with vanunft/am f.reason-DAT. u and visatita/m conscience-DAT. u and geg/an/ki treat-3p.Pl.-subjunctive andra/r/m f.other-Pl.-DAT. mi with spiritam f.spirit-DAT. brudraska/s f.brotherhood-GEN..

English: Article 1 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights

All human beings are born free and equal in dignity and rights. They are endowed with reason and conscience and should act towards one another in a spirit of brotherhood.

German: Artikel 1 von der Allgemeinen Erklärung der Menschenrechte

Alle Menschen sind frei und gleich an Würde und Rechten geboren. Sie sind mit Vernunft und Gewissen begabt und sollen einander im Geist der Brüderlichkeit begegnen.