Lexember, Day 08: combreċa

Bear with me, I’m trying out something with the orthography. I have this whole palatal series, and I don’t really like digraphs, but I also don’t really like putting diacritics over consonants.

Or, I should say, in this context – I’ve said stuff like that before, and someone always comes up with some kind of “…but you use ǧ ž č š in Valthungian!” or “…what about all the wild digraphs in Modern Standard Imperial?” but not every feature is going to “taste” the same in every language. Think of it like this: Features like diacritics and special characters and deep orthographies – and, for that matter, palatals and pharyngeals and approximants, and anti-causatives and impersonal voice and iterative aspect – are all just individual spices in your conlanging cupboard. You can’t use them all in every recipe. I have recipes where I use offensive amounts of nutmeg, and I have conlangs that have an uncomfortable number of diacritics sprinkled on them. But 2tbsp of nutmeg doesn’t belong in most recipes, and diacritics on more than half of the graphemes don’t belong in most conlangs – and in the case of Gothic Romance, I’m a little diacritic-shy. 

(Is it a run-on sentence if there are four other complete sentences and a secondary parenthetical enclosed in a parenthetical?) 

Anyway, I’m trying out the dot-above-as-palatal thing for a minute, because I don’t like the taste of the cedilla option, and all of the digraph possibilities I can think of feel a little flat to me.

Lexember, Day 07: iê, ieth, que

There are two important things to take away from today’s Lexember words. 

The first is the distinction between iê and ieth, which is etymologically vast, but for practical purposes is the same as the distinction between a and an in English, or knowing when to use le or l’ – or any other kind of liaison – in French. There are a lot of these sorts of words with alternate pre-vocalic forms, though this is the only one (so far) in which the two forms come from completely different sources.

The second important takeaway is that of the clausal versus phrasal conjunction. These are not interchangeable: iê and ieth must always be accompanied by a verb and join two clauses, while que connects two words in the same clause (usually nouns). It can help to think of iê and ieth as equivalent to “and then” while que is closer to “and also.”

Lexember, Day 06: cronu

I set out today to showcase and discuss a small but bigger-than-you’d-think class of words in Gothic Romance that can be traced back equally to Latin and Gothic. That is, their forms are similar enough and a few sound changes align in the right way that the resulting word would be the same ragardless of which branch it came from. This is compounded by the “word game” culture of the speakers of Bad Romance and Italian Gothic (which, as I’ve mentioned in previous posts, were spoken in tandem by mostly bilingual speakers in a small city in northern Italy from the 12th to the 17th century), where jocular swapping of the occasional vowel often gave rise to permanent hybrid forms (cf. voqua ‘water’). 

In addition to cronu, a few others are veru ‘man’ (cf. Latin vir, Gothic waír, both from PIE *wiHrós), ezja ‘her’ (cf. Latin ea, Gothic ija), dreombra ‘to dream’ (cf. Latin dormīre ‘to sleep’, Gothic dráumjan ‘to dream’), and lôgura (cf. Latin lavāre ‘to wash’, Gothic lauga ‘laundry’).

However, before I got through making the above panel for cronu, I went for a trip down the proverbial rabbit-hole, trying to figure out the best way to derive a deadjectival (adverbial) suffix (‘‑ly’). Romance languages pretty universally use the suffix ‑mente from Latin mēns ‘mind’, and while it has an interesting semantic history, it wasn’t where I wanted to go with Gothic Romance. Germanic languages are a little less uniform, but a plurality of them use some derivation of ‑līk, from ProtoGermanic līką ‘body’. Now, a reasonable person would just look for a good derivation of a word that means ‘way, manner’, and for a moment I almost used ‑mo, cf. modus, quomodo, &c. But at the last minute, it occurred to me that another merger was at hand: mēns ‘mind’, līką ‘body’ – the obvious bridge to that gap is ‘heart’. 

The word ‘heart’ itself is another mixed word, croth (cf. Latin cor, with a stem-final d that gets lost in the nominative, and Gothic haírtō), but I wanted it to remain a little bit removed from the sound shifts applying to the full word, so after some fiddling around I settled on ‑cre from an earlier ‑core.

Then there’s the use of the genitive where in Romance languages we might find the “partative de,” which I’ve been noodling around with, but haven’t used in practice yet. This brought up the issue of the declension itself. I don’t want Gothic Romance to go too heavy on the inflections, but I thought it would at least be funny to steal back the genitive plural suffix from Old Valthungian which stole it from Latin to begin with. Latin ‑ārum and ‑ōrum became  Old Valthungian ‑aaru and ‑ouru,  giving way to Italian Gothic ‑aro and eventually Gothic Romance ‑ro. So **cron‑ro, but n and r are mortal enemies in Gothic Romance, and a persistent rule instantly separates them with a buffer d, which is how we end up with crondro for ‘of the horns’.

If that’s not enough excitement for one day, there’s also the unusual choice of Latin solitus  for the base of ‘usual’, which, with an unstressed vowel deletion, becomes soltus, which is when I decided to make good on my ruminating over causing a shift of VlC → VuC. An intermediate **soutu in Early Gothic Romance easily gave way to sûtu, plus our new ‑cre ending and we have a nice word for ‘usually’ as well. 

And with that, I might still make it in by midnight!

Lexember, Day 05: pêstra

I almost didn’t make it today, because there are Great Things Afoot™, but I’ve been wanting to blather on about this for a bit now. 

There are two interesting sound changes going on here, as described, but there’s also the pronoun eu, which is roughly equivalent to Italian ci or French y, derived from earlier iu, ultimately from Latin ibī. (The sentence in the example translates literally to French j’y penserai or Italian ci penserò.)

Lexember, Day 04: meôdjiris

Also a cognate with Valthungian mœ̄ǧin ‘to remind’. This was not exclusively reflexive before Late Italian Gothic, but it is rarely ever used in a non-reflexive state in modern Gothic Romance. 

Since I’m making these blog blurbs, which should probably be a bit longer and more interesting than the usual posts on FriendFace and TickTack and Strings, here are some other fun facts: Verbs that have this kind of umlaut in the infinitive and present tense lose it in the past and imperfect. In the third person singular, the present tense is (se) meôdjith (or meôdjis), but the imperfect is se môdivath, while the preterit is se môdith. The umlauted form is retained in the future, conditional, and present participle (se meôdjira, se meôdjirae, and se meôdjintu, respectively).

Lexember, Day 03: neocta

Not a “new” word today, but I chose this one to highlight a particular sound change in Gothic Romance where Latin 〈ct〉 causes some umlaut and palatalization: neocta ‘night’

Umlaut in Gothic Romance:

• a → e (/e/)
• â → ê (/eː/) 
• e → ei (/i/)
• ê → î (/iː/)
• i, î → no change
• o → eo (/ɛʊ̯/)
• ô → eô (/eːʊ̯/)
• u → eu (/iʊ̯/; becomes /ɛʊ̯/ after a liquid)
• û → eû (/iːʊ̯/

Lexember, Day 02: cembra

Part of the problem with jumping into these kinds of things at the last minute is that I’ve already changed my mind about yesterday’s word. I think it should be voqua instead of vaqua. But that gives me something to ruminate over. In the meantime, for day 2: 

cembra ‘to change’

Lexember, Day 01: vaqua

I didn’t even think about Lexember this year until today, so I haven’t really thought out my plan. My “main” language for a few years now has been Valthungian, but I’d like to focus on something else for this month. For a few years now, I’ve been playing around with another a posteriori language, Gothic Romance, which is kind of what I wanted Valthungian to be before it became what it is. I haven’t spent much time on it, though, partly because there are some very complex sound changes operating on both Romance and Germanic languages in tandem, so please take all of this month’s words with a large grain of diachronically-fortified salt.

For Lexember this month, I’m mostly just going to work my way through the Swadesh and other word lists to try to build up a good “base” vocabulary where I can ponder the diachronics for another year or so… Maybe next year I’ll do a reprisal!

Just to give a little background before I start: Valthungian was originally supposed to be, “What if the Goths who sacked Rome in 410ᴀᴅ kept speaking Gothic instead of switching to Latin?” Valthungian isn’t really that, though, and became something much more Germanic and less Romancey than I intended. I love where it’s gone, though; I have no intention of trying to undo any of that. 

Gothic Romance tries to answer the same question, but in a very specific way in a very specific setting: Picture a small town somewhere in northern Italy where two 13th-century descendants of Gothic (or, rather, Griutungi) and Vulgar Latin (whatever that means) coexisted among a bilingual population for a few hundred years. The two languages (Italian Gothic and Bad Romance, respectively) develop a sort of common, synchronized phonology, and word games pop up spawning slang terms by applying affixes or inflections of one language to roots of the other, and after another five centuries or so, Gothic Romance is the result. I wouldn’t quite call it a creole, but perhaps a mixed language of sorts. A spicy mélange.

For illustrative purposes, here are a couple of examples from the vocabulary I’ve already established:

Latin decem /dekem/ → VL dece → deh → BR dê   ↘

Gothic taíhun /tɛhun/ → OV tehun → IG têju    →     GR têio /teːjo/

(For a while, têio probably coexisted with a Latinate dêio, but eventually the Germanic unvoiced version prevailed. The same kind of thing happens with a number of words with similar structures.)

Other words were merged or altered by word games that eventually became permanent, e.g.:

Latin aqua → BR aqua →

Gothic watō ~ Griutungi watōr → OV watour → IG vatur →

…but from aqua and vatur came vaqua and vaqur and aquor and vatua and atuor, and eventually vaqua becomes the accepted term, while vatuor remains as a term of art in plumbing and aqua- continues to be found in many derivations. (This may sound silly to some, but take a long look at variants in Middle English and tell me with a straight face that this is unreasonable!

So for Lexember Day 1, I’m going to start with the example above, most of which I invented as I was drafting this post:

[Lexember 2023, Day 01 - Gothic Romance

vaqua

n.neu. - /ˈva.kwa/

‘water’

In Bad Romance and Italian Gothic, there were any number of commonly accepted terms for ‘water’, including aqua, aquor, atuor, vaqua, vatua, vatuor, and vatur. They ultimately derive from Latin aqua and Gothic watō (or, more likely, Griutungi watōr).

‘I would like some water with ice, please.’ 

Ulirèu vaqua ambith glîs, mercjes.

A language by Jamin - lingufacture.com]

Valthungians in Spaaaaaaace!

I wanted to put together some fun Valthungian stuff about astronomy and other cosmological stuff, but I don’t really have a cohesive theme for it other than to just give you some sets of interesting words. So here you go:

(I’m including the dative form of these terms where applicable, because one of the interesting things about astronomy terms is that many of them are formed by turning normal a-stem nouns or adjectives into j- or u-stem neuters, giving them a little spin. Unfortunately the j-stem neuters look completely boring and ordinary in the nominative and accusative singular, but they can get pretty wild in the remaining cases.)

Sōgila (n.f, dat. sōgila): The Sun.

Early Germanic had two words for ‘sun’: *sōwilō (cognate with Latin sol) and *sunnǭ (cognate with English sun). In Valthungian, *sōwilō became sōgila, which kept the meaning of ‘sun’, while *sunnǭ became sutna and came to mean ‘sunlight’ or ‘sunshine’.

• Sōgilaris (adj): solar.
• Sutna (n.f, dat. sutnin): sunlight, sunshine, the light from the sun.

Mēna (n.m, dat. mēnin): The Moon.

• Mēnalis (adj): lunar.
• Baðmus Mēnalis (n.m. dat. baðmua mēnalitma): phase of the moon.
• Ǧunge (n.n, dat. ǧunǧa): Young Moon. (The phases of the moon from new to full.)
• Lēse (n.n, dat. lēša): New Moon (“Empty Moon”).
• Nio (n.n, dat. njuga): Waxing Crescent (“New Moon” – careful, false friends!)
• Tǣsue (n.n, dat. tǣsuja): Waxing/First Quarter (“Right Moon”).
• Saðe (n.n, dat. seþia): Gibbous Moon (“Sated Moon”).
• Laðe (n.n, dat. leþia): Old Moon  (The phases of the moon from full to new.)
• Futle (n.n, dat. fytlia): Full Moon (“Full Moon”).
• Flage (n.n, dat. fleǧa): Disseminating Moon  (“Fallow Moon”).
• Þlīðume (n.n, dat. þlīðumia): Waning/Last Quarter (“Left Moon”).
• Sigiðe (n.n, dat. sigiþia): Balsamic Moon (“Scythe Moon”).

Hreufs (n.m, dat. hreuva): Planet. While this readily translates to “planet” in our traditional understanding of it, there are small differences. Hreufs refers specifically to celestial objects which orbit a sun and have achieved hydrostatic equilibrium (i.e. they are round), so this includes the category of dwarf planets which do not clear their solar neighborhood. Pluto may not be a planet anymore, but it is definitely a hreuf, as is Ceres, and Eris, and others! Hreufs comes from the verb hreuvna ‘to bend’ or ‘to arc’, i.e. ‘to be round’, hence the additional importance placed on hydrostatic equilibrium.

The planets in Valthungian are generally named for the Germanic counterparts of the Roman and Greek deities they are named for in most languages, though most with a j- or u-stem suffix to distinguish them from the Gods themselves, and it doesn’t hurt that that obscures them a little from the mayonnaise people who get excited whenever someone says “Germanic” on the internet.

• Brekurio (n.n, dat. Brekuria): Mercury (from Latin Mercurius).
• Wōðe (n.n, dat. Wœuǧa): Mercury (from Wōðnas ‘Odin’, an archaic name, now mostly replaced by Brekurio).
• Frīðe (n.n, dat. Frīǧa): Venus (from Frīde ‘Frigg’).
• Miǧingraþs (n.f, dat. Miǧingraða) Earth (“Middle Area”). Not to be confused with reða, which just means ‘dirt’.
• Tījo (n.n, dat. Tījuga): Mars (from Tījus ‘Tiw, Týr’).
• Sive (n.n, dat. Sibia): Ceres (from Sifs ‘Sif’).
• Þundre (n.n, dat. Þyndria): Jupiter (from Þundra ‘Thor’).
• Boro (n.n, dat. Borua): Saturn (from Bor ‘Bor’).
• So Boris Greða (n.f, dat. þiža Boris Greða) Saturn’s Rings. (Literally, “Bur’s Belt”) – Note that it’s “Boris” and not “Borus,” so actually “Bur” and not the derived planetary name.
• Būre (n.n, dat. Bȳria): Uranus (from Bȳria ‘Búrr’).
• Dreðo (n.n, dat. Dreðua): Neptune (from Dreðus ‘Njǫrðr, Nerthuz’).
• Hale (n.n, dat. Helia): Pluto (from Helia ‘Hel, Hela, Hell’).
• Luke (n.n, dat. Lyča): Eris (from Luka ‘Loki’).

Rikuže (n.n, dat. rikuža): eclipse (of any sort).

• Tunglarikuže (n.n, dat. tunglarikuža): eclipse (pretty much a synonym of rikuže, though the latter has some metaphorical applications that are lost once you add tungla- to the word.)
• Rikuže sōgilare (n.n, dat. rikuža sōgilaritma): solar eclipse.
• Rikuže mēnale (n.n, dat. rikuža mēnalitma): lunar eclipse.
• Blōðe (n.n, dat. blœuþia): lunar eclipse (informal).

Tungla (n.n, dat. tungla): planet, star, asteroid, sun, moon, natural satellite, or any other large celestial body. This is a nice old word that has sadly fallen out of use in English, though it would probably be a modern “**tungle,” rhyming with “jungle,”  meaning basically anything in the sky that isn’t a bird or a cloud. Any “heavenly sphere,” if you will, but the modern Valthungian word also extends to celestial objects that are not spherical, like asteroids.

• Tangle (n.n, dat. tenglia): comet. This word has some mysterious etymology, but the consensus is usually that it was an early portmanteau of tungla (see above) and tagla ‘ponytail’ with a j-stem suffix added.
• Tunglasproþs (n.f, dat. tunglasproða) orbit. Literally, “racetrack for celestial objects.”
• Strǣna (n.f, dat. strǣna): asteroid.

In English, an asteroid is any small rocky object which orbits the sun, but the definition of strǣna in Valthungian is both broader and narrower. Any asteroid which is round is considered to be a hreuf (‘planet’), while similar rocky bodies orbiting or caught in the orbit of planets – which we would call moons or satellites in English – are also strǣna in Valthungian.

• Sa Strǣnaþrinǧ (n.m, dat. þam Strǣnaþringa) The Asteroid Belt
• Strǣnahuīn (n.n, dat. strǣnahuīna): meteor, shooting star, falling star.
• Tunglamēna (n.m, dat. tunglamēnin) moon (not Earth’s), planetary moon.

Tunglamēna is a specialized word which specifically means any object orbiting a planet (or dwarf planet) which is round in shape (i.e. large enough to have reached hydrostatic equilibrium). Smaller planetary satellites which are not round are considered to be asteroids (“strǣna”), though if it needs to be specified that they orbit a planet or another satellite as opposed to the Sun, they can be called Tunglastrǣna. 

Þos Strenasiglis (n.f.pl, dat. þem strenasiglim): The Zodiac.

• Widrus (n.m, dat. wiðrua): Aries.
• Ǭsus (n.m, dat. ǭsua): Taurus.
• Tuinulingas (n.m.pl, dat. tuinulingma): Gemini.
• Krāba (n.m, dat. krābin): Cancer.
• Ljuga (n.m, dat. ljugin): Leo.
• Magaþs (n.f, dat. magaða): Virgo.
• Wēga (n.f, dat. wēgin): Libra.
• Skrœpia (n.m, dat. skrœpin): Scorpio.
• Šutaris (n.m, dat. šutaria): Sagittarius.
• Havra (n.m, dat. havra): Capricorn.
• Ǧutaris (n.m, dat. ǧutaria): Aquarius.
• Fiškas (n.m.pl, dat. fiškma): Pisces.

Þo mēla þiža Strenasigliro (n.n.pl, dat. þem mēlma þiža Strenasigliro): The Zodiacal Periods. Valthungian has different terms for the zodiac periods themselves, which make up part of the Valthungian calendar. This isn’t so much an astrology thing as a measurement of the seasons, lining up with the Chinese “Solar Terms” or 節氣 (jiéqì).

• Wynimēnaþs (n.m, dat. Wynimēnaða): Period of Aries (the pre-Gregorian month of April).
• Milukimēnaþs (n.m, dat. Milukimēnaða): Period of Taurus (pre-Gregorian May).
• Sutnamēnaþs (n.m, dat. Sutnamēnaða): Period of Gemini (pre-Gregorian June).
• Linþis (n.m, dat. Linþia): Period of Cancer (pre-Gregorian July).
• Haugimēnaþs (n.m, dat. Haugimēnaða): Period of Leo (pre-Gregorian August).
• Wiðumēnaþs (n.m, dat. Wiðumēnaða): Period of Virgo (pre-Gregorian September).
• Wīnamenaþs (n.m, dat. Wīnamēnaða): Period of Libra (pre-Gregorian October).
• Blōtamenaþs (n.m, dat. Blōtamēnaða): Period of Scorpio (pre-Gregorian November).
• Wintrumēnaþs (n.m, dat. Wintrumēnaða): Period of Sagittarius (pre-Gregorian December).
• Ǧulis (n.m, dat. Ǧulia): Period of Capricorn (pre-Gregorian January).
• Langistmēnaþs (n.m, dat. Langistmēnaða): Period of Aquarius (pre-Gregorian February).
• Blatimēnaþs (n.m, dat. Blatimēnaða): Period of Pisces (pre-Gregorian March).

Rūme (n.n, dat. rȳmia) Space, outer space.

• Þa Gaskējo Sōgilare (n.n, dat. þam gaskējuga sōgilaritma): The Solar System (our own).
• Gaskējo tunglare (n.n, dat. gaskējuga tunglaritma): solar system, planetary system (someone else’s).
• Gamíluke (n.f, dat. gamíluča) galaxy.
• Þa Rǭmarūm (n.n, dat. þam Rǭmarūma) the Milky Way. (Fun fact: If you want to get literal about it, Rǭmarūm could be translated as “Creamy Space.”)
• Rūminǭst (n.m, dat. rūminǭsta) space ship, starship.
• Rūmiberia (n.m, dat. rūmiberin) space shuttle.

“Live shamed, and die empty.” – Camina Drummer

 I felt like this needed to be translated into Valthungian for some reason:

“Live shamed, and die empty.” – Camina Drummer 

“Kuiži skamiða, sljutu lēsa.” – Kamina Ǧamma

29 Ǧulis, 1612

Another journal blurb. It’s got some slightly personal stuff in there, so you’re gonna have to learn Valthungian if you want to read it, but tl;dr I applied for a new job yesterday and I hope it sucks a lot less than the rest of the jobs I’ve been dealing with for the past eight years. At least it’s not for an Evil Corporation (galīkaduþs blaugawīsa) this time, though, so that’s nice.

18 Ǧanismēnaðis 2022 (1612.01.29)

Gistradagis mik frolágiðik tō drava froðu ravaǧin miðiža Skōla Ravaðis Gamǣnduǧižas Skœučis Njužižas swā hlipi·ambātalis. Suējuga nīsua vližik tō drav·ambātalitma af 8 unþ 5 aftralīðna, wēsitma fā, skātakuam forkuíðamǣtiko ǧukuna tat ǣgna, jā nī ta ravaǧin uf galīkaduða blaugawīsatma. Ik wēnia þīk it gita, þā ik mag tō birœuǧina fraðatma drava mīnin aftrakuímna instáða birœuǧins fraðatma gǣðua mīnin ǣnis dravis!

28 Ǧulis, 1612

I’ve been trying to make myself practice writing in Valthungian a little more, so I started keeping a journal with just a few lines a day. Here’s today, where I found myself very excited to have to make a distinction between thermometer and thermostat, and invent words for various types of gauges!

28 Ǧulis, 1612

Itma ist avrave klaþ hisdagis, ekiðo nī swē klaþ līka gistradag, þenis anstœuðins hehláþ -17°. Hisdagis sō hǭðuremi skal rǣkna 6°, eki sā winǧ, sā snǣjus, sā slǭta, þat rignu dōnþ þet·itm·avrava klaðiža þynča. Sā winǧ gœ̄žiþ! Itma ist windahuœuti:

‹ Windas avra, ižis magun gaslīðinins dōn, gitnaþ usbíðna, ǣða ǧuðan skegunþ.

Hǭðagustas: sunþǭstra 80 unsta 100 km/h.

Gastáþs: Skōte Njuge.

Huīlins: His undranis hitm·anþanǣča.

Inmēlinis: Windagustas avrista gitnaþ in gœ̄žim hǭðižam jā anþatma sǣjubanka usbíðna. Itma gitiþ usbíðna, þeti windas minǧnan hižis nātis fram wista ǭsta tō. Gaslīðins gatímbrinaro mag skegun, frisātis þrōvaskīvnaro ǭgadoraru. Gustas avra magun wǣtins lǭsans vrepna, ǣða astnas brečin. ›

Ik ǧukua þō vremin inþatm·ambǣča mīnin gā, eki gitnik tuismitan þī s·uremisčurins þatǣn þrjuþ siža. Ǭðagins ǣðik hātuskrœčin!

The original:

Rough translation:

January 17, 2022
It is very cold today, though not as cold as yesterday, which started out at -17°. The high today will be 6°, but the wind and snow/sleet/rain makes it seem much colder. The wind is wailing! There is a wind warning:

“Strong winds that may cause damage are expected or occurring.
Maximum gusts: southeasterly 80 to 100 km/h.
Locations: Nova Scotia.
Time span: this afternoon and this evening.
Remarks: Strongest wind gusts are expected over higher terrain and along the coast. Winds are expected to diminish from west to east tonight. Damage to buildings, such as to roof shingles and windows, may occur. High winds may toss loose objects or cause tree branches to break.”

I have turned up the heat in my office, but I suspect that the thermostat may be merely decorative. Fortunately I have a hoodie!

The Valthungian Alphabet (videos & playlist)

 Over the past few months, as I’ve had time, I’ve created three videos about the Valthungian Alphabet and pronunciation. The first one is short and sweet: Names of the letters and what they mean. Not even three minutes out of your day! The second and third are quite a bit more involved: The second goes into detail about each letter and its pronunciation, Romanisation, and various quirks. The third does the same for the seven “non-alphabetic long vowels,” and then goes on a deep dive into orthography and phonology.

You can watch all three in order with this playlist: 

https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLKJsXZMSZ0JnEropqhRAZtrnNfl_zqL-l

Or you can watch them individually below:

Part 1: The Alphabet, Short and Sweet

Part 2: The Alphabet: Deep Dive into Individual Letters

Part 3: The Non-Alphabetic Letters and Deep Dive into Phonology and Orthography