Hanebrugish

Hanebrugish
Hanebrugish
Flag of Hanebrug
Pronunciation	[ˈhäːnᵊˌbɾʲʉ̞ɣɪʃ]
Created by	Charles, xadrezo
Date	September 2023
Native to	Hanebrug
Language family	Indo-European Germanic East Germanic Hanebrugish
Standard form	West Hanebrugish (Westhanebrugish)
Dialects	East Hanebrugish (Oasthanebrugish)† Sangish† Hanefurpish† Arkeburgish†

Hanebrugish (Hanebrugish:  Hanebrugish; /ˈhanəbryɡiʃ/ [ˈhäːnᵊˌbɾʲʉ̞ɣɪʃ]), also spelled Hanebruggish, is a Germanic conlang originally developed for Hanebrug, a city founded by a small band of friends (who all happened to be linguistics nerds) on a Minecraft Realm in September 2023. Its lack of umlaut and rhotacism and its other similarities to East Germanic make it characteristically simple and conservative compared to other Germanic languages that are spoken today.

Etymology

Hanebrug is ultimately named after one of Charles' cats, Hannah, who had already been enjoying a sort of celebrity status within the friend group; "Hane" is Charles' favorite nickname for her. The original proposal for the city's name was actually Haneburg, but a typo rendered it Hanebrug; the mistake stuck and the city was thus officially named Hanebrug. In Hanebrugish, Hanebrug can be analyzed as a compound of Hane ("Hannah, Hane") + brug ("bridge"), making the city's name literally translate to "Hanebridge." The term brug comes from Proto-Germanic *brugjǭ, with irregular schwa-deletion (the expected form would be *bruge).

History

Vanilla Hanebrug

View of Vanilla Hanebrug at night.

Hanebrugish was first developed in September 2023 by co-founders Charles (then known by Charlotte) and xadrezo, with the intent of giving Hanebrug a deeper, more defined culture with its own language. Because they wanted it to be both easily made and taught to the rest of Hanebrug, they did away with some of the most characteristic sound changes found in the Germanic languages, like umlaut. Unfortunately, there was never any formal effort to teach the language to the citizens of Hanebrug. Other members of Hanebrug would go on to contribute to the language's development during its first revival effort. Road signs were written in both English and Hanebrugish, as well as official documentations.

Modded Hanebrug

Sometime during the later half of September, the friend group decided that they would restart Hanebrug in a modded server. Using the same seed from before, most of the group returned to Hanebrug's location to rebuild it, now with mods. By October, a space race was brewing between Hanebrug and a member who chose to remain at the world spawn. The space race led to a destructive drama that would end with modded Hanebrug being griefed beyond repair. The situation fractured the friend group, effectively killing Hanebrug and the Hanebrugish language along with it.

2024 Revitalization Efforts

In February 2024, Charles, xadrezo and other former members of Hanebrug wanted to revive the Minecraft Realm, thus revitalizing Hanebrugish. More documentation was made on the language; members started to contribute by forming their own dialects of the language, each with their own distinct identity. This initial revitalization effort quickly died out due to even more drama. This would eventually result in one of the co-founders, Charles, being exiled from the friend group.

Even after splitting from the group, Charles still loved the conlang he co-authored and wanted to continue to work on developing it by himself; he has been actively working on it ever since then.

Phonology

Consonants

Hanebrugish has a minimal yet not relatively unusual 16-consonant phoneme inventory.

Hanebrugish Consonants

	Labial		Coronal		Dorsal		Glottal
Nasal		m		n
Stop	p	b	t	d	k	ɡ
Fricative	f		s		ʃ		h
Approximant		w		l		j
Rhotic				r

Vowels

Hanebrugish has an extraordinarily minimal, near-vertical 8-vowel inventory, unlike most Germanic languages that tend to have lots of vowel sounds (I mean, just look at Danish).

Hanebrugish Vowels

		Non-back		Back
		short	long
High	unround.	i	iə̯
	rounded	y	yə̯	uə̯
High-mid		e
Mid		ə
Low		a

Allophony

• /VN/ codas are allophonically realized as [Ṽː] (compensatory lengthening only applying toward monophthongs).
  • e.g. tanf (n. ms. 'tooth') /tãf/ [t̪ɑ̃ˑf]
  • Note: While this nasalization is not actually phonemic, it is still typically recognized in broad transcription because /n m/ become noncontrastive in the coda.
• /r/ has three standard realizations determined by placement:
  • Word-initially, it is a trill [r].
    • e.g. road (adj. 'red') /ˈruə̯d/ [ˈruːə̯d̪]
  • In complex codas, it is a retroflex approximant [ɻ].
    • e.g. swart (adj. 'black, swarthy') /ˈswart/ [ˈswäɻʈ] or [ˈswäːʈ]
    • As shown here, the rhotic will also cause other consonants to retract; this only applies to coronals. The rhotic may also elide completely, causing compensatory lengthening on a preceding monophthong.
  • Elsewhere, it is a tap [ɾ].
    • e.g. fria (num. 'three, 3') /ˈfriə̯/ [ˈfɾiːə̯]
• A decent amount of lenition occurs allophonically in Hanebrugish:
  • Voiced stops will undergo intervocalic lenition; /b d ɡ/ → [β ð ɣ].
    • e.g. oage (n. nw. 'eye') /ˈuə̯ɡə/ [ˈuːə̯ɣᵊ]
    • This lenition can also occur when the voiced stop is inbetween nasal and a vowel.
  • /ɡ/ also softens in all word-final codas and word-medial ones that are followed by a stop.
    • e.g. fua magt (v. pret. 'thou mayest') /ˌfyə̯ ˈmaɡt/ [ˌfʲʉːə̯ ˈmäxt̪θ]
• The fricatives /f s ʃ/ voice intervocalically to /v z ʒ/.
  • e.g. fishen (v. w. 'to fish') /ˈfiʃə̃/ [ˈfɪːʒɐ̃ˑ]
  • These fricatives also voice when they are inbetween a nasal and a vowel, like voiced stops.
• /y yə̯/ are better phonetically realized as [jʉ̞ jʉːə̯]; these vowels will palatalize preceding consonants. Following only /j/ do these vowels remain phonetically intact as [ʏ yːə̯].
  • e.g. jua bua (v. irr. 'you (all) are') /ˌjyə̯ ˈbyə̯/ [ˌjyːə̯ ˈbʲʉːə̯]

Phonetic Vowel Qualities

		Stressed + open	Closed or unstressed	Nasalized
/i/
/iə̯/
/y/	intact
	broken
/yə̯/	intact
	broken
/uə̯/
/e/
/ə/
/a/