Weddish

Weddish
Ergative-Dual-Yiddish
Vediš
Pronunciation	[/ˈve(ː).dɪʃ/]
Created by	Robert Murphy
Date	2013
Setting	Jewish intermarriage
Native to	USA, UK, Spain, France, Israel
Ethnicity	Ashkenazi Jews
Native speakers	0.01 (2014)
Language family	Indo-European Germanic West Germanic High German Yiddish Basque/Hebrew Weddish
Sources	Yiddish

Weddish (Weddish: װעדיש, X"Q: וֶדִש, Romanization: Vediš) is a constructed, a posteriori, naturalistic auxlang, made from Yiddish with heavy influences from Hebrew, English, German, and Basque. It has ergative-absolutive morphosyntactic alignment and a pervasive yet symbolic use of the dual. It is meant to promote the institution of marriage and foster better communication between persons. It is perhaps best suited as an auxlang for Jewish intermarriage.

The language was created in 2013 by Robert Murphy as part of an assignment at Covenant Theological Seminary for Professor Jerram Barrs.

Background

In 1946, a group of American Ashkenazi Orthodox and Messianic Jews founded a kibbutz near Bilbao, Spain. They were reacting to their perception that the nation of Israel was being founded on Zionist, anti-Yiddish principles. Weddish was created as an auxiliary language to bridge the gap between Yiddish, Hebrew, English, and some Basque. The decision was made early on to engineer in the dual number as a fundamental yet symbolically-rich part of the language. The Hebrew/Aramaic alphabet is the exclusive script, both as an alphabet and as a "pointed" abjad.

Phonology

Consonants of Weddish

Consonant phonemes
		Labial	Alveolar	Post-Alveolar	Palatal	Velar	Glottal
Nasals		מ /m/	נ /n/			/ŋ/
Stops	voiceless	פ /p/	ט /t/			ק /k/	א /ʔ/
	voiced	ב /b/	ד /d/			ג /g/
Fricatives	voiceless	פֿ /f/	ס /s/	ש /ʃ/		כ /x/	ה /h/
	voiced	װ /v/	ז /z/	זש /ʒ/
Affricates	voiceless		צ /ts/	טש /tʃ/
	voiced		דז /dz/	דזש /dʒ/
Approximants			ל /l/		י /j/		ר /ʁ/

Vowel phonemes in Weddish

	Front	Central	Back
High	י /i/~/ɪ/		ו /u/~/ʊ/
Mid	ע /e/~/ɛ/	ע /ə/	אָ /o/~/ɔ/
Low		אַ /ɐ/~/ä/

Diphthongs in Weddish

	+y	+w
a	ײַ = ay	אַו = aw
e	ײ = ey
o	ױ = oy	אָו = ow

There are several issues in the pronunciation of individual sounds. The rhotic of Weddish is either alveolar or uvular and may be anything from a flap, to a trill, to an actual approximant. No R-colors vowels are permitted. Words that begin with a vowel are separated from a prior open syllable by a glottal stop. The velar nasal only occurs when an "n" is assimilated in place of articular before or after an "x", "k", or "g". ng is pronounced /ŋg/, not just /ŋ/. L is typically dark (aka "velarized") except before i. Ayen is always romanized e, but signifies the schwa in unaccented syllables.

Orthography

In the Weddish Romanization scheme, /ʃ/ is written š, /ʒ/ is written ž, /j/ is written y, /ts/ is written c, /tʃ/ is written č, /dʒ/ is written dž, and /ʁ/ is written r.

As in Hebrew, five letters have "final" forms, when they occur at the end of a word. These forms do not affect pronunciation at all.

Initial/Medial	מ	נ	פֿ	צ	כ
Final	ם	ן	ף	ץ	ך

Alphabetical order is alef, alef pasex, alef komac, beys, (veys,) giml, dalet, dalet zayen, dalet zayen šin, hey, vov, gvovayin, šurek, zayen, zayen šin, (xes,) tes, tes šin, yud, yud xirik, gyudayin, gyudayin pasex, vov yud, xof, (xof dageš,) lamed, mem, nun, samex, ayen, pey, fey, cadek, kuf, reyš, (sin,) šin (, tav, sav).

When necessary to avoid confusion, /u/ can be precisely specified with a וּ, called a šurek. /i/ can be invoked as יִ, that is a hud xirek.

Others

Yiddish has many loanwords from Hebrew and Aramaic which are written using the Hebrew abjad in the Semitic way. Weddish, however, writes these words out according to its own orthographic conventions. However, in traditional setting it is sometimes necessary to use the ancient letters.

Lošn Koydeš Letter	בֿ	ח	כּ	שׂ	ת	תֿ
Equivalent	װ	כ	ק	ס	ט	ס

There is also a highly ornate style of writing Weddish, called xtiv qoydeš (holy writing, abbr. x"q) which featuring Hebrew roots spelling according to the ancient tradition and vowels written as diacritical marks ("points") around the consonants. In this style, v is usually written as ו and y as י. The other vowels are as follows, with the א written only for necessity's sake:

Standard	X"Q	Roman.
אַ	אַ	a
אָ	אָ	o
ע	אֶ	e
י	אִ	i
ו	אֻ	u
ײ	אֵ	ey
ײַ	אֱ	ay
ױ	אֹ	oy
אָו	אֳ	ow
אַו	אֲ	aw
ø	אְ	/ə/ or syllabic

Phonotactics

Weddish phonotactics are inherited from Yiddish, which is among the more permissive in the world. Which they do not rise to the level of Georgian or Salish, they are nevertheless daunting for new learners.

Onsets

Onset Consonant Clusters
	b	g	d	dz	dž	h	v	z	ž	t	č	y	x	l	m	n	s	p	f	c	k	r	š
b												by		bl								br
g							gv					gy		gl								gr
d							dv	dz				dy		dl		dn						dr
dz							dzv					dzy
dž												džy
h												hy
v												vy		vl								vr
z	zb	zg					zv					zy		zl	zm	zn						zr
ž	žb	žg					žv					žy		žl	žm
t							tv					ty		tl	tm	tn	c				tk	tr	č
č							čv					čy
y
x							xv					xy		xl	xm	xn				xc	xk	xr
l
m												my		ml								mr
n												ny
s			sd				sv			st	sč	sy	sx	sl	sm	sn		sp	sf		sk	sr
p							pv			pt		py	px	pl			ps		pf		pk	pr
f												fy		fl								fr
c							cv					cy		cl		cn						cr
k							kv					ky		kl								kr
r
š							šv			št	šč	šy	šx	šl	šm	šn		šp	šf		šk	šr

There are three-consonant clusters allowed that begin with s or š plus a voiceless stop plus a liquid: spl, spr, str, skr, skl, špl, špr, štr, škl, and škr but not stl or štl.

Codas

Final t's and c's devoice any other code consonants. In writing, it may look like there are therefore combinations not possible on the chart below, but they are pronounced devoiced.

Coda Consonant Clusters
	b	g	d	dz	dž	h	v	z	ž	t	č	y	x	l	m	n	s	p	f	c	k	r	š
b			bd	bdz				bz	bž
g			gd	gdz				gz	gž
d								dz	dž
dz
dž
h
v								vz	vž
z
ž
t													tx				c						č
č
y
x																	xs						xš
l	lb	lg	ld	ldz	ldž		lv	lz	lž	lt	lč		lx		lm	ln	ls	lp	lf	lc	lk		lš
m	mb		md	mdz	mdž			=mdz	=mdž								=mps	mp	=mpf				=mpš
n		ng	nd	ndz	ndž			=ndz	=ndž	nt	nč		=nkx				=nc			nc	nk		=nč
s										st	sč							sp		sc	sk
p										pt	pč						ps		pf	pc			pš
f										ft	fč						fs	fp		fc		fk	fš
c
k
r
š

There are also liquids plus stop plus homorganic, alveolar fricative.

Suprasegmentals

Stress is predicable, if one knows the root of a word. The first syllable of the root receives primary stress, with secondary stresses proceeding out like ripples on a pond to every other syllable, forwards and backwards. The default rhythm of Weddish is trochaic: stressed-unstressed. Neither vowel length nor stress is phonemic. Long vowels indicate stress. If the word is long, one of the first three syllables must have primary stress. Prefixes and suffixes all have an underlying vowel which is expressed or repressed in order to maintain the rhythm pattern. Two syllables with reduced vowels may not follow each other. Polar and interrogative questions are both marked by a rising tone at the end of the utterance.

Syntax

Weddish וועדיש
Progress: 43%
Type
fusional
Alignment
Ergative-Absolutive
Head direction
Initial	Mixed		Final
Primary word order
Subject-verb-object
Tonal
No
Declensions
No
Conjugations
Yes
Genders
2
Verbs conjugate according to...
Voice		Mood
Person		Number
Tense		Aspect

Weddish aims to be easy for speaker of English to learn. While the verbal-system is somewhat new, the noun-system should be easy. Nouns are not inflected, but pronouns do have unique forms that show what part of speech they can be. Like German, however, articles do inflect. Like Hebrew, there are two noun genders. The masculine is almost universally animate, while the feminine is not. Adjectives do not inflect unless substantive.

Purposefully chosen to stimulate thinking, Weddish has an ergative-absolutive morphosyntactic alignment. Most languages in the world consider the actor of transitive verb and the subject of an intransitive verb to be equivalent. The object of a transitive verb is special in these systems. It can be promoted to the subject via the passive voice. Normally, it must come after the verb. Weddish treats the object of a transitive verb and the subject of a transitive verb the same, called the "absolutive case". Actors of transitive verbs are specially in Weddish, called the "ergative case".

It would be tempting to classify Weddish as SVO (subject-veb-object) like English and Chinese, but that's not quite right. It is, in fact, a V2 language, which means the verb always wants to come second. Discourse particles and few other things do not count towards calculating where "second" is. An entire phrase is taken as a whole when counting this place. Because of core cases are marked almost solely by word order, the actor of a transitive verb (the ergative case) must come before the verb, i.e. first in the sentence.

The V2 Principle is carried throughout Weddish, to the point where it might be labeled a "head second" language. This is not a recognized typology, since languages are either head-initial, head-final, or mixed.

Number

English, Hebrew, Yiddish and many other languages have two numbers: singular and plural. Weddish (like Arabic) has three: singular, dual, and plural. Obviously, the dual is for two of something, and the plural therefore means three or more. However, in regards to persons, the dual is used on married people, even if only one of them is being spoken about. Exceptions can be made in every case except the ergative, which is reserved for the spouses to use on each other. This distinction does not apply in the third person for people not present.

Weddish also distinguishes whether actions were done as individuals or all as a group. It also possible to add "associates" of a noun to it.

Copula

The verb "to be", "to become", and "to have" are all copulas in Weddish. That means they all use only the absolutive case, never the ergative. However, "to be" and "to have" are more like "to equal" and "to exist". "I have shoes" is literally "Shoes exist to me". This can be easier for Far East Asians to learn than Westerners.

Morphology

Case

All nouns are in the absolutive case by default. If they are placed before the verb, then they are said to be in the ergative case, though their morphology is unchanged.

Non-core cases all fall under the umbrella term "genitive". Inseparable prepositions (IP's) define these cases. Word building must be "undoable" to one of these important cases. The inseparable prepositions attach directly onto the anarthrous noun, but otherwise blend into the article.

Case, Articles, and IP's

	Definite			Indefinite	Anarthrous
	m.sg/dl	f.sg/dl	pl	sg/dl
Erg.	der	dos	di	a(n)	ø
Abs.	dem
Dat.	lem	ler	li	lawn	l-
Abl.	bem	bos	bi	bawm	b-
Part.	mem	mos	mi	mawm	m(i)/min
Eq.	kem	kos	ki	kawm	k)-

Pronouns

Independent Personal

		Ergative	Absolutive	Dative	Ablative	Partitive	Equative
1	sg	ix	mix	mir	bix	mix	kix
	dl	nanxu	gu	gir	bug	ming	kowg
	pl	undz	mir	undz	bu	minu	ku
2	sg	du	dix	dir	bed	mind	ked
	dl	stu	stuk	stire	bist	minst	kist
	pl	ir	ayx	ayx	bikm	mint	kat
3	m.sg	er	'im	inen	bo	mino	ko
	f.sg
	dl
	pl

Interrogative

	Erg.	Abs.	Gen.	Dat.	Abl.	Part.	Eq.
Persons.	mi	ver	vermenc	vermen	bimi	mimi	komi
Impers.	ma	vos	fun vos	vu	vi	vat	ven

Verbs

Voices

1. Causative
2. Reflexive
3. Antipassive
4. Mixed