Ierumidd

Introduction

At the start, there was no 'goal' in mind, I knew nothing about linguistics, but as of now, I am going for a somewhat naturalistic lang, I am mostly doing this for fun.

My inspiration comes from a wide range of languages, Sumerian for a lot of the Grammar, Welsh for grammar, spelling, sound changes, and there's certainly some Germanic influence.

List of ideas/wants:

• Incorporate more Brythonic words (Proto-Brythonic and Welsh).
• Incorporate more English (Old to New).
• Translate a song.

This language is spoken by a population of about 20k in North Wales, with a small population in South Wales.

The earliest version of this conlang started on November 8th of 2023, there have been 3 complete redos, making the current version V4, it has changed completely since its birth, going from analytical, to fusional, and now to agglutinative.

I wouldn't exactly say there's anything 'peculiar' about it, but it does have some odd features, in the formal and archaic registers of the language, the perfect is marked through an affix separate from the tense markers, this has since shifted to an aux verb in most dialects, in a few minor southern dialects the marker merged with the tense markers to create three new, separate perfect tense markers.

Phonology

Orthography

Orthography

	Formal		Standard		North		South
/a/	a		a		a		a
/b/	b		b		b		b
/k/	c		c		c		c
/c/	ci		ci		ci		ci
/ɟ/	gi		gi		gi		gi
/ç/	si		si		si		si
/ʝ/	zi		zi		zi		zi
/d/	d		d		d		d
/ð/	dd		dd		dd		dd
/e/	e		e		e		e
/v/	f		f		f		f
/f/	ff		ff		ff		ff
/g/	g		g		g		g
/ŋ/	ng		ng		ng		ng
/ŋ̊/	ngh		ngh		ngh		ngh
/x/	h		h		-		-
/i, ɪ, j/	i		i		i		i
/l/	l		l		l		l
/ɬ/	ll		ll		ll		ll
/m/	m		m		m		m
/m̥/	mh		mh		mh		mh
/n/	n		n		n		n
/n̥/	nh		nh		nh		nh
/o/	o		o		o		o
/p/	p		p		p		p
/r/	r		r		r		r
/r̥/	rh		rh		rh		rh
/s/	s		s		s		s
/z/	z		z		z		z
/t/	t		t		t		t
/θ/	th		th		th		th
/ɨ/	-		u		u		-
/u, w/	u		w		w		w
/ə/	y		y		y		y
/ɢ/	q		q		q		q
/q/	qh		qh		qh		qh
/ɴ/	nq		nq		-		-
/ɴ̥/	nqh		nqh		-		-
/ʁ/	x		x		x		x
/χ/	xh		xh		h		h
/ɔ/	-		aw		o		o

Consonants

Consonant phonemes

	Labial		Dental		alveolar		palatal		Velar		Uvular		Glottal
Nasal	m̥	m			n̥	n	ɲ̊	ɲ	ŋ̊	ŋ	ɴ̥	ɴ
Stop	p	b			t	d	c	ɟ	k	ɡ	q	ɢ	(ʔ)¹
Affricate	p͡ɸ	b͡β			t͡s	d͡z	c͡ç	ɟ͡ʝ	k͡x		q͡χ	ɢ͡ʁ
Fricative	f	v	θ	ð	s	z	ç	ʝ	x		χ	ʁ
Approximant		(w)²						(j)³
Lateral					ɬ	l
Trill					r̥	r

Notes:

• 1: alophone of /t/, usually between a vowel and a fricative
• 2: non-vocalic allophone of /u/
• 3: non-vocalic allophone of /i/

Vowels

Vowel phonemes

	Front		Central		Back
Close	i	iː	ɨ	ɨː	u	uː
Close-mid	e	eː			o	oː
Mid			ə
Open-mid					ɔ	ɔː
Open	a	aː

Prosody

Stress

Stress is slightly odd in this language, it is always placed on the case markers in nouns and tense in verbs.

Unstressed vowel reduction does not occur, so always pronounce vowels fully.

Grammar

Nouns

Cases

Case markers

	Archaic/Formal		Modern
Nominative	-arh		-ar
Accusative	-amh		-am
Genitive	-as		-az
Dative	-imh		-im
Vocative	-joqh
Inessive	-		-
Elative	-		-
Ablative	-		-
Allative	-		-
Adessive	-		-
Abessive	-		-
Comitative	-		-
Instrumental	-		-

Syntax

Word order

The base order is VSO, following Welsh, the more specific word order also follows Welsh, Preverbal particle — Verb — Subject — Direct object — Indirect object — Adverbials (prepositional phrase, adverb, etc.)

Dialects

Formal/Archaic

The Formal register of the language is also more archaic, it retains many features lost in the modern colloquial forms.

Modern Standard

Standard is what's used here, it's a compromise between Formal and Colloquial, it mostly retains Formal phonology (with a few changes to be more understandable, like Archaic /au̯/ being /ɔ/, and /ɨ/) and vocab but with the grammatical changes the modern forms have, this is what's taught to foreign learners so they have the best of both.

North

This is the most spoken dialect, making up about 83% of speakers (~16,600), it attains the vowels of Northern Welsh, meaning Archaic /au̯/ has merged with short o, which is now /ɔ/.

South

Attains the vowels of Northern ierum, the exception being the merge of /i(ː)/ and /ɨ(ː)/ to /ɪ, iː/

Example texts

ffogwgaxhâqpiff (llafgäemarh) y ierumiddegeranqamh (I speak ierumidd)

Other resources

• ierumidd on Conworkshop
• ierumidd Tumblr blog