Old Grekelin

Proto-Grekelin
Γρεκέλην, Grekélin
Created by	Aggelos Tselios
Date	2023
Native to	Hungary, Serbia, Austria
Language family	Indo-European Hellenic Urlogrok (?) Proto-Grekelin
Early form	Proto-Grekelin
Standard form	Urlogreckae ('Υρλόγρέκέλινιν')
Dialects	Northern Danubian Slavic Western-Germanic
Writing system	Latin
Official status
Regulated by	Grekelin Language Administration

Proto-Grekelin refers to the ancestral language of Grekelin which appears to have been spoken in the 13th to 16th centuries, before eventually evolving into Grekelin. Proto-Grekelin is mutually intelligible with both Greek and Grekelin but also maintains strong influence from Hungarian. Proto-Grekelin is made up by a series of slightly different dialects, with the most influencial one being Western-Germanic as it gave the language personal pronouns (Ίχ from German ich, Σίχ from German sich, etc). Proto-Grekelin was written with the Latin alphabet officially, but on some villages the local boards were using Greek as the majority of Proto-Grekelin speakers were Greeks.

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 Proto-Grekelin alphabet was not standardized; The speakers either used the Greek or the Latin script and often borrowed more letters when one was already used for a sound. Below is the Latin version, which was used in Austria and some parts of Vojvodina.

Letters of the Proto-Grekelin (Latin) alphabet
Aa	Bb	Gg	Dd	Ee	Zz	Θθ	Ii	Kk	Ll	Mm	Nn	Xx	Oo	Pp	Rr	Ss	Tt	Ff	Jj	V

Very often, the additional letters c, ψ, η were used for some sounds such as (Respectively) s, ps, ae.

Stress

Being a Hellenic language, Grekelin keeps the stress at one of the last three syllables, and does not have the freedom of Grekelin. Borrowed words were forced to be stressed in the second from last syllable.

Dialects

Proto-Grekelin had been spoken across different parts of Central Europe, usually with no connection between the populations speaking Proto-Grekelin, evolving completely differently from one another. The 4 known dialects so far are:

- Northern Dialect, which was directly derived from Urlogrok and the main ancestor to Grekelin.

- The Danubian dialect, which went extinct fast. It was spoken primarily in Buda-Pest (Before the cities unified).

- The Slavic dialect which also involved into the Slavic dialect of Grekelin. It was probably the only dialect in contact with another (Northern).

- Western-Germanic, which was spoken in Eastern Austria (Mostly Burgenland). Eventually it went extinct after giving Grekelin some Germanic influence.

The differences between dialects were huge in their last documented stage (15th century):

- Northern: Tilo egy pergo vizo.

- Danubian: *A egy vissi pergo thήlo.

- Slavic: Tilo egy pergo vodii.

- Western-Germanic: Ich thilo eni preg vazer.

- Modern Grekelin (Latinized): Ih thilo eghy perghi vizha.

Their merging stage occured in the 17th century, when Hungary came under Austrian control, making the Danubian dialect go extinct, the Northern and Western Germanic merge together and the Slavic to finally be connected through small villages. Grekelin is considered to be born in this stage.