Ainglej

Ainglej (['aɪŋ.glex]), also sometimes called Firgerej ([fir.'xe.rex]) locally, and "Firgerian" internationally, is an Old English descendant language spoken in the area of Firgeria, at the north of Spain, between the regions of Cantabria and the Basque Country.

Firgerian Ainglej
Type	Fusional
Alignment	Nom-Acc
Head direction	Initial
Tonal	No
Declensions	Yes
Conjugations	Yes
Genders	Yes
Nouns decline according to...
Case	Number
Definiteness	Gender
Verbs conjugate according to...
Voice	Mood
Person	Number
Tense	Aspect
Meta-information
Progress	46%
Statistics Nouns 100% Verbs 0% Adjectives 83% Syntax 25% Words 20 of 1500
Creator	Milyard

Inspiration

A friend suggested me to make a conlang based on the idea of an English heavily-influenced by Spanish, which made me wonder the following:

What if a small part of the Anglo-Saxon population fled the British isles during the Norman invasion towards the south, settling on the Iberian Peninsula, and their language suffered similar sound changes to the ones Latin went through to become Spanish?

General information

Like Old English, Ainglej is a head-initial SVO language, with adjectives usually preceding the noun. When making a question, the word order changes to VSO.

The cases mostly disappear from the nouns and adjectives, keeping only the genitive apart from the nominative, and adopting the accusative plural as the nominative plural. The only parts of the language that keep full case distinctions are articles, pronouns, and determiners. In addition, adjectives lose their strong form.

Phonology

Consonants

	Labial	Dental-Alveolar	Palatal	Velar	Glottal
Nasal	m	n	ɲ
Plosive	p b	t d		k g	ʔ~h
Fricative	f	θ s		x	(ʔ~h)
Affricate		t͡ʃ
Approximant	w		j	(w)
Trill		r̥ r
Flap or tap		ɾ̥ ɾ
Lateral		l	ʎ

Vowels

	Front	Central	Back
High	i		u
Mid	e		o
Low		a

There is a bit of leeway in the actual vowel realization depending on context.

Phonotactics

The stress of a word usually falls in the second to last syllable. When it doesn’t, it is marked with an acute accent.

Writing System

The orthography is relatively regular, influenced a bit by Spanish orthography. Most consonants have their IPA values, except:

• [b, d, g] have [β, ð, ɣ] allophones between vowels, like in Spanish
• The palatal nasal is written <ñ>, like in Spanish
• The alveolar affricate is written <ch>, like in Spanish
• The palatal approximant is written <y>'
• <z> is pronounced [θ] always
• <c> is pronounced [θ] in front of <e, i>, or pronounced [k] elsewhere
• <j> is pronounced [x] always
• <g> is pronounced [x] in front of <e, i>, or pronounced [g] elsewhere
• [ɾ̥] and [r̥] are both represented <rh>
• <lh> is pronounced [ʎ]

Grammar

Nouns

Declination example: strong nouns

	Masculine Yengel ‘angel’		Feminine Jip ‘ship’		Neuter Suerh ‘sorrow’
	Singular	Plural	Singular	Plural	Singular	Plural
Nominative	Yengel	Yenglas	Jip	Jipo	Suerh	Suerga
Genitive	Yengles	Yengla	Jipes	Jipa	Suerges	Suerga

Adjectives

Adjectives form the comparative form by attaching -ra except after <r, s>, in which case it becomes -sa. The superlative form is created by adding -st if the adjective ends in vowel, or -Vst where V is the last vowel in the plain form.

Declination example: adjective goda ‘good’

		Masculine	Feminine	Neuter
goda ‘good’	Singular	goda	god	god
	Plural	godan	godan	god

Comparative: biétera, superlative: bietest

Declination example: adjective arh ‘bad’

		Masculine	Feminine	Neuter
goda ‘good’	Singular	arh	argu	arh
	Plural	arge	arga	argu

Comparative: argra, superlative: argast

Determiners

Ainglej has 2 determiners, the first of which is se, which works as either the definite article (‘the’) or the distal determiner (‘that’), with the following declension table:

Case	Masculine	Neuter	Feminine	Plural
Nominative	se	zait	sei	za
Accusative	zon		za
Genitive	zais		zair	zaira
Dative	zain			zan
Instrumental	zui		zara	zain

The other determiner, zes, is the proximal determiner (‘this’), with the following declension table:

Case	Masculine	Neuter	Feminine	Plural
Nominative	zies	zes	zeis	zas
Accusative	zesn		zas
Genitive	zesses		zesr	zesra
Dative	zesson			zesson
Instrumental	zuis		zíes	zíos

Pronouns

Personal pronouns

First and second pronouns keep their dual forms (‘we two’, ‘you two’).

First person

Case	Singular	Dual	Plural
Nominative	ic	bet	be
Accusative	mec	oncet	usec
Genitive	min	oncre	ur
Dative	me	onc	us

Second person

Case	Singular	Dual	Plural
Nominative	zu	get	ge
Accusative	zec	encet	eibec
Genitive	zin	encre	eibre
Dative	ze	enc	eib

Third person

Cases	Masculine		Feminine		Neuter
	Singular	Plural	Singular	Plural
Nominative	he	híe	hei		het
Accusative	hen		híe	hío
Genitive	hes	hiera	her	heira	hes
Dative	hen			hen	hen