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 ⟨uhsoucuh⟩ /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

^[c] non-native and restricted to loanwords

^[d] ľ and ṅ are only used word-finally like in ⟨veľ⟩ and ⟨terleṅ⟩.

^[e] see phonology

Russian Cyrillic alphabet

During Soviet occupation, a Cyrillic orthography was created and is still in use by Valtamic communities in Russia

Vowels

Grapheme	Sound (IPA)		Grapheme	Sound (IPA)
	Stressed	Unstressed		Stressed	Unstressed
а	[ɑ̝(ˑ)]	[ʌ]	ө	[ɤ̞(ˑ)]	[ɜ]
ә	[æ(ˑ)]	[ɛ]	у	[ɯ(ˑ)]	[ω]
е	[je̞(ˑ)]	[jɛ]	ӱ	[wɯ(ˑ)]	[wω]
ё	[jɵ̞(ˑ)]	[jɞ] or [jɐ]	ү	[y(ˑ)]	[ʏ]
и	[i(ˑ)]	[ɪ]	ы	[ɨ(ˑ)]	[ᵻ]
ї	[ji(ˑ)]	[jɪ]	э	[e̞(ˑ)]	[ɛ]
о	[o̞(ˑ)]	[ɔ] or [ɔ̞]	ю	[jɨ(ˑ)] or [jʉ(ˑ)]	[jᵻ] or [jᵿ]
оу	[u(ˑ)]	[ʊ]	я	[jä̝(ˑ)]	[jɐ]

Consonants

Grapheme	Sound (IPA)	Grapheme	Sound (IPA)
б	[b]	н	[n]
в	[ʋ]	нь	[ɲ]
г	[ɡ]	п	[p]
д	[d]	р	[ɾ]
дз [a]	[d͡z]	с	[s̺]
дж [a]	[d͡ʐ] ~ [d͡ʑ]	т	[t̪]
ж	[ʐ] ~ [ʑ]	ў	[w]
з	[ɕ] or [z] [b]	ф	[ʋ̊]
һ	[ɦ]	х	[x]
й	[j]	ц	[t̪͡s̪]
к	[k]	ч	[t͡ʂ] ~ [t͡ɕ]
л	[l̪]	ш	[ʂ]
ль	[ʎ]	щ [a]	[ɕ] or [z] [b]
м	[m]

^[a] non-native and restricted to loanwords

^[b] see phonology

Grammar

Vowel harmony

Valtamic exhibits a simple vowel height harmony, with high, middle, and low vowels. It has no neutral vowels, apart from ö, though it is grammatically classified as a middle vowel.

High	i	ü	y	u	ou
Middle	e			ë	o
Low	ä			a

Loanwords that do not conform to vowel harmony inflect based on the final vowel of their lemma forms:

• diktätër → diktätëṡ (genitive)
• maṡyna → maṡynaľ (locative)

...though with derivational suffixes that delete the final syllable of a lemma, they inflect based on the penultimate vowel instead:

• diktätër + -cer → diktäcär → diktäcäm (accusative)
• maṡyna + -elër → maṡynilur → maṡynilunu (essive)

Nominals

Nominals decline for one of 12 cases (nominative, accusative, genitive, dative, lative, locative, separative, essive, translative, privative, comitative, and instrumental), with nouns also declining for 2 numbers (singular and plural). The gender system completely collapsed in Valtamic, except in pronouns. This vacancy led to the innovation of an animacy system, with animate and inanimate nouns.

Nominals decline according to four declension paradigms: type-I, type-II, type-III, and regular paradigms.

Type-I nouns

This paradigm corresponds with the Proto-Italic o-stem & Latin 2^nd declension. Nominals of this type are characterized as ending with -r, which changes throughout the paradigm. Mono-syllabic nominals of this type are known as true type-I nominals, since they exhibit vowel height alteration throughout the paradigm.

Type-I paradigm

	tlour, "day"		mëkër, "great"
	Singular	Plural
Nominative	tlour	tloun	mëkër
Accusative	tloum		mëkëm
Genitive	tlouṡ	tloum	mëkëṡ
Dative	tlouľ	tloul	mëkëľ
Lative "into"	tlouṅ	tlounjuľ	mëkëṅ
Locative "in, on, at, by..."	tloľ	tloljoľ	mëkëľ
Separative "out of, away from"	tlout	tloudul	mëkët
Essive as/in a certain state	tlounu	tlounou	mëkënë
Translative change of/into a state	tloc	tlocë	mëkëc
Privative "without, absence of"	tlodek	tlodok	mëkëdek
Comitative "with, alongside"	tlonek	tlonok	mëkënek
Instrumental "with, using"	tlounouj	tlounoumi	mëkënoj

Type-II nouns

This paradigm corresponds with the Proto-Italic ā- & u-stems & Latin 1^st & 4^th declensions. Most nominals of this type end with a vowel, which changes throughout the paradigm. There has also been an increase in declining Type-II nominals according to the regular paradigm instead of the type-II paradigm.

Type-II paradigm

	ṡynu, "automobile"		cäto, "prussian"
	Singular	Plural
Nominative	ṡynu	ṡynur	cäto
Accusative	ṡynum	ṡynun	cätom
Genitive	ṡynur	ṡynuzum	cätor
Dative	ṡynuľ	ṡynul	cätoľ
Lative "into"	ṡynuṅ	ṡynunjuľ	cätoṅ
Locative "in, on, at, by..."	ṡynuľ	ṡynuljuľ	cätoľ
Separative "out of, away from"	ṡynut	ṡynudul	cätot
Essive as/in a certain state	ṡynunu	ṡynunou	cätona
Translative change of/into a state	ṡynuc	ṡynucu	cätoc
Privative "without, absence of"	ṡynudik	ṡynudouk	cätodäk
Comitative "with, alongside"	ṡynunik	ṡynunouk	cätonäk
Instrumental "with, using"	ṡynuju	ṡynuïmi	cätoja

Type-III nouns

This paradigm corresponds with the Proto-Italic consonant-stems & Latin 3^rd declension. Most nominals of this type exhibit stem alteration from the nominative singular.

Type-III paradigm

	fëcel, "father"		gel, "blond(e)"
	Singular	Plural
Nominative	fëcel	fëtrer	gel
Accusative	fëtrem	fëtren	gelwëm
Genitive	fëtrer	fëtrom	gelwer
Dative	fëtreľ	fëtreġ / fëtrel [a]	gelweľ
Lative "into"	fëtreṅ	fëtrenjël / fëtrenjëľ [a]	gelweṅ
Locative "in, on, at, by..."	fëtre / fëtreľ [a]	fëtreljëľ	gelwe / gelweľ [a]
Separative "out of, away from"	fëtret	fëtredël	gelwët
Essive as/in a certain state	fëtrë / fëtrenu [a]	fëtreno	gelwë / gelwënë [a]
Translative change of/into a state	fëtrec	fëtrecë	gelwëc
Privative "without, absence of"	fëtredek	fëtredok	gelwëdek
Comitative "with, alongside"	fëtrenek	fëtrenok	gelwënek
Instrumental "with, using"	fëtrom	fëtrome / fëtreme [a]	gelwom

^[a] Southern Valtamic variants

Regular nouns

Regular paradigm

	tämrä, "girl"		tänar, "good, well"
	Singular	Plural
Nominative	tämrä	tämrär	tänar
Accusative	tämräm	tämrän	tänaram
Genitive	tämrär	tämräm	tänarär
Dative	tämräľ		tänaräľ
Lative "into"	tämräṅ	tämränjal	tänaräṅ
Locative "in, on, at, by..."	tämräľ	fëtreljaľ	tänaräľ
Separative "out of, away from"	tämrät	tämrädaľ	tänarat
Essive as/in a certain state	tämräna	tämränano	tänarna
Translative change of/into a state	tämräc	tämräca	tänarc
Privative "without, absence of"	tämrädäk	tämrädok	tänardäk
Comitative "with, alongside"	tämränäk	tämränok	tänarnäk
Instrumental "with, using"	tämräjo	tämräjämä	tänarjo