Folksprak

Folksprak
ᚠᚩᛚᛣᛋᛈᚱᚪᛣ
Writing	w:Runes
Region:	w:
Genders:	0
Cases:	0
Alignment	Nominative-Accusative
Proto-language:	w:Proto-Germanic language
Typology:	Fusional
Word-Order	V2
Languages:	w:German language, w:Bavarian language, w:Luxembourgish language w:Yiddish w:Dutch language w:Flemish w:Afrikaans w:Frisian languages w:Norwegian language
Population:	110 million
Africa: SEDES • Middle Semitic • Kintu • Guosa Central Asia: Jalpi • Caucas • Zens • Dravindian • Neo-Sanskrit Europe: Intralingua • Folksprak • Interslavic • Balkan • Samboka Far East: Dan'a'yo • IM • MSEAL

Anthropology

The language can easily be understood by any speaker of a Germanic language (a group numbering over 110 million native speakers with an additional 300 to 900 million speaking English which is nearly-Germanic) without much teaching. For example, a native speaker of German, Dutch, Swedish, Norwegian, Danish, Icelandic, Afrikaans, Yiddish or some other Germanic language, can understand a sentence like ᛁᛣᛣ ᚻᚪᚹ ᛋᛣᚱᛁᚹᛏ ᛖᚾ ᛞᛖ ᛒᚢᛣ/Ik hav skrivt en de buk with little or no thought.

Design goals include

1. intelligible with little or no training to Germanic speakers
2. simple enough for ease of learning to write or speak about normal topics
3. precise enough to deal with more complex topics (e.g. science, maybe philosophy)

where the importance descends from first to last.

Phonology

The rhotic varies across the region, and h is sometimes voiced, but neither of these pose a problem to intelligibility. Icelandic-speakers would have to learn the traditional voiced-unvoiced distinction whatever language they wanted to learn!

	Labial	Alveolar	Post.	Velar	Glottal
Nasal	/m/	/n/		*ŋ
Voiced Stop	/b/	/d/		/g/
Unvoiced Stop	/p/	/t/	*/θ~ð/	/k/
Voiced Fricative	/v/	*/z/
Unvoiced Fricative	/f/	/s/	/ʃ/	/x/	/h/
Approximant		/r/	/j/}
Lateral		/l/

There are set digraphs for non-Germanic sounds: Some non-Germanic sounds are used in transcription:

• zj = [ž] or [zh] or /ʒ/
• cj = [č] or [ch] or /tʃ/

Vowels

There are twelve vowels, six short and six long. All vowels raise when they lengthen, excepta, which moves further back. A vowel is long when it is:

1. stressed and
2. followed by no more than a single consonant

All other vowels are pronounced short, or even reduced. Vowels written twice are said over two syllables.

	Round	Front	Middle	Back
High	/ʏ/ /yː/	/ɪ/ /iː/		/ʊ/ /uː/
Mid.	/œ/ /øː/	/ɛ/ /eː/	/ə/ *	/ɔ/ /oː/
Low		/a/ /äː/

Diphthongs are oi, ou, ai, ei. au is the same as ou. eu is just long u.

Orthography

Consonants

English [th] and [z] are rather late additions to the alphabet, and not part of Folksprak today. There are, in fact, many such letters which would be needed for place names around Europe. ᛊ/Z, ᛢ/Q, ᛝ/Ŋ, and ᚦ/Þ are not productive and part of "historic" name spellings only. Swedish /ɧ/ may be written ᚺ. (Other "old" letters include ᛠ/Ä, ᚫ/Æ, ᛡ/Ï, ᛥ/ST, ᚸ/Ȝ, and ᛤ/KK.)

	Labial	Alveolar	Post.	Velar	Glottal
Nasal	/m/ ᛗ	/n/ ᚾ		*ŋ *ᛝ
Voiced Stop	/b/ ᛒ	/d/ ᛞ		/g/ ᚷ
Unvoiced Stop	/p/ ᛈ	/t/ ᛏ	*/θ~ð/ *ᚦ	/k/ ᛣ
Voiced Fricative	/v/ ᚹ	*/z/ *ᛊ
Unvoiced Fricative	/f/ ᚠ	/s/ ᛋ	/ʃ/ ᚳ	/x/ ᛉ	/h/ ᚻ
Approximant		/r/ ᚱ	/j/ ᛄ
Lateral		/l/ ᛚ

Vowels

	Round	Front	Middle	Back
High	/ʏ/ /yː/ ᚣ	/ɪ/ /iː/ ᛁ		/ʊ/ /uː/ ᚢ
Mid.	/œ/ /øː/ ᛟ	/ɛ/ /eː/ ᛖ	/ə/ *	/ɔ/ /oː/ ᚩ
Low		/a/ /äː/ ᚪ

Morphology

• definite article ᛞᛖ/de
• indefinite article ᛖᚾ/en, same as 'one' (different vowel length)
• possessive (genitive) ending -ᛋ/s
• plural ending -ᛖᚾ/en (pronounced enn)
• Adjectives do not inflect for number, gender, or case
• comparative adjective ending -ᛖᚱ/er (pronounced err)
• superlative adjective ending -ᛖᛋᛏ/est
• ordinal number suffix -ᛞᛖ/de

ᛗᚪᚾᚾmann   ᛗᚪᚾᚾᛖᚾmannen
ᛗᚪᚾᚾᛋmanns ᛗᚪᚾᚾᛖᚾᛋmannens

Word order

1. the Subject may not be separated from the finite verb by any other word.
2. the ordinary position for the verb in a declarative sentence is as second element and in imperatives or questions as the first element.
3. the grammatical Subject must always come before any objects

Pronouns

#	Case	Person
		First	Second	Third
				Masculine	Feminine	Neuter	Reflexive
Singular	Nominative	ᛁᛣᛣ ikk	ᛞᚢ du	ᚻᛁ hi	ᛋᛁ si	ᛁᛏᛏ itt	No
	Genitive	ᛗᛁᚾ min	ᛞᛁᚾ din	ᚻᛁᛋᛋ hiss	ᚻᛁᚱ hir	ᛁᛏᛋ its	ᛋᛁᚾ sin
	Poss.	ᛗᛁᚾᛋ mins	ᛞᛁᚾᛋ dins		ᚻᛁᚱᛋ hirs		ᛋᛁᚾᛋ sins
	Accusative	ᛗᛁ mi	ᛞᛁ di	ᚻᛁᛗᛗ himm	ᚻᛁᚱᚱ hirr	ᛁᛏᛏ itt	ᛋᛁᚷ sig
Plural	Nominative	ᚹᛁ vi	ᛄᛁ ji	ᛞᛖᛁ dei			No
	Genitive	ᚢᚱ ur	ᛄᚢᚱ jur	ᛞᛖᛁᚱ deir			ᛋᛁᚾ sin
	Poss.	ᚢᚱᛋ urs	ᛄᚢᚱᛋ jurs	ᛞᛖᛁᚱᛋ deirs			ᛋᛁᚾᛋ sins
	Accusative	ᚢᛋ us	ᛄᚢ ju	ᛞᛖᛗᛗ demm			ᛋᛁᚷ sig

Verbs

• Verbs inflect for tense, not number or person.
• The lexical form is the infinitive (+e)
• Infinitive is +ᛖe
• Present and Imperative are the bare form (-e)
• Past tense is +ᛞᛖde
• Active participle +ᛖᚾᛞᛖende
• Passive participle +ᛏt
• ᚹᚪᚱᛖvare (to be) is the only irregular verb
  • ᚹᚪᚱᛖvare - infin.; ᚪᚱar - pres.; ᚹᚪᚱvar - imper.,preterite;
• Auxiliaries abound, normally with infin., but sometimes past part.
  • ᚹᛁᛚᛚᛖville + infin. = future
  • ᚻᚪᚹᛖ have + PP = perfect
  • ᚹᚪᚱᛖ vare + PP = passive
  • ᛞᚢᚱᚠᛖdurfe to be allowed
  • ᛣᚢᚾᚾᛖ kunne can
  • ᛗᚪᚷᛖ mage might, may
  • ᛗᛟᛏᛖ møte must
  • ᚳᚢᛚᛚᛖ culle should

Adverb making suffix: -ᛚᛁᛣlik (cp. English -ly). Elatives need ᛗᛖᚱmer more and ᛗᛖᛋᛏmest most