Skundavisk

Skundavisk (/ ʃynda β ɪ ʃ/)  is a constructed language that I started to build around the year 2010. At the beginning it was just a mix of Dutch and scandinavian languages, but then it became a more regular and complex language. My attempt was to create a hypothetic West Germanic language derived from old Northern German dialects from the 4th-5th centuries, next to the boundary between the West and North Germanic languages. Thus it is virtually a language that could sound familiar to every Germanic language speaker, including English, Dutch, High and Low German, Luxembourgish, Frisian, Danish, Swedish and Norwegian. It's a rather modern sounding language, with very few cases and a quite simple grammar, therefore it is quite distant from archaic languages such as Icelandic and Faroese. However it is quite archaic, and it preserves a lot of the old Germanic consonants, while having undergone a lot of vowel shifts.

One of the main features of this language is that it has very few loanwords from non-Germanic sources, thus its vocabulary is mostly Germanic. I have tried to create Germanic equivalent to Greek and Latin loanwords like "biology" or "litterature" that exist in almost all the Germanic languages (except Icelandic which also builds words from Germanic roots). Despite this, Skundavisk does contain Latin words, but they are mostly old loanwords that were borrowed during the Proto-Germanic time or the early stages of the Germanic languages, for example the word "mylle" (="mill"), from Latin "molinum". Most of the remaining loanwords that are present in the language concern mainly food (exotic fruits and vegetables).

From my point of view, the language sounds like a very archaic form of English, and is also very close to Dutch, especially in terms of vocabulary. It didn't take part in the High German consonant shift, and is overall quite conservative. The syntax most closely ressembles that of German (including the rules concerning the place of the verb) and the phonology has Scandinavian features (especially the vowels), though it is mostly West Germanic-sounding. The consonant stock is almost identical to that of early Middle English and Middle Dutch.

Classification and Dialects
Skundavisk belongs to the West Germanic branch of the Germanic languages. It lies somewhere between the Anglo-Frisian and the Low Saxon languages, sharing some elements with the former (such as the preservation of the "w"and "th" sounds) and the latter (the presence of a guttural "gh" sound, and rounded vowels like "ø" and "y"). I built the words by applying regular changes to the vocabulary of the reconstructed Proto-Germanic language, so once these rules are known, every word can be guessed from its Proto-Germanic ancestor.

I have built seven dialects of Skundavisk, all of which differ in grammar, phonology, vocabulary and syntax. But I will only present one dialect here.

Consonants
{| border="1" cellpadding="1" cellspacing="1" class="wikitable article-table" style="width: 660px; text-align:center;" ! style="width: 68px; "| ! style="width: 68px; " |Bilabial ! style="width: 68px; " |Labio-dental ! style="width: 68px; " |Dental ! style="width: 68px; " |Alveolar ! style="width: 68px; " |Post-alveolar ! style="width: 68px; " |Retroflex ! style="width: 68px; " |Palatal ! style="width: 68px; " |Velar ! style="width: 68px; " |Uvular ! style="width: 68px; " |Pharyngeal ! style="width: 68px; " |Epiglottal ! style="width: 68px; " |Glottal !Nasal !Plosive ʔ !Fricative
 * m
 * n
 * ŋ
 * n
 * ŋ
 * ŋ
 * ŋ
 * ŋ
 * p b
 * t d
 * k g
 * t d
 * k g
 * k g
 * k g
 * k g

ɸ β
θ ð !Affricate !Approximant w ʍ !Trill !Flap or tap !Lateral fric. !Lateral app. !Lateral flap
 * s
 * ʃ
 * x ɣ
 * h
 * x ɣ
 * h
 * h
 * h
 * h
 * l ɫ
 * j
 * l ɫ
 * j
 * j
 * j
 * j
 * r
 * r
 * r
 * r
 * }
 * }
 * }
 * }
 * }
 * }
 * }
 * }
 * }
 * }
 * }
 * }
 * }

Writing System
{| border="1" cellpadding="1" cellspacing="1" class="article-table" style="width: 650px; text-align:center" ! scope="row"|Letter ! scope="row"|Sound
 * a
 * b
 * d
 * e
 * f
 * g
 * h
 * i
 * j
 * k
 * l
 * m
 * style="background-color:#f9f9f9;"|a
 * style="background-color:#f9f9f9;"|b
 * style="background-color:#f9f9f9;"|d
 * style="background-color:#f9f9f9;"| ɛ  ə
 * style="background-color:#f9f9f9;"|

ɸ
! scope="row"|Letter ! scope="row"|Sound
 * style="background-color:#f9f9f9;"|g
 * style="background-color:#f9f9f9;"|h
 * style="background-color:#f9f9f9;"|ɪ
 * style="background-color:#f9f9f9;"|j
 * style="background-color:#f9f9f9;"|k
 * style="background-color:#f9f9f9;"|l
 * style="background-color:#f9f9f9;"|m
 * n
 * o
 * p
 * r
 * s
 * t
 * u
 * v
 * w
 * y
 * å
 * æ
 * style="background-color:#f9f9f9;"|n
 * style="background-color:#f9f9f9;"|ɔ
 * style="background-color:#f9f9f9;"|p
 * style="background-color:#f9f9f9;"|p
 * style="background-color:#f9f9f9;"|s
 * style="background-color:#f9f9f9;"|t
 * style="background-color:#f9f9f9;"|y
 * style="background-color:#f9f9f9;"|

β
! scope="row"|Letter ! scope="row"|Sound
 * style="background-color:#f9f9f9;"|w
 * style="background-color:#f9f9f9;"|Y
 * style="background-color:#f9f9f9;"|o:
 * style="background-color:#f9f9f9;"|æ:
 * ø
 * ee
 * eu
 * ie
 * ij
 * oo
 * ou
 * gh
 * ng
 * sk
 * th
 * hw
 * style="background-color:#f9f9f9;"|ø:
 * style="background-color:#f9f9f9;"|e:
 * style="background-color:#f9f9f9;"|əw
 * style="background-color:#f9f9f9;"|ɪə
 * style="background-color:#f9f9f9;"|ɪj
 * style="background-color:#f9f9f9;"|ɔ:
 * style="background-color:#f9f9f9;"|ow
 * style="background-color:#f9f9f9;"|x ɣ
 * style="background-color:#f9f9f9;"|ŋ
 * style="background-color:#f9f9f9;"|ʃ
 * style="background-color:#f9f9f9;"| θ  ð
 * style="background-color:#f9f9f9;"|ʍ
 * }

Grammar
The grammar of Skundavisk is quite close to that of German, Dutch and early Middle English. The typically Germanic concepts such as strong and weak verbs, modal verbs and umlaut are present in the language, and I tried to make them quite regular.

Nouns
There are three genders, masculin, feminine and neuter. I didn't change the original Proto-Germanic genders of the nouns, so the nouns mostly have the same gender as their German cognates. Like in English, there are two types of articles that can precede a noun: the definite and the indefinite articles. The table below show the different articles for each gender and number: As we can see, the plural forms are common for all genders. The masculine and feminine share the same definite article, while the masculine and the neuter share the same indefinite article. Like all the Germanic languages, Skundavisk has no plural indefinite article.

Example:

Definite article:

the man=the mann (masculine singular)

the woman=the frawe (feminine singular)

the house=thet hous (neuter singular)

the men=the mænne (plural)

Indefinite article:

a man=een mann (masculine singular)

a woman=eene frawe (feminine singular)

a house=een hous (neuter singular)

men=mænne (plural)



Unlike German, Skundavisk has no cases, the articles don't change according to grammatical function in the sentence:

Example:

The man has seen a dog.=The mann hat een hund geseen.

I saw a man in the street.=Ik så een mann in the stråte.

He sold a dog to the man.=Hi sålde een hund tou the mann.

As we can see, there are a lot of evident cognates with English, and I would like to know how much of Skundavisk a speaker of English would understand without having learned it, and the same for Dutch or German speakers (I am sure that Dutch speakers can understand quite a lot of it).



Concerning the plural, there are various ways to form the plural in Skundavisk, all of which go back to the Proto-Germanic noun classes. In order to make the plurals easier to learn, I preserved these classes by making each class follow its own way and develop plural ending from the original plural nominative of Proto-Germanic. Here are some examples:

<p style="font-weight:normal;">1. plural in -s: only masculine nouns (from the "az" class of Proto-Germanic)

<p style="font-weight:normal;">weg-wegs (=way-ways), dag-dags (=day-days), arm-arms (=arm-arms), wagen-wagens (=car-cars)

<p style="font-weight:normal;">2. plural in -r: only feminine nouns (from the "o" class of Proto-Germanic)

<p style="font-weight:normal;">tunge-tunger (=tongue-tongues), nase-naser (=nose-noses), stråte-stråter (=street-streets), stunde-stunder (=hour-hours)

<p style="font-weight:normal;">3. Plural ending in -e without umlaut (from a merging of the "a" class of Proto-Germanic, which contained only neuter nouns, and the "iz" class, where the three genders were present)

<p style="font-weight:normal;">hous-house (=house-houses), been-beene (=leg-legs), kind-kinde (=child, children), sted-stede (=city-cities),

<p style="font-weight:normal;">4. Plural ending in -e with umlaut (from a merging of the consonant class of Proto-Germanic and a part of the neuter nouns "a" class through analogy)

<p style="font-weight:normal;">jår-jære (=year-years), mann-mænne (=man-men), foot-føte (=foot-feet), mous-myse (=mouse-mice)

<p style="font-weight:normal;">5. Plural ending in -n (from a merger of various "-n" classes of Proto-Germanic, and some nouns from the other classes through analogy, here again all genders may be found)

<p style="font-weight:normal;">frawe-frawen (=woman-women), ooge-oogen (=eye-eyes), oore-ooren (=ear-ears), sterne-sternen (=star-stars)

Verbs
There are five classes of verbs in Skundavisk, all of which go back to the older Proto-Germanic classes:  the weak verbs,   the strong verbs, the mixed verbs, the modal verbs and the irregular verbs. There are only two simple tenses: present and past, but like in English there are various compound tenses using auxillary verbs, including a present perfect, which is formed using the auxillary verbs haven (=have) and wesen (=be) with the past participle.

1. Weak verbs:

It is the most common class of verbs, and is the only productive class, therefore a newly created verb is generally weak. The endings of the simple present tense are very similar to their German equivalents.

Example: maken (=make)

ik make=I make

thou makst=you make (sing., cf archaic English thou makest)

hi, si, hit makt=he, she it makes

wi maken=we make

ji makt=you make (plu., cf archaic English ye make)

si, Si maken=they, you (formal) make

The weak verbs form their simple past by adding a dental suffix to their roots, generally "t" or "d" depending on the preceding consonant, which is analogous to the English suffix "-ed", which is always spelled with a "d" but may either be pronouned with a "d" or a "t" sound. Here are the rules to choose the right consonant:

root ending in g, j, l, m, n, r, w: -de (ex. hiwen-hiwde=form-formed)

root ending in gh, k, kk, p, s, sk: -te (ex. maken-makte=make-maid)

root ending in d, gg, mm, rr, th, v: -ede (ex. grynden-gryndede=found-founded)

root ending in t: -ete (ex. haten-hatete=hate-hated)

The endings of the simple past tense are mostly the same as in the present tense.

<p style="font-weight:normal;">Example: maken (=make)

<p style="font-weight:normal;">ik makte=I maid

<p style="font-weight:normal;">thou maktest=you maid (sing.)

<p style="font-weight:normal;">hi, si, hit makte=he, she it maid

<p style="font-weight:normal;">wi makten=we maid

<p style="font-weight:normal;">ji maktet=you maid (plu.)

<p style="font-weight:normal;">si, Si makten=they, you (formal) maid

<p style="font-weight:normal;">

<p style="font-weight:normal;">The past participle of a weak verb is formed by adding the prefix ge- to the past form without the final -e.

<p style="font-weight:normal;">Example: gemakt=maid (participle)

<p style="font-weight:normal;">The pst participle is required to form the present perfect form.

<p style="font-weight:normal;">Example: hi hat gemakt=he has maid 2. Strong verbs:

Like every Germanic language, Skundavisk has a strong verb class, which is composed of the oldest verbs of the language. In the Germanic languages, a strong verb is a verb that forms its past forms through vowel alternation (or ablaut) instead of using a dental suffix (ex. English drive-drove-driven). This class is no more productive, which means that no newly formed verb can be strong. The Skundavisk strong verbs are basically the same as in German, and are divided in seven subclasses that follow quite regular patterns to form their past forms. The following table displays the various patterns of the Skundavisk strong verbs. Several features can be noticed in this table. First, the vowel of the root may change at the present tense. This happens only for the 2nd and 3rd persons, and is similar to what happens in German. Moreover, there are two forms for the past tense, one for the singular and one for the plural, which also used to be the case in Middle English and Middle High German, but in these languages the two forms merged in the early modern period. We also notice that unlike English, but like Dutch and German, the past participle of strong verbs always end in "-en" (it used to be the case in English, but several verbs lost their "-en" ending over time, while others kept it).

As for the conjugation, the endings are basically the same as for the weak verbs:

Example: drijven (=drive)

ik dreef=I drove

thou dreefst=you drove (sing.)

hi, si, hit dreef=he, she, it drove

wi driven=we drove

ji drift=you drove

si, Si driven= they, you (formal) drove

Note that when the voiced letter  "v"   of the root comes in contact with the "t", it shifts to its voiceless counterpart "f".

3. Mixed verbs:

This class consists mainly of descendants of Proto-Germanic weak verbs ending in "-jan". The "j" caused i-mutation of the preceding vowel in the present form, but in the past form the original vowel remained. This is why the verbs of this class are called mixed verbs, they combine the characteristics of weak verbs (dental suffix in the past forms) and strong verbs (vowel alternation). This class also exist in English, and is composed by verbs such as think-thought-thought, sell-sold-sold or feel-felt-felt.