Northeastern Gothic

Progress 4%
	Stats Nouns 0% Verbs 0% Adjectives 0% Syntax 17% Words 0 of 1500

Northeastern Gothic Nuurthuustragutiska
Type
Fusional
Alignment
Nominative-Acussative
Head direction
Final
Tonal
No
Declensions
Yes
Conjugations
Yes
Genders
No
Nouns decline according to...
Case	Number
Definiteness	Gender
Verbs conjugate according to...
Voice	Mood
Person	Number
Tense	Aspect

Northeastern Gothic or Sozh Gothic is an endangered East Germanic language, being the only one in this group that it is still spoken but only by few people in some remote parts of Keltsvia. Today it does not have any official status but it is taught locally in towns where it has some speakers. The other name of this languages comes from its location in the Sozh river valley, in central Keltsvia. The Keltsvian Statistic Institute estimates that this language is spoken by no more than 700 people. This minority is known in Keltsvia as Gotanan Keltsvihi (Keltsvian for "Keltsvian Goths"), which is considered a separated ethnic group from the Keltsvian Germans.

As a Germanic language, Northeastern Gothic is a part of the Indo-European language family. the language survived until today in remote and small communities. The closest languages are the extinct Crimean Gothic, that survived in the lower Danube area and in isolated mountain regions in Crimea and, the Bible Gothic.

Classification

Northeastern Gothic is an Indo-European language and belongs to the East Germanic group of the Germanic languages. Gothic originated from a Germanic tribe whose origin is still unknown, some scholars affirm that Goths were located in Scythia, the lower Danube and the European coasts of the Black Sea and from there, they migrated to different parts of Europe, some went to southern France and the Iberian Peninsula forming the Visigothic Kingdom, others went to Italy, known as Ostrogoths but some others remained in Eastern Europe. From those who stayed in Eastern Europe, two languages were derived, the already extinct Crimean Gothic, in Crimea and the Black Sea and the Northeastern Gothic, in the Sozh river valley, where they still have some small communities of speakers.

Being surrounded by other communities of speakers of other languages (Keltsvian, Russian, Belarusian, Romavian) but not from other Germanic speakers, the language acquired some influence in vocabulary and to a lesser extent phonology from these languages. But it still remained conservative in their language and it has some unique characteristics amongst the Germanic language family.

History

Due to the lack of sizeable texts in this language it is extremely difficult to know about the history of this language and it was mainly an only-spoken language. This language was not regulated until recently and it was taught only at homes.

There are some records from private letters written in this language, using the Cyrillic alphabet, the Latin alphabet or even the old Gothic Runic alphabet. What linguists know is that the language community, even it was spread in the Sozh valley, they were in contact with each other using the language, that could be the reason this language has no distinct dialects.

There was an attempt in 2015 to regularize this language by Nagav's government but it was stopped by the Keltsvian Civil War. In September 2019, the Keltsvian Academy of Gothic language was founded and they standardized the orthography of the language and adopted the Latin alphabet.

Phonology

Consonants

There are 22 consonant phonemes in Northeastern Gothic language.

	Bilabial	Dental	Alveolar	Palatal	Velar	Glottal
Nasal	m		n		ŋ
Stop	p b		t d		k g
Sibilant fricative			s z
Non-sibilant fricative	ɸ β	θ ð			x ɣ	h
Approximant	w			j
Trill			r
Lateral approximant			l

Almost each one of this phonemes has an exclusive grapheme associated, which makes this language very easy to read:

• The phoneme /b/ is only pronounced when the grapheme b is written at the beginning of a word after a stop or after a nasal consonant. Elsewhere, the phoneme /β/ is pronounced.
• The phoneme /d/ is only pronounced when the grapheme d is written at the beginning of a word after a stop or after a nasal consonant. Elsewhere, the phoneme /ð/ is pronounced.
• The phoneme /ɸ/ is always represented by the grapheme f.
• The phoneme /g/ is only pronounced when the grapheme g is written at the beginning of a word after a stop or after a nasal consonant. Elsewhere, the phoneme /ɣ/ is pronounced.
• The phoneme /h/ is always represented by the grapheme h.
• The phoneme /j/ is always represented by the grapheme j.
• The phoneme /k/ is always represented by the grapheme k.
• The phoneme /l/ is always represented by the grapheme l.
• The phoneme /m/ is always represented by the grapheme m.
• The phoneme /n/ is always represented by the grapheme n.
• The phoneme /ŋ/ is always represented by the digraph ng.
• The phoneme /p/ is always represented by the grapheme p.
• The phoneme /r/ is always represented by the grapheme r.
• The phoneme /s/ is always represented by the grapheme s.
• The phoneme /t/ is always represented by the grapheme t.
• The phoneme /θ/ is always represented by the digraph th.
• The phoneme /w/ is always represented by the grapheme w.
• The phoneme /x/ is always represented by the grapheme x.
• The phoneme /z/ is always represented by the grapheme z.

Vowels

Northeastern Gothic language has 7 different vowel phonemes, one of them has a long counterpart and another one can be only found as long vowel.

	Front	Central	Back
Close	i y		u:
Near-close			ʊ
Close-mid	e		o
Open		a a:

• The phoneme /a/ is always represented by the grapheme a and its long counterpart (/a:/) by the duplication of the same grapheme, aa.
• The phoneme /e/ is always represented by the grapheme e.
• The phoneme /i/ is always represented by the grapheme i.
• The phoneme /o/ is always represented by the grapheme o.
• The phoneme /ʊ/ is always represented by the grapheme u.
• The phoneme /u:/ is always represented by the graphemes uu. This phoneme can be only found as a long vowel.
• The phoneme /y/ is always represented by the grapheme y.

Phonotactics

A Northeastern Gothic syllable includes a syllable nucleus consisting of a vowel sound. Syllable onset and coda (start and end) are optional. A syllable can start with up to three consonant sounds, as in spruutej /spru:tej/ "speed", and end with up to four, as in ansts /ansts/ "grace". This gives a Northeastern Gothic syllable the following structure, (CCC)V(CCCC) where C represents a consonant and V a vowel. The consonants that may appear together in onsets or codas are restricted, as is the order in which they may appear.

Stress, rhythm and intonation

Stress does not play an important role in Northeastern Gothic. One syllable is stressed, while the rest are not. The stress is always located in the first syllable of the stem of the word, regardlessly about how long is the word.

In terms of rhythm, Northeastern Gothic is generally described as a mora-timed language, meaning that there are different time values for syllables, but in the case of this language it is very simple. To determine the value of a syllable, the stress has no say in it, it always depends in the syllabic nucleus, the vowel. Syllables with short vowels have a value of 1 and syllables with a long vowel have a value of 2. A long vowel syllable take the double of time to be pronounced than a short vowel syllable. For example:

• The word thaarko "hole" has two syllables thaar and ko. It has one long syllable and one short syllable, so its syllabic value is 2+1=3.
• The word milith "honey" has two syllables mi and lith. It has two short syllables, so its syllabic value is 1+1=2.

So, having both words the same number of syllables, it takes a bit longer to pronounce thaarko than milith.

The intonation is almost flat in this language, giving an impression of "robot speech". The word order is the only way to know when a speaker is asking a question.

Grammar

	Gender	Cases	Numbers	Tenses	Persons	Moods	Voices	Aspects
Verb	No	No	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	No
Nouns	Yes	Yes	Yes	No	No	No	No	No
Adjectives	Yes	Yes	Yes	No	No	No	No	No
Numbers	No	Yes	No	No	No	No	No	No
Participles	No	No	No	No	No	No	No	No
Adverb	No	No	No	No	No	No	No	No
Pronouns	Yes	Yes	Yes	No	Yes	No	No	No
Adpositions	No	No	No	No	No	No	No	No
Article	Yes	Yes	Yes	No	No	No	No	No
Particle	No	No	No	No	No	No	No	No

Northeastern Gothic preserves many archaic Indo-European features that are not always present in other Germanic languages, in particular the rich Indo-European declension system. Northeastern Gothic has nominative, accusative, genitive and dative cases, as well as vestiges of a vocative case that is sometimes identical to the nominative and sometimes to the accusative. The three genders of Indo-European are all present. Nouns and adjectives are inflected according to one of two grammatical numbers: the singular and the plural.

Grammatical cases

Northeastern Gothic is an inflected language, and as such its nouns, pronouns, and adjectives must be declined in order to serve a grammatical function. A set of declined forms of the same word pattern is called a declension. there are five grammatical cases in Eastern Gothic with a few traces of an old sixth instrumental case.

The grammatical cases are:

• Nominative: used to express the subject of a statement. It is also used with copulative verbs.
• Vocative: used to address someone or something in direct speech. This case is indicated in English by intonation or punctuation, e.g. "Mary is going to the store" ("Mary" is nominative) compared to "Mary, are you going to the store?" or "Mary!" ("Mary" is vocative).
• Accusative: expresses the direct object of a verb. In English, except for a small number of words which display a distinct accusative case (e.g., who > whom, I > me, he > him), the accusative and nominative cases are identical.
• Genitive: expresses possession, measurement, or source. In English, the genitive case is represented analytically by the preposition of or by the enclitic "–'s", which itself developed from the genitive case. This –'s is related to the common Northeastern Gothic "-s".
• Dative: expresses the recipient of an action, the indirect object of a verb. In English, the prepositions to, from and for most commonly denote this case analytically.
• Instrumental: used to express the place in or on which, or the time at which, an action is performed. The instrumental case only survives in a few preposition forms in Northeastern Gothic.

Northeastern Gothic language grammars often follow the common NOM-ACC-GEN-DAT order used for the Germanic languages. VOC is usually attached to the same line as ACC as a combined VOC-ACC, but if not, it may be placed between NOM and ACC.

Nouns

Nouns can be divided into numerous declensions according to the form of the stem: a, o, i, u, an, on, ejn, r, etc.

Short and long stems

An important distinction in many of the declension classes below is the difference between "short" and "long" stems. Frequently declension classes are divided into two subclasses, one for short-stemmed nouns and one for long-stemmed nouns.

A short stem contains:

• Either a short vowel followed by at most a single consonant (consonants at the beginning of an ending do not count),
• Or a long vowel or diphthong with no following consonant (other than possibly a consonant at the beginning of an ending),

A long stem is all other types of stems:

• Either a long vowel or diphthong followed by at least a single consonant (not counting consonants at the beginning of an ending),
• Or a short vowel followed by at least two consonants (same caveat concerning consonants at the beginning of an ending),
• Or a word whose root (minus any prefixes and suffixes) is more than one syllable in length, e.g. raginejs "counsellor", with root ragin- and -ejs being the long-stemmed -ja declension ending.

Strong declensions

The -a declension

This declension has as counterparts the second declension (-us/-um) of Latin, and the omicron declension (-os/-on) of Greek. It contains masculine and neuter nouns.

Case	dags day m.				wuurd word n.
	Singular		Plural		Singular		Plural
Nominative	dags	–s	dagos	–os	wuurd	–	wuurda	–a
Accusative (Vocative)	dag	–	dagans	–ans
Genitive	dagis	–is	dage	–e	wuurdis	–is	wuurde	–e
Dative	daga	–a	dagam	–am	wuurda	–a	wuurdam	–am

A varied set of nouns have two stems, one occurring with endings that are null or begin with a consonant (the nominative, accusative and vocative singular) and another that occurs with endings beginning with a vowel (all but the previously listed forms).

• Stem ending in f changes in b. See table with further explanation below.
• Stem ending in short vowel + r does not receive s (-z) in the nominative case.
• Stem ending in -z does not lose the z in her nominative case. This has to do with the other cases and their pronounceability.

Case	hlaafs loaf, bread m.				huubith head n.
	Singular		Plural		Singular		Plural
Nominative	hlaafs	–s	hlaabos	–os	huubith	–	huubida	–a
Accusative (Vocative)	hlaaf	–	hlaabans	–ans
Genitive	hlaabis	–is	hlaabe	–e	huubidis	–is	huubide	–e
Dative	hlaaba	–a	hlaabam	–am	huubida	–a	huubidam	–am

Other nouns with two stems are:

• masculine thys "servant" (accusative singular thy but genitive singular thywis, nominative plural thywos, etc.)
• neuter kny "knee" (accusative singular kny but genitive singular knywis, nominative plural knywa, etc.);
• neuter try "tree" (forms parallel to kny).

The -ja declension

This declension is really just the -a declension with a j immediately preceding. However, due to various sound laws, a new declension subcategory has arisen that does not exactly follow the form of the plain -a declension. Similar developments occurred in Greek and the Slavic languages, among others. It has as counterparts the second declension nouns in (-ius/-ium) of Latin. The counterparts in Greek are some second declension nouns in (-ios/-ion), as well as many that show effects of palatalization (e.g., -zdos < *-gyos or *-dyos; -llos < *-lyos; -ptos < -*pyos; -ssos or -ttos < -*tyos; -airos/-ejros/-oiros < *-aryos/-eryos/-oryos; -ainos/-ejnos/-oinos < *-anyos/enyos/onyos; etc., and similarly for neuter nouns in -ion or *-yon). It contains masculine and neuter nouns.

Case	harjis army m.				haardejs herdsman m.				kuni race n.
	Singular		Plural		Singular		Plural		Singular		Plural
Nominative	harjis	–jis	harjos	–jos	haardejs	–ejs	haardjos	–jos	kuni	-i	kunja	–ja
Accusative (Vocative)	hari	-i	harjans	–jans	haardi	-i	haardjans	–jans
Genitive	harjis	–jis	harje	–je	haardejs	–ejs	haardje	–je	kunjis	–jis	kunje	–je
Dative	harja	–ja	harjam	–jam	haardja	–ja	haardjam	–jam	kunja	–ja	kunjam	–jam

The masculine nouns have a distinction between short- and long-stemmed nouns, as described above. harjis "army" is a prototypical short-stem noun, and haardejs is a prototypical long-stem noun. Neuters, however, have merged the two types in favor of the short-stem endings. Properly, there should be a distinction in the genitive singular between short-stem -jis and long-stem -ejs, as for the masculine nouns, but -jis has mostly taken over. For a few nouns, however, both forms can be used, as in genitive andbahtejs or andbahtjis "of service", gawaarthejs or gawaarthjis "of peace", from neuter nouns andbahti "service" and gawaarthi "peace", respectively.

Note that the neuters in this declension can be said to follow the two-stem pattern (e.g. kuni vs. kunj-) described above for a-stems. A few neuters in this declension follow the same overall pattern but have additional vowel changes between the stems:

• gawi "region, district" (genitive guujis)
• hawi "hay" (genitive huujis)
• tawi "deed, work" (genitive tuujis)

The -o declension

This declension counterparts the first declension (a) of Latin, and the alpha declension (-a/-as) of Greek. It contains feminine nouns.

Case	giba gift f.
	Singular		Plural
Nominative-Accusative	giba	–a	gibos	–os
Genitive	gibos	–os	gibo	–o
Dative	gibaa	–aa	gibom	–om

The -jo declension

Nouns ending in -jo that have a short stem behave identically to normal -o stems, e.g. brakja "strife", sibja "relationship", sunja "truth". However, long-stemmed nouns in -jo have a different nominative singular ending in -i:

Case	bandi band f.
	Singular		Plural
Nominative	bandi	–i	bandjos	–jos
Accusative	bandja	–ja
Genitive	bandjos	–jos	bandjo	–jo
Dative	bandjaa	–jaa	bandjom	–jom

Note that in this particular case the "long-stem" declension includes nouns with a long vowel or diphthong and no following consonant. In addition, these nouns have a different stem in the nominative singular from all other cases:

• mawi (genitive maajos) "maiden"
• thiwi (genitive thyjos) "maidservant"

The -i declension

This declension counterparts the vowel stems of the third declension (-is) of Latin, and the third declension of Greek. It contains masculine and feminine nouns. Note that masculine nouns have become identical to -a stem nouns in the singular, while feminine nouns have preserved the original declension.

Case	gasts stranger, guest m.				kwens woman, wife f.
	Singular		Plural		Singular		Plural
Nominative	gasts	–s	gastejs	–ejs	kwens	–s	kwenejs	–ejs
Accusative (Vocative)	gast	–	gastins	–ins	kwen	–	kwenins	–ins
Genitive	gastis	–is	gaste	–e	kwenaas	–aas	kwene	–e
Dative	gasta	–a	gastim	–im	kwenaa	–aa	kwenim	–im

Similar to the situation with -a stems, some nouns have a different stem in the nominative and accusative singular than in other cases:

• drus (acc. drus, gen. drusis) "fall", masc.
• buur (acc. buur, gen. buuris) "child, son", masc.
• nuus (acc. nuu, gen. nawis) "corpse", masc.
• bruuthfaths (gen. bruuthfadis) "bridegroom", masc.; similarly suuths "sacrifice", staths "place"
• usstass (acc. usstass, gen. usstassaas) "resurrection", fem.
• arbaaths (gen. arbaadaas) "labor", fem.; similarly deths "deed", faheths "joy"

Some additional complications:

• haams "village" (fem.) is declined like a feminine -i stem in the singular, but like an -o stem in the plural.
• Feminine abstract -i stems in -ejns are declined partly like -o stems in the plural:

Case	laasejns doctrine f.
	Singular		Plural
Nominative	laasejns	–s	laasejnos	–os
Accusative	laasejn	–	laasejnins	–ins
Genitive	laasejnaas	–aas	laasejno	–o
Dative	laasejnaa	–aa	laasejnim	–im

The -u declension

This declension counterparts the fourth declension (-us) of Latin and parts of the third declension of Greek (cf. πῆχυς). It contains nouns of all genders. faahu "property" is a neuter -u stem, and like all neuters from the u stem it lacks a plural. Other remnants are the invariant neuter adjective filu "much" (with an adverbial genitive filuus), and kwaaru or gaaru "spike, goad", occurring once in a gloss. lejthu "cider, fruit wine" is attested only in the accusative singular and without any context to infer its gender, so it may have been masculine or neuter.

Case	sunus son m.				faahu property n.
	Singular		Plural		Singular
Nominative	sunus	–us	sunys	–ys	faahu	–u
Accusative (Vocative)	sunu	–u	sununs	–uns
Genitive	sunuus	–uus	suniwe	–iwe	faahuus	–uus
Dative	sunuu	–uu	sunum	–um	faahuu	–uu

Weak declensions

The -an, -on and -ejn declensions constitute a Germanic word derivation, which is also used for adjectives in the weak form marking definiteness. The declension loosely parallels the Latin nouns in -o, genitive -onis/-inis, which shares the same Indo-European declensional origin (the Greek descendant being the more regularized -on, -onos class).

The -an declension

Masculines and neuters belong to this declension.

Case	guma human m.				haarto heart n.
	Singular		Plural		Singular		Plural
Nominative	guma	–a	gumans	–ans	haarto	–o	haartona	–ona
Accusative	guman	–an	gumans	–ans
Genitive	gumins	–ins	gumane	–ane	haartins	–ins	haartane	–ane
Dative	gumin	–in	gumam	–am	haartin	–in	haartam	–am

There are a few neuter irregularities:

Case	wato water n.				namo name n.
	Singular		Plural		Singular		Plural
Nominative-Accusative (Vocative)	wato	–	watna	–na	namo	–	namna	–na
Genitive	watins	–ins	watne	–ne	namins	–ins	namne	–ne
Dative	watin	–in	watnam	–nam	namin	–in	namnam	–nam

The -on declension

This declension is the feminine counterpart of the -an declension.

Case	tungo tongue f.
	Singular		Plural
Nominative	tungo	–o	tungons	–ons
Accusative	tungon	–on
Genitive	tungons	–ons	tungono	–ono
Dative	tungon	–on	tungom	–om

The -ejn declension

This declension contains abstract feminines only.

Case	frodej wisdom f.
	Singular		Plural
Nominative	frodej	–ej	frodejns	–ejns
Accusative	frodejn	–ejn	frodejns
Genitive	frodejns	–ejns	frodejno	–ejno
Dative	frodejn	–ejn	frodejm	–ejm

Minor declensions

The -r declension

A few family nouns inherited from Proto-Indo-European have a very archaic declension. Feminines and masculines have identical forms.

Case	swistar sister f.
	Singular		Plural
Nominative	swistar	–ar	swistrys	–rys
Accusative			swistruns	–runs
Genitive	swistrs	–rs	swistre	–re
Dative	swistr	–r	swistrum	–rum

Inflected thus are also brothar m., brother, fadar m., father, duuhtar f., daughter.

The -nd declension

These nouns are old present participles, corresponding to nouns in -nt in Latin and Greek.

Case	frijonds friend m.
	Singular		Plural
Nominative	frijonds	–s	frijonds	–s
Accusative	frijond	–
Genitive	frijondis	–is	frijonde	–e
Dative	frijond	–	frijondam	–am

The root nouns

These nouns correspond to the consonant declensions in Latin and Greek (in both cases, part of the third declension).

Case	rejks ruler, boss m.				buurgs city f.
	Singular		Plural		Singular		Plural
Nominative	rejks	–s	rejks	–s	buurgs	–s	buurgs	–s
Acc.	rejk	–			buurg	–
Gen.	rejkis	–is, –s	rejke	–e	buurgs	–s	buurge	–e
Dative	rejk	–	rejkam	–am, um	buurg	–	buurgim	–im

Examples of masculine nouns are menoths "month" (gen. sg. menothis, dat. pl. menothum); rejks "ruler, boss" (gen. sg. rejkis, dat. pl. rejkam); and wejtwods "witness" (gen. sg. wejtwodis, dat. pl. wejtwodum).

Note the following irregularities:

• mitaths "measure" (gen. sg. mitads)
• nahts "night" (dat. pl. nahtam, formed after dat. pl. dagam "days")
• dulths "feast" and waahts "thing", also declined as i-stems.

Other feminine nouns are alhs "temple", buurgs "city", brusts "breast", miluks "milk", and spuurds "racecourse".

Adjectives

Adjectives have two variants, indefinite and definite, with definite adjectives normally used in combination with the definite determiners (such as the definite article sa/thata/so) while indefinite adjectives are used in other circumstances. Indefinite adjectives generally use a combination of a-stem and o-stem endings, and definite adjectives use a combination of an-stem and on-stem endings. The concept of "strong" and "weak" declensions that is prevalent in the grammar of many other Germanic languages is less significant in Northeastern Gothic because of its conservative nature: the so-called "weak" declensions (those ending in n) are, in fact, no weaker in Northeastern Gothic (in terms of having fewer endings) than the "strong" declensions (those ending in a vowel), and the "strong" declensions do not form a coherent class that can be clearly distinguished from the "weak" declensions.

Although descriptive adjectives in Northeastern Gothic (as well as superlatives ending in -ist and -ost) and the past participle may take both definite and indefinite forms, some adjectival words are restricted to one variant. Some pronouns take only definite forms: for example, sama (English "same"), adjectives like unhwejla ("constantly", from the root hwejla, "time"; compare to the English "while"), comparative adjective and present participles. Others, such as aans ("some"), take only the indefinite forms.