Grekelin

Grekelin
Γρεκελένικιν, Γνύjα Γρεκελένικιν
Pronunciation	[ɣn̪ut̪zɐ ɣɾɛkɛlɛn̪iki]
Created by	Aggelos Tselios
Date	2023
Native to	Greece, Hungary, Serbia, Ukraine
Language family	Indo-European Hellenic Urlogrok (?) Grekelin
Early form	Proto-Grekelin
Standard form	Urlogreckae ('Υρλόγρέκέλινιν')
Dialect	Slavic (σλαβίν)
Official status
Official language in	Csongrád-Csanád
Regulated by	Grekelin Language Administration

Grekelin is a naturalistic Hellenic conlang with strong Hungarian influence. It was initially coined as a result of contact between the Greek refugees in Hungary in the 15th century, although the language referring to that era is referred to as Proto-Grekelin and Grekelin itself has diverged too much from it. Today, Grekelin is spoken in a few Hungarian and Serbian villages, with respectively higher influence from Hungarian and Slavic. Grekelin holds some mutual intelligibility with Modern Greek, if the sentence is too simple and intentionally designed to be similar to Greek.

Grekelin is written using the Greek alphabet, although some letters have changed sounds and others have been added or removed.

Etymology

Grekelin comes from the Urlogrok word Groko, which means Greek. The suffix -lin comes from Proto-Grekelin "Ελλήν" which is the ethnonym for the Greeks. Eventually, Groko reverted to the Latin-related "Greko" and, as the tradition has it, the two worlds met to form Grekelin.

Another legend says that Grekelin was a very old Slavic word to describe the Greeks of the Black Sea, during the Kievan Rus times. It appears that the surname Grekelin exists in Ukrainian and Belarusian (Грекелін), while Russian has a more distinct version Грекелов.

Orthography

The Grekelin alphabet consists of 27 letters, five of which are vowels and 22 consonants.

Letters of the Grekelin alphabet
Αα	Ββ	Бб	Γγ	Δδ	Дд	Εε	Ζζ	Θθ	Ιι	Κκ	Λλ	Μμ	Νν	Ξξ	Οο	Ππ	Ρρ	Σς	Ss	Jj	Ττ	Υυ	Φφ	Χχ	Ψψ	Ωω

The letters correspond always to their pronunciation, unless there's a borrow used (eg. είς). The Grekelin orthography is considered a phonetic, as opposed to deep orthographies like French's.

Stress

Grekelin does not have any rules on the stress placement. The stress may go on any position unless the final vowel is doubled, where the stress is automatically passed there. The stress may be indicated with an accute accent ('), unless "ε" has to be stressed, where two accute accents have to be placed.

When a word is an agglutinative one and is too long for a stress to be placed somewhere comfortably, the word may accept up to three stresses. Two syllables may not have more than 1 stress consecutively.

Grammar

Grekelin's grammar is very straightforward and simple, although it will seem strange to new learners of the language:

1. Articles can be skipped although some cases may be confusing without it. The only article in the language is "τάν", since Grekelin does not have genders.
2. The plural is formed by adding the plural syllable κέ- in the beginning of the word. Eg. μύσι -> κέμύσι
3. Grekelin does not make conjugation necessary, if a pronoun precedes the verb. Eg. σίχ θίλο -> θίλε.
4. The English article "a" (eg. A block) is used in Grekelin as "έγυ" (Lit. "one").
5. Personal pronouns are "Ίχ, σίχ, τίχ | Μύχ, νύχ, βάρ", respectively "I, you, he/she/it | We, you (plural), they"

Dialects

Grekelin has two dialects, depending on where each is spoken. These are the Slavic and Urlogrockae dialects. Very little differences exist between the two, with the former including features such as palatalization and decreasing the use of personal pronouns, as well as higher use of Slavic words (eg. Τάν στύλι in lieu of Τάν κάρκα). The standardized form, due to the higher number of speakers, is Urlogrockae. The Slavic dialect however has become far more popular in the last few decades due to higher recognition from the states.

Lately, a more "Purifying" dialect has also began developing. It involves creating new Grekelin words instead of using the parent languages. Currently it has no native speakers though, and is not regulated by any organization.

Example texts

Basic sentence

English
I would like a coffee and biscuits, thank you.
Grekelin
(Ίχ) θίλο έγυ καφέ ανά κέбισκότι, jόμο.
Greek
(Έγω) Θέλω έναν καφέ καί μπισκότα, ευχαριστώ.

Lord's prayer

Πάτρι κέμό,

άς έγυ είς υράνι,

αγιασταάε νόμα ςό,

ρέπατίσω βαςιλέι ςό

πιάτε θίλιν ςό

άς γέα βόρ παραδίςι

δίσε κέμό άρτο επιύςιον, ανάδιλιι

ανά λέφςε κέάρματι κέμό

άς κέλέφςο τάνα αρμάτω διείς κέμό

ανά ρόνχιε κεμό ύ ανά αρματιί,

άλ' πάρε κέμό έξ κακύ

Αμίν.

Our Father, who art in heaven,

hallowed be thy name;

thy kingdom come,

thy will be done

on earth as it is in heaven.

Give us this day our daily bread,

and forgive us our sins,

as we forgive those who sin against us;

and lead us not into temptation,

but deliver us from evil.

Amen.