Kostish



General information
Gastisk (Modern English "Gastish") is a West-Germanic language immediately descended from Old English with no interruption of French, but is is also related to Dutch, English, German, and Swedish. The idea behind it is that it might have been a hypothetical language to develop from Old English if some of the Anglo-Saxons had traveled to an island more northward and thus had their language more influenced by North-Germanic rather than Latin and French influences.

At the moment
Gastish is massively inflectional, but despite the syntax being complete, there aren't many words(so far), and at the moment, it is being carefully constructed, along with prefixes and suffixes to be used 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.

Definite Plans

 * add relative pronouns
 * add conjunctions
 * add interjections and sayings
 * more words
 * irregular noun declensions

Indefinite Plans

 * adjective declension
 * possibly a subjunctive mood conjugated for verbs

Phonology
The alphabet includes 14 vowels, and 26 consonants(4 of which are represented by digraphs). Making a total of 40 differently pronounced sounds. There are common occurences from the development of Old English:
 * Syncopes were lost, e. g. the plural of Engel is Engelas, not Englas.
 * Velar Fricatives became velar stops
 * Anglian smoothing

Alphabet
It's a modified Latin alphabet with 30 characters, including: æ, ð, ȝ, œ, þ, and an optional character ƿ
 * A, Æ, P, B, C, J, T, D, Þ, Ð, E, F, V, K, G, Y, H, Ȝ, I, L, M, N, O, Œ, R, S, Z, U, Ƕ, W(Ƿ)
 * a, æ, p, b, c, j, t, d, þ, ð, e, f, v, k, g, y, h, ȝ, i, l, m, n, o, œ, r, s, z, u, ƕ, w(ƿ)

Vowels
the official pronunciation of vowels is maintained as so:

Symbols
The names of the letters in Gastish use the sounds shown to the right of them to sound them out. These are the official pronunciations, dialectal pronuncaitions are not taken into account. 'A' is the only letter with multiple pronunciations.

For the sake of ease, the optional character will be used in place wynn.

Digraphs
These "double letters" are very important, the language won't truly make sense without them.
 * dh - optional replacement for Ð, ð
 * ee - long e
 * ei - long i
 * eo - long o
 * eu - long u
 * ey - ou in route
 * kh - originally a voicless velar fricative, now pronounced as the voicless velar stop, "k"
 * gh - originally a voiced velar fricative, now pronounced as the voiced velar stop, "g"
 * hw - optional replacement for ƕ
 * ng - velar nasal(same as English "ng")
 * sc - English "sh", German "sch" Old English "sc"
 * zj - Voiced sc, an example in the English word fi ss ure
 * th - optional replacement for Þ, þ
 * ts - ts

Gender
There are 4 genders, masculine, neuter, feminine, and plural has its own particles in certain cases. Nouns are not inflected to show their gender, however articles, possessive pronouns, demonstratives, and other particles are inflected for the gender of their noun. If a noun is inflected for singular, yet has the plural particle, the nouns is technically in a fourth "common" gender, which is what all non-native words fall under.

Punctuation
Punctuation is the same as English with the only exception that, like German, all nouns are capitalized, not just proper nouns.

Sentence Structures
This is a basic guide for the word order, but it is not very necessary because words are declined for case.

The indirect object may be placed after or before the direct object, so long as it is declined for case.

Nouns
The noun declension derives from a mixture of sources: Old English weak and strong nouns, its three genders, and some Scandinavian declension or other foreign declension. All nouns which follow a preposition are in the dative case. Instrumental holds its own case as well. This is the basic noun declension, however there are irregular verbs. Articles show gender, but gender can be often reasoned from patterns in the noun.

There are irregular declensions, but these are the regular ones:
 * Masculine are native germanic words that begin with a voiced consonant
 * Feminine are native germanic words that begin with a voiceless consonant.
 * Words beginning with vowels fall into neuter
 * Loan words take the common case, they use plural articles while being inflected for singular
 * Words may also change gender based on suffixes

List
The list can be found in the dictionary section.

Articles
Articles come before all nouns and gerunds except proper nouns and pronouns, the articles gender agrees with its noun, there is no negative definite article, once simply negates the verbs and uses the definite article. Articles aren't random, there is a way determining which gender a noun is. If the noun is a foreign (non-germanic) word, the noun is neuter. Else if the noun begins with a vowel or an h, it is feminine, if it begins with a consonant other than h, it is masculine.

Personal pronouns
Pronuns, as are common nouns, always capitalized. The possessive pronouns are capitalized, but genitive adjectives are not.
 * As with English, the norse third person plural took over


 * The original Old English plural is retained in Common gender


 * 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


 * Both possessive forms of the dual pronouns are one form of the possessive now

Relative pronouns
Relative pronouns are a special set of pronouns declined for the appropriate case.

beeon
<p style="border-style: initial; border-color: initial; margin-top: 1em; margin-bottom: 1em;">beeon is a highly irregular verb developed from 3 different verbs in Old English, it also has another form for the imperative mood.

Negation
Add the particle "neit" before the verb, this method of negation is used with definite articles because there are no negative definite articles. For example, "Ik neit gæmynded see Kætt" translates to "I did not remember the cat", however with indefinite articles, one doesn't have to use this form of negation. They can instead use the negative definite article. "Ik gæmynded neen Kætt" translates "I remembered no cat" or they can say "Ik neit gæmynded een kætt" translating "I did not remember a cat". 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".

Describing Words
<p style="border-style: initial; border-color: initial;">'''All describing words and phrases come before what they describe, which might sound strange in English. '''Many end in -ish. Adjectives are never written post-positively.

Comparative
<p style="border-style: initial; border-color: initial;">After the comparative adjective/adverb, next is the particle "ðæn" meaning and pronounced the same as"than". It can then be followed by a word in the nominative and the accusative, each with a specific meaning, If the word is in the nominative, it is being compared to the subject, if in the accusative, it is being compared to the object. To understand exactly, follow this example.

<h5 style="border-style: initial; border-color: initial;">nominative

<p style="border-style: initial; border-color: initial;">"He jumped the fence quicker than I" would mean "He jumped the fence quicker than I [jumped the fence]"

accusative
<p style="border-style: initial; border-color: initial;">"He jumped the fence quicker than me" would mean "He jumped the fence quicker than [he jumped] me"

<h4 style="border-style: initial; border-color: initial;">Adjectives
 * elles - else [Old English, German "elles"]
 * ellin - alien [calque of Latin "alienus", from the root of "else" + "in" c. f. "alius" + "ine"
 * english (adj) - english (big suprise there)


 * gæleik - similar [from gæ + liek]


 * lyft - clumsy [common germanic sharing the same roots as the word left, in the sense of the more clumsy hand, this language has a strange confusion of euphamisms for the left side, Old English "lyft" weak, foolish, Dutch "loof" weak, worthless


 * Neðerlondish - dutch


 * norþ - north(as an adjective) [from Old English "norð"]


 * osunder - apart [ann + sunder, compare Modern English "asunder"]
 * sækhsunish - german


 * strong - strong [from Old English "strang", Modern English "strong"]


 * wolisc - welsh


 * worm - warm [from Old English "wearm"]

Adverbs
<p style="border-style: initial; border-color: initial;">They generally end in -lic. The grammar is the same as adjectives.

Never post-positively
<p style="border-style: initial; border-color: initial;">Adjectives and Adverbs cannot be written post-positively, that is, they never follow nouns. An example of post-positive in English would be "tell me something interesting " which would have to be written as "tell to me an interesting something", note that an article (an) is used, articles must follow every noun, including gerunds,with the exception of pronouns and names.

Common sayings & Interjections

 * Ƕun scælseg Ðeu? - What will you say?

Prefixes

 * eft- again, re-
 * el- foreign, other, different
 * o- forming many prepositions [from Old English "an" ann]
 * gæ- together/with (cognate with syn) [CG]
 * ge- forms past participles
 * ur- proto [from Ger "ur"]

Suffixes

 * -en used to make feminine nouns from others, [Old English "-en", c. f. "vixen"]
 * -er one who has to do with [Old English "-ere"]
 * -ir forms comparative adjectives
 * -ish (pronounced as amer. eng. "ish")added to the end of nouns to form adjectives to mean "ways of or similar to"
 * -ist suffix forming superlative adjectives
 * -ig added to mean "full of or characterized by" [CG]
 * -in meaning "made of", "having the qualities of", "consisting of" [Old English "en", OHG "-ein", Latin "inus", "ine"]
 * -isk is the older form from which isc derives added now only to the end of languages
 * -kin diminuitive suffix [common germanic]
 * -lic added to the end of words generally to form adverbs cognate "Eng -ly"[from Old Frisian "-lik"]
 * -ling diminuitive suffix [common germanic]
 * -lond forming place names, e. g. "neðerlonds"
 * -mæn added to verb stems to form workers of the task [from German "mann"]
 * -werd directional suffix [from Old English "-weard"]

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.
 * obut - about [from ann + by + ut, same construction as Modern English "about"]
 * off - off [from Old English "of" compare Modern English "of"]
 * offtir - after [comparative form of "aff" meaning "more off", same occurence happens in English "after"]
 * oleikht - in light of [from "ann" + "leight"]
 * omidd - amid [from Old English "on middan"]
 * onekhstu - next to (inside the immediate physical area) [from Anglian nesta, Modern English anext]
 * onn - on [common germanic, Old English, German "an", Gothic "ana"]
 * oreud - across [from ann + reud "cross"]
 * sunder - without [common germanic, Old English "sundor"]
 * æt - at [common germanic, Old English "æt", Old Norse, Gothic "at"]
 * bei - by [common germanic, Old English "be" and "bi", ect]
 * beitween - between [from bei + twan]
 * eover - over [common germanic, from Old English "ofer", Old Frisian "over"]
 * frum - from [from Old English "from, fram"]
 * for - fore, afront(in time, positions, or rank, ect) [common germanic, Old English "fore", German "vor"]
 * fur - for, on account of [from Old English "for"]
 * heind - behind [from Old English "behindan", "hindan"]
 * in - in [from Gothic, German, Old English, "in"]
 * mid - with [Old English "mid"]
 * neeu, neer, nekhst - three forms of near, being the normal, comparative, and superlative respectively, each from the same roots as English "nigh, near, next" which were a single word with those three forms
 * reikhtwerd - rightward of [from reikht "right" + werd]
 * teu - to [common germanic, from Old English, Old Frisian, Old Saxon "to"]
 * þureu - through [from Old English "þurh", Old Saxon "thuru"]
 * under - under [common germanic, Old English, Old Frisian "under"]
 * ut - out [from Old English, Old Norse, Old Frisian, Gothic "ut" common germanic]
 * uv - of [from Old English "of", Swedish av]
 * fœn - originating from, hailing from [from German "von"]
 * winstwerd - leftward of, [from Old English euphamism "winestra" left + Evanisk "-werd" ]
 * wiþ - near, against [from Old English "wiþ" cognate with English "with"]

Noun List
The noun count is at 63:

Verb list
The verb count is at 74:

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

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