Valtamic

Valtamic
Äljämhar, Аьляьмхар
Flag of the Republic of Valtamia
Pronunciation	[ˈæˑʎɛm̥ˌχʌɾ̥]
Created by	Vrianne
Date	2024
Setting	Alt-History Baltic
Native to	Valtamia
Ethnicity	Valtamian, Livonian
Language family	Indo-European Italic Valtamic
Early forms	Proto-Indo-European Proto-Italic Proto-Valtamic
Standard form	Standard Valtamic (--)
Dialects	Northern Valtamic (--) Southern Valtamic (--) Eastern Valtamic (--) Insular Valtamic (--)
Writing systems	Latin Cyrillic
Official status
Official language in	Valtamia
Recognised minority language in	Hestia, Lettgallia, Russia
Map of areas where Vlatamic is spoken   ...as a majority language   ...as a minority language

Valtamic (endonym: äljämhor lïcür [ˈæˑʎɛm̥ˌχɔ̞ɾ̥ ˈʎiˑ(t)s̪ʏɾ̥]), also known as Livonian, is an Italic language belonging to the Indo-European language family. It is spoken mostly in the Republic of Valtamia, wherein it is recognized as the official language, located within the Baltic. It is also the only continuously surviving member of the Italic language family, as well as being one of the two only non-extinct Italic languages, along with Latin.

Classification

Valtamic belongs to the Italic branch of the Indo-European language family, along with Latin and other extinct languages such as Faliscan, Oscan, and Umbrian. It is not to be mis-classified as a Romance language, due to its relation with Latin.

Comparison with Romance languages

Due to Valtamic being the only continuously surviving Italic language, it may be erroneously grouped with the Romance languages, which are directly descended from Vulgar Latin, as opposed to Valtamic being directly descended from Proto-Italic. Even though, evolutionarily, Valtamic much older and more conservative than modern Romance languages, its evolutionary path made quite different from even Classical Latin.

English translation	Latin	Romance				Valtamic
		French	Italian	Spanish	Romanian
one	ūnus	un	uno		unu	ljar
to eat	edō, mandūcō	manger	mangiare	comer	mânca	ṡëmëco
to know	sciō, sapiō	savoir	sapere	saber	ști	hnejo
to be familiar with	cognōscō	connaître	conoscere	conocer	cunoaște
to hear	audiō	entendre	udire	oír	auzi	ozjo
language	lingua	langue	lingua	lengua, idioma	limbă	ljicür, tämva
cow	vacca	vache	vacca, mucca	vaca	vacă	aha
sheep	ovis	mouton	pecora	carnero, oveja	oaie	banar, ġüny
happy	laetus, fēlīx	heureux	felice	feliz	fericit	ilür
small	parvus, paulus	petit	piccolo	pequeño	mic	folër
all	omnēs	tous	tutto	todos	tot	mür

History

Etymology

The English exonym Valtamic is a loan from Latin Vāltamicus ("Valtamic; Livonian"), with the most likely source being from Proto-Valtamic *βältämu, from *βältä ("strange") + *ämu ("man, human"), a theorized calque of a Finnic exonym. Nearly all European languages follow with loaning the Latin exonym, such as German Waltamisch, French Valtamien, and Russian Валтамский (Valtamskij).

The native endonym Äljämhar is unrelated to the Latin exonym, instead coming from Proto-Valtamic *βärjämu, from *βäre ("foreign") + *ämu ("man, human"), + Modern Valtamic -har (adjective-nominalizing suffix) , with unexplained loss of the initial *β. It's also a theorized calque of another Finnic exonym.

Phonology

Vowels

Standardized vowel phonemes of Valtamic

		Front		Central	Back
		Unrounded	Rounded		Unrounded	Rounded
Close		i	y	ɨ	ɯ	u
Mid		e			ɤ	o (ɔ)1
Open		æ			ɑ

• /ɔ/ only exists due to vowel harmony and isn't recognized as phonemic in it's own right. Its pronunciation can range from [ɒ] to [ɔ].

Phonemically, there exist 10–11 contrasting phones. In practice though, vowels are slightly lengthened [◌ˑ] when stressed and experience slight reduction when unstressed, either lowering or centralizing.

Vowel phones of Valtamic

		Front				Central		Back
		Unrounded		Rounded				Unrounded		Rounded
		Stressed	Unstressed	Stressed	Unstressed	Stressed	Unstressed	Stressed	Unstressed	Stressed	Unstressed
Close		[i(ˑ)]	[ɪ]	[y(ˑ)]	[ʏ]	[ɨ(ˑ)]	[ᵻ]	[ɯ(ˑ)]	[ω]	[u(ˑ)]	[ʊ]
Mid		[e̞(ˑ)]	[ɛ]					[ɤ̞(ˑ)]	[ɜ]	[o̞(ˑ)]	[ɔ]
Open		[æ(ˑ)]						[ɑ̝(ˑ)]	[ʌ]		[ɔ̞]

• [ᵻ ω] are unused IPA symbols representing near-close [ɪ̈ ɯ̽].
• Back [ɑ̝(ˑ) ɤ̞(ˑ) o̞(ˑ) ɯ(ˑ) u(ˑ)] [ʌ ɜ ɔ ω ʊ ɔ̞] become central [ä̝(ˑ) ɘ̞(ˑ) ɵ̞(ˑ) ɨ(ˑ) ʉ(ˑ)] [ɐ ɜ ɞ ᵻ ᵿ ɐ] in the presence of a palatal consonant.
• Unstressed [ᵻ] may alternatively be pronounced as central [ə].
• Stressed [ɤ̞(ˑ)] may alternatively be pronounced as front [ø̞ˑ], even though it messes with the harmony of inflectional endings.
• Unstressed [ɜ] may alternatively be pronounced as central [ə], merged with [ʌ], or (in the case of stressed [ø̞ˑ]) front [œ].
• Stress-pairs [æ(ˑ) ɛ] [ɑ̝(ˑ) ʌ] may alternatively be pronounced as true open [æ̞(ˑ) ɛ̞] [ɑ(ˑ) ʌ̞].

Consonants

Standardized consonant phonemes of Valtamic

		Labial	Alveolar	Retroflex	Palatal	Velar	Glottal
Nasal		m	n	(ɳ)	ɲ	(ŋ)
Polsive	Voiceless	p	t			k
	Voiced	b	d			ɡ
Fricative	Voiceless	f	θ s	ʂ	ɕ	x	ɦ
	Voiced	v	(z)	ʐ ~ ʑ
Affricate	Voiceless		t͡s	t͡ʂ ~ t͡ɕ
	Voiced		(d͡z)	(d͡ʐ ~ d͡ʑ)
Trill/Tap			r
Lateral			l		ʎ
Non-lateral approximant					j	w

• /m n ɲ r l ʎ/ become devoiced [m̥ n̥ ɲ̊ ɾ̥ l̥ ʎ̥] syllable-finally.
• [ŋ ɳ] are allophones of /n/ near velar and retroflex consonants respectively.
• /t l/ are pronounced as dental [t̪ l̪] while /n d/ as true alveolar [n d].
• /f v/ are pronounced as approximants [ʋ̊ ʋ].
• /θ/ only appears in the cluster ⟨tr⟩ /θr/.
• /s/ is pronounced as apical/retracted [s̺] while /t͡s/, like /t/, is pronounced as dental/laminal [t̪͡s̪]. /t͡s/ de-affricates when unstressed and non-initial, giving rise to an apical/laminal distinction [s̺] [s̻] in unstressed syllables, as seen in words like ⟨uhsoucux⟩ /ˈɯxsut͡sɯx/ [ˈɯˑχs̺ʊˌs̪ωχ].
• /z/ appears in modern loanwords but is, in practice, in free variation with /ɕ/.
• /x l w/ are pronounced as [χ ɫ w] near back vowels and [x̟ l ɥ] near front vowels.
• /r/ is pronounced as a tap [ɾ] in most dialects.

Orthographies

Latin alphabet

Modern Valtamic employs the Latin alphabet, with the added vowel letters ä, ë, ï, ö, and ü and the extra consonant letters ċ, ġ, ľ, ṅ, ṡ, and ż. Prior to the post-Soviet spelling reform, various polish-adjacent digraphs, such as cz, ch, sz, etc. were used instead. The current orthography employs only three native digraphs, those being ou, lj, and nj.

Vowels

Grapheme	Sound (IPA)		Pre-Soviet spellings
	Stressed	Unstressed
a	[ɑ̝(ˑ)]	[ʌ]
ä	[æ(ˑ)]	[ɛ]	a, æ, e, ě
e	[e̞(ˑ)]
ë	[ɤ̞(ˑ)]	[ɜ]	ö, ø, œ
i	[i(ˑ)]	[ɪ]
ï	[ji(ˑ)]	[jɪ]	ji
o	[o̞(ˑ)]	[ɔ] or [ɔ̞] [a]
ö	[y(ˑ)] ~ [e̞(ˑ)] ~ [ɤ̞(ˑ)] [b]	[ʏ] ~ [ɛ] ~ [ɜ] [b]
ou	[u(ˑ)]	[ʊ]	u
u	[ɯ(ˑ)]	[ω]
ü	[y(ˑ)]	[ʏ]	ᵫ, y, u
y	[ɨ(ˑ)]	[ᵻ]	i, u

^[a] depending on vowel harmony

^[b] non-native and restricted to loanwords

Consonants

Grapheme	Sound (IPA)	Pre-Soviet spellings	Grapheme	Sound (IPA)	Pre-Soviet spellings
b	[b]		m	[m]
c	[t̪͡s̪]	ts, tz	n	[n]
ċ	[t͡ʂ] ~ [t͡ɕ]	cz, tsj, tzj	nj [d]	[ɲ]
d	[d]		ṅ [d]
dz [c]	[d͡z]		p	[p]
dż [c]	[d͡ʐ] ~ [d͡ʑ]	dzs, dj	q [c]	[k]
f	[ʋ̊]		r	[ɾ]
g	[ɡ]		s	[s̺]
ġ	[ɦ]	h, gh, vh	ṡ	[ʂ]	sz, sj
h	[x]	ch	t	[t̪]
j	[j]		v	[ʋ]	w
k	[k]		w	[w]	u
l	[l̪]		x [c]	[ks̺]
lj [d]	[ʎ]		z	[ɕ] or [z] [e]
ľ [d]			ż	[ʐ] ~ [ʑ]	zs, zj