Hanebrugish: Difference between revisions

'''Hanebrugish''' (<small>Hanebrugish:&nbsp;</small> ''Hanebrugish''; <span class="nowrap" title="Representation in the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA)" style="font-family:Gentium,'DejaVu Sans','Segoe UI',sans-serif">/ˈhanəbryɡiʃ/</span>), also spelled '''Hanebruggish''', is a [[w:Germanic languages|Germanic]] conlang originally developed for Hanebrug, a city founded by a small band of friends (who all happened to be linguistics nerds) on a [[w:Minecraft|Minecraft]] Realm in September 2023. Its lack of [[w:Umlaut (linguistics)|umlaut]] and [[w:Rhotacism|rhotacism]] and its other similarities to [[w:East Germanic languages|East Germanic]] make it characteristically simple and conservative compared to other Germanic languages that are spoken today.

Hanebrug is ultimately named after one of Charles' cats, Hannah, who had already been enjoying a sort of celebrity status within the friend group; "Hane" is Charles' favorite nickname for her. The original proposal for the city's name was actually ''Haneburg'', but a typo rendered it ''Hanebrug''; the mistake stuck and the city was thus officially named ''Hanebrug''. In Hanebrugish, ''Hanebrug'' can be analyzed as a compound of ''Hane'' ("Hannah, Hane") + ''brug'' ("bridge"), making the city's name literally translate to "Hanebridge." The term ''brug'' comes from Proto-Germanic ''[[wikt:Reconstruction:Proto-Germanic/brugjǭ|*brugjǭ]]'', with irregular schwa-deletion (the expected form would be ''*bruge'').

[[File:Hanebrug at night.png|thumb|View of Vanilla Hanebrug at night.|right]]

Hanebrugish was first developed in September 2023 by co-founders Charles (then known by Charlotte) and xadrezo, with the intent of giving Hanebrug a deeper, more defined culture with its own language. Because they wanted it to be both easily made and taught to the rest of Hanebrug, they did away with some of the most characteristic sound changes found in the Germanic languages, like [[w:Umlaut (linguistics)|umlaut]]. Unfortunately, there was never any formal effort to teach the language to the citizens of Hanebrug. Other members of Hanebrug would go on to contribute to the language's development during its first revival effort. Road signs were written in both English and Hanebrugish, as well as official documentations.

Sometime during the later half of September, the friend group decided that they would restart Hanebrug in a modded server. Using the same seed from before, most of the group returned to Hanebrug's location to rebuild it, now with mods. By October, a space race was brewing between Hanebrug and a member who chose to remain at the world spawn. The space race led to a destructive drama that would end with modded Hanebrug being griefed beyond repair. The situation fractured the friend group, effectively killing Hanebrug and the Hanebrugish language along with it.  

In February 2024, Charles, xadrezo and other former members of Hanebrug wanted to revive the Minecraft Realm, thus revitalizing Hanebrugish. More documentation was made on the language; members started to contribute by forming their own dialects of the language, each with their own distinct identity. This initial revitalization effort quickly died out due to even more drama. This would eventually result in one of the co-founders, Charles, being exiled from the friend group.  

Even after splitting from the group, Charles still loved the conlang he co-authored and wanted to continue to work on developing it by himself; he has been actively working on it ever since then.

Hanebrugish has a minimal yet not relatively unusual 16-consonant phoneme inventory.

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* <span style="font-family:Gentium,'DejaVu Sans','Segoe UI',sans-serif">/VN/</span> codas are allophonically realized as <span style="font-family:Gentium,'DejaVu Sans','Segoe UI',sans-serif">[Ṽː]</span> (compensatory lengthening only applying toward monophthongs).

**e.g. ''ta'''n'''f'' (''<span style="color:gray;">n.</span><span style="color:#3d85c6;"> ms.</span>'' 'tooth') <span style="font-family:Gentium,'DejaVu Sans','Segoe UI',sans-serif">/t'''ã'''f/ [t̪'''ɑ̃ː'''f]</span>

* <span style="font-family:Gentium,'DejaVu Sans','Segoe UI',sans-serif">/r/</span> ''has three standard realizations determined by placement:''

** Word-initially, it is trilled <span style="font-family:Gentium,'DejaVu Sans','Segoe UI',sans-serif">[r]</span>.

***e.g. '''''r'''oad'' (''<span style="color:gray;">adj.</span>'' 'red') <span style="font-family:Gentium,'DejaVu Sans','Segoe UI',sans-serif">/ˈ'''r'''uə̯d/ [ˈ'''r'''uːə̯t̪]</span>

Hanebrugish possesses an extraordinarily minimal, near-vertical 8-vowel inventory, unlike most Germanic languages that tend to have lots of vowel sounds (I mean, just look at [[w:Danish phonology|Danish]]).

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