Skylandic

Skylandic
Himmeldeutsch, Ciellandais
Chiveduts
Pronunciation	[ɕiv.dy]
Created by	Kazu Inoue
Date	first version, 2021; third and latest version, 2024
Setting	Alternate Earth where magic exists
Native to	Skyland
Native speakers	1.5 million (950 AD) 200,000 L2
Language family	Indo-European Germanic West Germanic Aerial West Germanic Skylandic
Early forms	Old Skylandic Middle Skylandic Early Modern Skylandic
Standard form	Standard Vögelbergean Skylandic
Dialects	Bernstein Skylandic Primétoilean Skylandic
Sources	Proto-Germanic, German, French
Official status
Official language in	Germany · France · Liechtenstein · Belgium · Switzerland · Austria
Recognised minority language in	Italy · the Netherlands · Luxembourg · Great Britain
Regulated by	European Language Round Table (ELRT)

Skylandic (Chiveduts, pronounced [ɕiv.dy]) is a West Germanic language in the Indo-European language family, mainly spoken in Western Europe. It is the national and official language of Skyland, the floating country above the Germany-France border. It is also the co-official language of Germany, France, Liechtenstein, Austria, Belgium and Switzerland; a recognized minority language in Italy, the Netherlands, Luxembourg and Great Britain; and one of the official languages of the European Language Round Table (ELRT) alongside English, German, France, Neallish, Irish, Italian and Spanish.

It has over 1.5 million native speakers and over 200,000 L2 (or second language) speakers. A majority of its native speakers live in Skyland, Germany and France. It has two major dialects — the Bernstein and Primétoilean dialects. The Bernstein dialect is spoken by the people living in the east German-side of the country while the Primétoilean dialect is spoken in the west French-side of the country. The Bernstein dialect has more native Germanic words and German calques while the Primétoilean dialect has more French loanwords and calques.

The floating island's first inhabitants were ancient West Germanic mages who had stumbled upon the island using their flight magic. A couple of centuries later, the Old French mages also decided to explore and live on the island. From the mingling of the two communities, a new dialect of West Germanic was born which, over time, developed into a language of its own now known as Modern Skylandic.

Classification

Skylandic is an a posteriori language with its vocabularily mostly based on Proto-Germanic and its phonology and orthography based on French. One can say that it explores the question of "How German would look like if it evolved like French?"

It is also a tripartite or ERG-ACC language — meaning, it marks the subject of an intransitive verb, the agent and the patient of a transitive verb all differently.

It is inspired by the minority languages like Dungan (a Sinitic language written using the Cyrillic script) and Vilamovian (a Germanic language spelled using the Polish alphabet), and the conlang Venedic (a Romance language evolved to be like Polish).

The language has actually gone through three revisions with the third one being the current version. The first version used to have an Old English-y orthography while the second version used to have a German-ish orthography. According to the conlanger, the reason for the revision was that he was enthralled and fascinated by the spelling rule of the French language.

Evolution of Skylandic

As unfortunate as it may seem, the ELRT hasn't found any sufficient amount of surviving records yet of the language's early and middle stages. But they did made an end-to-end evolutionary list of the language starting from Proto-Germanic (PGmc) or sometimes Proto-West Germanic (PWG). All thanks to help of the Great Sage. The sound changes are shown below, in no particular order.

Sound and Spelling Changes

● *sC → /eC/. *sk becomes ⟨ch⟩ before ⟨e, i, y⟩. But can also happen randomly with other vowels.
PGmc *skrīaną → Skylandic "écrien" [e.kʁi.jɑ̃] (to shout)
PGmc *skiwô → Skylandic "Chive" [ɕiv] (sky)
PGmc *skawwoną → Skylandic "chauven" [ɕo.vɑ̃] (to show)
PWG *spil → Skylandic "Épeau" [e.po]

● Intervocalic *t(j) and *k → Ø (Elision)
PGmc *flutjaną → Skylandic "fluire" [flɥiʁ] (to move)

● *Vsk(ij)- → -Vst-er → Vître. This is a consequence of the previous sound change with just an infinitive ending change involved.
PWGm *aiskōn → Skylandic "aître" [ɛtʁ] (to ask)

● *Cw → Cɥ ; xʷ → ɥ
PGmc *kwedaną → Skylandic "cuiden" [kɥidɑ̃] (to say)
PGmc *hwann → Skylandic "huen" [ɥɑ̃] (if, when)

● *sw → ɕɥ
PGmc *swīną → Skylandic "Chuin" [ɕɥɑ̃] (pig)

● *k, x → ɕ
PWGmc *bōk → Skylandic "Bouch" [buɕ] (book)
PGmc *þauh → Skylandic "dauch" [doɕ] (infirmative yes)

● Word-initial *x → Ø (Elision).
PWG *hauh → Skylandic "hauch" [oɕ] (high)

● VxC → ViC
PGmc *nahts → Skylandic "Nait" [nɛ] (night)

● *iu, eu, ew → /ø/
PGmc *beudaz → Skylandic "Beute" [bøt] (table).
- Sometimes, this can arise from *au being fronted by a succeeding *i(j).

● *w → /v/ or /ɡ/
PGmc *aiwaz → Skylandic "Aive" [ɛv] (eternity)
PGmc *werþaną → Skylandic "guerdre" [ɡɛʁdʁ] (to become)

● *b → /v/, after and/or between vowels only.
PGmc *bilībjaną → Skylandic "bleivre" [blɛvʁ] (to stay)
PGmc *ab → Skylandic "av-" [av]

● *dj, dij, g → <y> /j/, sometimes ⟨i⟩.
PGmc *hūdijaną → Skylandic "huyen" [ɥi.jɑ̃] (to hide)
PGmc *dagaz → Skylandic "Daie" [dɛ] (day)
PGmc *maganą → Skylandic "mayen" [mɛ.jɑ̃] (would like, to want)

● *Vmb → Ṽʑ.
PWGmc *climbana → Skylandic "clingen" [klɛ̃ʑɑ̃] (to climb)

● *-Vng → /Ṽʑ/ <-Vnge>.
PWG *sangu → Skylandic "Sange" [sɑ̃ʑ] (song)

● *z → /ʁ/
PGmc *hauzjana → Skylandic "heuren" [øʁɑ̃] (to hear, listen)

● *r /r/ → /ʁ/
PGmc *rinnaną → Skylandic "rinnen" [ʁi.nɑ̃] (to run)

● *j → /ʑ/
PGmc *jainaz → Skylandic "jain" [ʑɛ̃] (that)

● *þ → /d/
PGmc *frawiþaz → Skylandic "Freude" [fʁød] (joy)

● *u, *ū → /y u/. Sometimes, if *ū is followed by *d(i)j, it becomes /ɥi(j)/.
PGmc *kunnaną → Skylandic "cunir" [ky.niʁ] (can, to be able)
PGmc *brūkan → Skylandic "brouchen" [bʁuɕɑ̃] (to need)

● *ei, oi → /wa/.Sometimes, this can stem from *-egi- where the *-g- is elided.
PGmc *legijaz → Skylandic "loir" [lwaʁ] (low)

● *Vn, Vm → /Ṽ/. The same SC as French except with *um, *un becoming /ʏ̃/.
PGmc *landą → Skylandic "Lant" [lɑ̃] (land)
PGmc *umbi → Skylandic "unge" [ʏ̃ʑ] (around)

● Intervocalic *g → /ʑ/. Sometimes, it fortizes into /g/.
PGmc *hlōgijaną → Skylandic "leugen" [løʑɑ̃] (to laugh)

● *Vl → ⟨Vu⟩
PGmc *albis → Skylandic "Euve" [øv] (elf)

● *Vkaną → ⟨Vire⟩
PGmc *makaną → Skylandic "maire" [mɛʁ] (to make)

● *okVną, *ukVną → ⟨uire⟩ /ɥiʁ/. Sometimes, if the PGmc verb contains *ū, it instead becomes ⟨ouire⟩ [wiʁ].
PGmc *hukaną → Skylandic "huire" [ɥiʁ] (to cower)
PGmc *lūkaną → Skylandic "louire" [lwiʁ] "to close"

● Word-final *-el, -il → /o/ or [ø]: ⟨eau⟩ or ⟨eu⟩
PGmc *wela → Skylandic "veau" [vo] (to make)

● *-aną in most verbs → /ɑ̃/ ⟨-en⟩
PGmc *haltaną → Skylandic "hauten" [otɑ̃] (to stop)

● *e (sometimes *a) between single consonants → /ə/, sometimes silent.
PGmc *upanana → Skylandic "ouvenir" [uvniʁ] (to open)
PGmc *lesaną → Skylandic "lesen" [lə.zɑ̃] (to read)

● *VsC → ⟨V̂C⟩
PGmc *isti → Skylandic "îte" [it] (be.PRES)

● *Vrh → /rVɕ/
PGmc *þurhw → Skylandic "druch" [dʁyɕ] (through)

● *l(i)j → /j/ ⟨ill⟩. Sometimes, this can happen even without the *j after *l.
PGmc *fallijana → Skylandic "faillen" [fajɑ̃] (to fall)

● *oCu → /ø/ ⟨œu⟩
PGmc *swotuz → Skylandic "sœuz" [sø] (sweet)

● Monosyllabic /ə/ from French loans → /ø/
French "que" → Skylandic "que" [kø] (conjunctive that)

Phonology

The phonology of Skylandic is almost identical to that of French with only some minor differences.

Consonant Inventory

	Labials	Coronals	Dorsals	Other
Nasals	m	n	ɲ
Plosives	p b	t d	k g
Fricatives	f v	s z	ɕ ʑ
Approximants	w		ʁ j	ɥ
Lateral		l

Vowel Inventory

Modal Vowels

	Front	Central	Back
Close	i y		- u
Close Mid	e ø		- o
Mid		ə
Open Mid	ɛ -		- ɔ
Open	a		ɑ -

Nasal Vowels

	Front	Back
Near Close	- ʏ̃
Open Mid	ɛ̃ œ̃	- ɔ̃
Open		ɑ̃ -

Allophones

Vowel phonemes of Skylandic.

The mid central vowel /ə/ is realized as a close mid unrounded vowel [ɘ] in stressed syllables. In the Primétoilean dialect, this vowel is realized as [ø].

The front close-mid rounded vowel /ø/ in the present tense of regular verbs is realized in the Bernstein dialect as a mid-central vowel [ə] but is silent in the Primétoilean dialect.

The consonants /ɕ ʑ ʁ/ are often realized as [ʃ ʒ ɾ~r~ɹ], especially by younger generations. Bernstein dialect speakers vocalize the phoneme /ʁ/ as [ɐ] after vowels.

Liaison and Enchaînement

Just like French, Skylandic also exhibits liaison and enchaînement. Liaison is a phonological phenomenon in which a silent final consonant of word is pronounced and becomes the onset consonant of the next word's initial vowel. Unlike French, though, there are only two rules where liaison is impossible (see below). Otherwise, it's always possible.

The two rules that predict impossible liaison are as follows:

1. If the first word ends with a consonant followed by the morpheme -s, making the grapheme sequence silent.
2. If the next word starts a new clause.

Enchaînement [ɑ̃.ɕɛn.mɑ̃], on the other hand, is a phonological phenomenon where a pronounced final consonant from a word forms its own syllable with the initial vowel of the next word, or when two vowels become one long vowel or a phonetic diphthong. Unlike liaison which is mandatory, enchaînement is just optional and depends on the person speaking. In this phenomenon, the full vowels /i u y/ become the semi-vowels [j w ɥ].

Liaison:
les House
[le.z‿uz]
"the house"

Enchaînement:
Tu îte gout.
[tɥ‿it ɡu]
"You are good."

Stress

Skylandic has no lexical stress. That is, words on their own have no stressed syllable. Instead, it has sentential stress — stress on the sentence level. Stress only appears when words are combined together to form a complete sentence. The stress pattern of Skylandic sentences is always in iambs — syllable pairs consisting of an unstressed syllable followed by a stressed syllable. In fact, Skylandic poetry is entirely based on this stress pattern but in specific counts — iambic pentameter.

Nauvement Huie Ich Isen Ai Préseunu.
[nov'mɑ̃.t‿ɥi 'iɕ i'zɑ̃.n‿ɛ 'pʁe.zøˌny]
"Exactly How I Planned It." .

Orthography

Skylandic uses the same alphabet and grapheme-to-phoneme correspondence as French, again with minor differences.

Skylandic Alphabet
Aa Bb Cc Dd Ee Ff Gg Hh Ii Jj Ll Mm Nn Oo Pp Qq Rr Ss Tt Uu Vv Xx Yy Zz

Collation Order
The alphabetical order is as shown above. However, for letters with diacritics, the base letter comes first before the one with diacritics. Thus, in a list or a dictionary, et comes first before ét, èt and êt. Within diacritics, the order is acute first, then grave, and lastly circumplex. The diaeresis diacritic is rare in Skylandic.

The language used to be written using the Hebrew-based Grimoire script and the Georgian-based Elvish script. But ever since adopting the French spelling rule, all of Skyland has now switched to the Latin script.

Grapheme-to-Phoneme Correspondence

Consonants and Clusters

Consonants

Graphemes	Environment	Phoneme	Example
-bs, -cs, -ds, -fs, -gs, -ps, -ts	Word-final	Silent	daincs [dɛ̃]
b	elsewhere	/b/	bleivre [blɛvʁ]
	word-final	silent	Cramb [kʁɑ̃]
c	before e, i, y	/s/	ce [sø]
	elsewhere	/k/	Cou [ku]
ch	everywhere	/ɕ/	chans [ɕɑ̃]
d	word-final	silent	gaid [ɡɛ]
	elsewhere	/d/	dou [du]
f	everywhere	/f/	fur [fyʁ]
g	before <e, i, y>	/ʑ/	gêtran [ʑɛ.tʁɑ]
	elsewhere	/ɡ/	gout [ɡu]
gn	everywhere	/ɲ/	agneuvre [a.ɲøvʁ]
h	everywhere	silent	Hant [ɑ̃]
j		/ʑ/	je [ʑø]
l, ll	everywhere	/l/	Lant [lɑ̃]
m, mm	everywhere	/m/	Mann [man]
n, nn	everywhere	/n/	neun [nœ̃]
p	word-final	silent	Damp [dɑ̃]
	elsewhere	/p/	plus [ply]
q(u)	everywhere	/k/	que [kø]
r	everywhere	/ʁ/	Ruie [ʁɥi]
s	between vowels	/z/	House [uz]
	word-final	silent	lasais [la.zɛ]
	elsewhere	/s/	Saive [sɛv]
t	word-final	silent	Blout [blu]
	elsewhere	/t/	Trive [tʁiv]
v	everywhere	/v/	Veaut [vo]
x	word-final	silent	Éleux [e.lø]
	between vowels	/k.s/	exaient [ɛk.sɛ]
z	word-final	silent	houz [u]
	elsewhere	/z/	Zite [zit]

Vowels

Vowels and Vowel Combinations

Graphemes	Environment	Phoneme	Example
a, à		/a/	var [vaʁ] "true"
â		/ɑ/	fâtenir [fɑt.niʁ] "to secure"
ai, aî, aie		/ɛ/	Nait [nɛ] "night" Daie [dɛ] "day"
au		/o/	Traume [tʁom] "dream"
ay		/ɛj/	dayen [dɛ.jɑ̃] "to suck"
e	elsewhere	/ə/ or Ø	ouvenir [uv.niʁ] "to open" bereuven [bəʁovɑ̃] "to rob"
	before multiple consonants	/ɛ/	brechen [bʁɛɕɑ̃] "to break"
	before a pronounced final consonant		Affel [afɛl] "apple"
	before ⟨x⟩		exaient [ɛk.sɛ] "was going out"
	before a silent final consonant	/e/	des [de] "of the (singular)"
	word-final in SG nouns	Ø	Trive [tʁiv] "tree"
	word-final in mono- syllabic open words	/ø/	je [ʑø] 1SG.INTR
é, ée		/e/	éliven [elivɑ̃] "to split"
è, ê		/ɛ/	gêtran [ʑɛtʁɑ̃] "to split"
eau		/o/	Veaut [vo] "world"
ei, eî		/ɛ/	reit [ʁɛ] "right. correct"
eu, eû		/ø/	heuren [øʁɑ̃] "to hear, listen"
i	elsewhere	/i/	mit [mi] "with"
	before other vowels	/j/	étienne [e.tjɛn] (eat.PRES.SJV)
î		/i/	îte [it] "is/am/are"
-ie	word-final only		Fantaisie [fɑ̃tɛzi] "fantasy"
o	phonologically final	/o/	fos [fo] (nurture.PRES)
	elsewhere	/ɔ/	Hoff [ɔf] "hope"
ô		/o/	fôtre [fotʁ] "to nurture"
oi, oie, oî		/wa/	loir [lwaʁ] "low"
œu		/ø/	Mœur [møʁ] "mother"
ou, oû		/u/	Flouch [fluɕ] "curse"
oue	word-final only		Cloue [klu] "lump"
oy		/waj/	doyen [dwajɑ̃] "to die"
u	elsewhere	/y/	fur [fyʁ] "for"
	after ⟨g1, q⟩	Ø	guirds [ɡiʁ] "become/s" dainquons [dɛ̃kɔ̃] (thank.IMP)
	before other vowels	/ɥ/	huiss [ɥis] "white"
û		/y/	plûjain que [plyʑɛ̃ kø] "furthermore"
ue	elsewhere	/ɥɛ/	muenir [mɥɛniʁ] "may, be allowed to"
	word-final, after ⟨g, q⟩	Ø	chainque [ɕɛ̃k] (bestow-IMP)
-uie		/ɥi/	luie [lɥi] (lie.PRES)
uy		/ɥij/	luyen [lɥi.jɑ̃] "to lie"
y	elsewhere	/i/	y [i] 3SG.N.ERG
	before vowels	/j/	euyen [ø.jɑ̃] "to show"

¹ Only applies if another vowel succeeds ⟨u⟩. Otherwise, it's pronounced as usual — /y/.

Vowels and Consonants

Vowel and Consonant Combos

Graphemes	Environment	Phonemes	Example
aim, ain	before consonant or finally	/ɛ̃/	Ainte [ɛ̃t] "fear"
am, an	before consonant or finally	/ɑ̃/	Lant [lɑ̃] "land" Nam [nɑ̃] "name
cqu		/k/	acquimen [akimɑ̃] "to arrive"
eim, ein	before consonant or finally	/ɛ̃/	einhouten- [ɛ̃.u.tɑ̃] "to contain"
em, en	before consonant or finally elsewhere	/ɑ̃/	-ment [mɑ̃] "-ly"
	PRES of some verbs, after /j/	/ɛ̃/	ouviens [u.vjɛ̃] "open/s"
-ent	conjugation ending in verbs	Ø	aivent [ɛv] (have.PRES.SJV)
-er	elsewhere finally	/e/	nier [nje] "under"
es	word-sinally	Ø	Veautes [vot] "worlds"
eun	before consonant or finally	/œ̃/	cheun [ɕœ̃] "beautiful"
ge	before ⟨a, o, u⟩	/ʑ/	hangeant [ɑ̃ʑɑ̃] "hanging"
gu	before ⟨e, i, y⟩	/ɡ/	guerdre [ɡɛʁdʁ] "to become"
il	after ⟨a, e, eu, œ, ou, u, ue⟩	/j/	Faile [faj] "mistake"
	elsewhere	depends	détoilen [detwalɑ̃] "to depart"
ill	after ⟨a, e, eu, œ, ou, u, ue⟩	/j/	écouillir [ekujiʁ] "should"
	elsewhere	depends	épillen [epilɑ̃] "to play"
im, in	before consonant or finally	/ɛ̃/	Vint [vɛ̃] "wind"
oin	before consonant or finally	/wɛ̃/	moin [mwɛ̃] "hello"
om, on	before consonant or finally	/ɔ̃/	hayons [ɛjɔ̃] (have.IMP)
tiV	anywhere	/tj/	fâtiens [fɑtjɛ̃] "fasten/s"
um, un	before consonant or finally	/ʏ̃/	unge [ʏ̃ʑ] "around"

Nouns

Morphology

Just like German, Skylandic nouns have their first letter capitalized wherever they appear in the sentence. However, unlike German and French, Skylandic nouns don't have gender. While they do decline according to case, they rarely do so that much. The only grammatical feature that they almost consistently inflect is number — that is, whether they're singular or plural.

Cases

Skylandic has five cases — namely, ergative, intransitive, accusative, dative and genitive.

A. Ergative Case (ERG)
The ERG case is used in marking the agent of a transitive verb and the subject of a relative clause. Depending on the noun's spelling, the nouns form their singular ERG form as follows:
1. If the noun ends in a silent -e, it doesn't really change form.
Trive tree → Trive

2. If the noun ends with a silent consonant, a silent -e is added.
Lant [lɑ̃] country → Lante [lɑ̃t]

3. If the noun ends in a consonant phoneme, the suffix -ée is added.
Bouch [buɕ] book → Bouchée [bu.ɕe]

B. Intransitive Case (INTR)
The INTR case is the dictionary form of the nouns. It is used in marking the lone argument (subject) of an intransitive verb. Lone nouns in books and plays are usually in this case. Even if the verb can be transitive, as long as no direct object is present in the sentence, the subject still declines in INTR case. Both the subject and the complement of a copular verb like "guesen" are also declined into INTR (or more like doesn't really decline).

Guésons un Mann!
be.IMP NDEF.INTR man
"Be a man!"

C. Accusative Case (ACC)
The ACC case is most commonly used in marking the patient of transitive verbs. Most locational prepositions also require their objects to be in ACC case. The object in a relative case is also declined in ACC case even though the subject has been replaced by the relative pronoun.

Essons den Fiche.
eat-IMP DEF.ACC.SG fish
"Eat the fish."

D. Dative Case (DAT)
The DAT case is mainly used in marking the indirect object of ditransitive verbs. The preposition "du" to, a majority of directional prepositions and other prepositions require the DAT case. Some verbs of feeling also require a DAT object. AN example of which is laid-toire "to feel sorry".

Dou tois mir laid.
2SG.ERG do.PRES 1SG.DAT displeasing
"I feel sorry for you."

ERG and DAT case are the only cases that declinable nouns really do decline in their singular form. The inflection rules of the dative case are the same as with ERG.

E. Genitive Case (GEN)
The main function of the GEN case is to mark the possessor noun in a possessive phrase. Some adverbial phrases relating to points in time are also declined in GEN.

Ainis Daie, vinniront je.
one-GEN.SG day | win-FUT 1SG.INTR
"One day I'll win."

End des Veaut
end DEF.GEN.SG world
"End of the World"

Articles

Because Skylandic nouns don't really decline that much, one must rely on grammatical articles to denote or signify the positional function of a word in a sentence. The articles of Skylandic only decline in number and case. These articles are shown on the image below.

Plural Nouns

Nouns form their plurals depending on how their singular form is spelled.

1. Nouns ending in a silent final -e form their plural in all cases by just adding a final -n.

Trive → Triven trees

2. Nouns ending in -el and -al form their INTR, ACC and GEN plurals by changing those endings to -eux and -aux, respectively; and their ERG and DAT plural by changing those endings to -euse and -ause.