Style Crumbs: Avoid Repetition in “ǭk ǭk”

Minor grammar note: Well, really more of a style note, I guess, since it’s not really “wrong,” per se… In Valthungian, one of the various words for “and” is ǭk (cognate with German auch, Swedish och, Old Norse ok, &c.) This ultimately comes from the class 7 strong verb *aukaną ‘to increase; to augment’. In Valthungian, *aukaną becomes ǭkna ‘to add.’

I was just writing up a recipe, and it turns out there are a lot of instances of “…and add…” which readily translates to “…ǭk ǭk…” which sounds dumb.

So new rule from the Valthungian Manual of Style’s guide to prescriptivist journalism: Use the suffix form in cases like this! Hence, “ǭku” (cf. Gothic auk-uh), which sounds much nicer!

Grammar Crumbs: Preposition 𝑢𝑓 for ‘in’ re: Languages

When talking about speaking or writing or understanding something in a language, use the preposition uf.  E.g.:

Hit ist uf angliškan skrivnas.‘This is written in English.’

The name of the language is always in the dative, almost always –an, because most languages are really just a weak feminine adjective omitting the word “language,” though you may find it written out in full as well, e.g. uftiža rasta grējutungiškan ‘in the Valthungian language’.

Though it wasn’t intentional, this is funny to me, because it looks and sounds reminiscent of German auf, which is used for language in the same context (“auf Deutsch”) but has exactly the opposite underlying meaning. So in each of these Germanic languages, a different preposition is used:

English ‘in’ – In French

German ‘on’ – Auf Französisch*

Valthungian ‘under’ – Uf Frankiškan

*One could also say im Französischen, but that’s another grammar crumb for someone else’s blog.

Grammar Crumbs: Articles and Body Parts

Grammar quirk: Valthungian has two definite articles – he and sa – which are inherited from the Germanic proximal and medial demonstratives, *hiz and *sa, respectively, and counterparts to the demonstratives his and sā. Sa is usually the default (as became the case in most Germanic languages), but you can use he if your “the” feels more “this-y” than “that-y.”

However, when referring to personal body parts, always use he for your own and sa for others’.

E.g. ‘my heart’ is always he hreta mīna – never þa hreta mīna; conversely, you would never say he hreta þīna – always þa.

Some other useful body parts:

	“mine”	“yours”
hair:	he hēr mīna	þa hēr þīna
head:	he hǭviþ mīna	þa hǭviþ þīna
brain:	he hrežne mīna	þa hrežne þīna
eyes:	hīž·ǭgana mīnan	þ·ōgana þīnan
nose:	he nasa mīna	þa nasa þīna
ears:	hi hǭsana mīnan	þo hǭsana þīnan
mouth:	he munþs mīna	sa munþs þīna
tongue:	hi tunga mīna	so tunga þīna
teeth:	his tynþis mīnans	þe tynþis þīnans
throat:	he haus mīna	sa haus þīna
neck:	he þnaka mīna	sa þnaka þīna
arm:	he rams mīna	sa rams þīna
hand:	hi handus mīna	so handus þīna
fingers:	his fingras mīnans	þe fingras þīnans
nail:	he naglas mīna	sa naglas þīna
chest:	he brust mīna	sa brust þīna
heart:	he hreta mīna	þa hreta þīna
lungs:	hi lungna mīnan	þo lungna þīnan
stomach:	he maga mīna	sa maga þīna
leg:	hīž·anke mīna	s·anke þīna
knee:	he knio mīna	þa knio þīna
shin:	hi skina mīna	so skina þīna
calf:	he waþua mīna	þa waþua þīna
ankle:	his anklas mīna	s·ānklas þīna
feet:	his fœučis mīnans	þe fœučis þīnans

Grammar Crumbs: Genitive-Dative Alignment

While the Grey Tongue uses the standard plain-old, boring-old Germanic cases (Nominative, Genitive, Dative, and Accusative, yes in that order), I’ve been gradually giving a little more responsibility to the Genitive, such as taking over certain rôles like the standard Germanic “accusative of time.” (E.g. ‘today’ – in Gothic hina dag or himma daga – is hisdagis, or sometimes hindag in specific circumstances.)

I’ve recently noticed that this has created an interesting dichotomy between the Genitive and the Dative, where they’ve started to grow into rôles of opposites: Dative being generally analogous to “to/for/towards” and Genitive to “from/of/away from.” This is particularly notable among the pronouns, which occur frequently in the genitive as well (rather uncommon in Germanic languages except for Icelandic, but there it’s actually replacing or mirroring the dative rather than contrasting with it.)

E.g. His ist mīn skenča ‘This is a gift from me’, which contrasts with His ist skenča mīns ‘This is my gift’ or ‘This is a gift of mine.’

Grammar Crumbs: Suējuga X, īðanǭðan Y: The X-er the Y-er

In Valthungian there is a handy formula: Suējuga ___, īðanǭðan ___. 

This is roughly equivalent to the English formula “the ___-er the ___-er.”
Literally it translates to “So much ___, that then still then ___.” (Gothic gets weird with its conjunctions, and Valthungian just doubles down on them.) The comparative form of the adjective should be in its uninflected adverbial form (usually –is if its inflected form takes –iža).

E.g.
Suējuga mikilis, īðanǭðan batis. ‘The bigger the better.’
Suējuga langis lečiðit, īðanǭðan vresis gengiðit wisna. ‘The longer it takes, the worse it will be.’
You can also use the same construction with mǣs / mǣža or mitnis / mitniža and noun phrases, e.g.
Suējuga mat mǣžna ǣgums, īðanǭðan grēðo mitnižna (ǣgums). ‘The more food we have, the less hungry we’ll be.’
Suējuga birœ́uǧistu mǣs, īðanǭðan tīman langižna þik lētiþ þat guþ þīna ta livna. ‘The more you complain, the longer your God lets you live.’