Brittainese

Brittainese
bretneis
Pronunciation	[brɛtˈneːz]
Created by	Llwcybwy
Date	2022
Language family	Indo-European Romance West Romance North-West Romance Brittainese
Early forms	Latin Old Brittainese
Standard form	Standard Brittainese
Dialects	Brittish American Standard Brittainese
Writing system	Latin

Brittainese (bretneis [brɛtˈneːz] or leng bretneis [ˈlɛŋg brɛtˈneːz]) is a Romance language spoken by around 400 million people as a native language, mainly in the Brittish Isles, North America, Australia, India and Africa. It is most closely related with the Channel languages and French, with which it forms the North-West branch of the Romance languages, and with which it shares many linguistic features.

Introduction

Brittainese is a language created by user Llwcybwy, heavily inspired by Ray Brown's fantastic but yet unfinished conlang with the same name. I cannot however claim that this is a continuation of the language, as my conlanger skills are as of now very lackluster as compared to his. Furthermore, some features of the language are, while in my opinion realistic, also influenced by personal taste, and thus breaking one of the rules set up for continuing the conlang.

The goal of the language is basically the same as that which was described by Brown: it is a study of what Latin would have evolved into in the Brittish Isles, meaning that the language is meant to be as realistic as possible. The world is essentially the same as ours however.

Phonology

Consonants

Consonant phonemes

	Labial		Dental		alveolar		Post- alveolar/ palatal		Velar		Glottal
Nasal		m				n				(ŋ)
Stop	p	b			t	d			k	ɡ
Affricate							t͡ʃ	d͡ʒ
Fricative	f	v	θ	ð	s	z	ʃ	ʒ			h
Liquid		w			l	ɾ		j		(w)

Notes:

• Unvoiced stops are most often not aspirated.
• [ŋ] is only an allophone of /n/ preceding /k/ or /g/.
• /θ/ is only marginally phonemic in Brittainese, only appearing in loan words, names and is a common realisation of the cluster /ðs/.
• /ɾ/ can be pronounced in a number of ways depending on the speaker and the situation. It is most commonly weakened to an aproximant or may, depending on the dialect, even be deleted before another consonant or word-finally, sometimes lengthening the previous vowel. It is however never pronounced as [ɻ], and its realisation as [ʀ] has mostly died out in the historically concerned dialects.

Vowels

Vowels in Brittainese varies greatly between dialects. Below is listed one rendering of the Standard Brittainese dialect, although the view in the matter differs among specialists.

Standard Brittainese

	Front		Central		Back
	short	long	short	long	short	long
Close	i	iː			u	uː
Mid	ɛ	ɛː eː	ə		ɔ	ɔː oː
Open			ɐ a		ɑ	ɑː
Diphthongs	aɪ   eɪ   eʊ   ʊi

Brittish Brittainese

	Front		Central		Back
	short	long	short	long	short	long
Close	ɪ	iː	ʉ			uː
Mid	ɛ	eː	ə		ɔ	oː
Open		æː	ɐ a		ɒ	ɑː
Diphthongs	aɪ   eɪ   øy

American Brittainese

	Front		Central		Back
	lax	tense	lax	tense	lax	tense
Close	ɪ	i			ʊ	u
Mid	ɛ	e	ə		ɔ	o
Open		æ	ɐ		ɒ	ɑ
Diphthongs	aɪ   eɪ   eʊ   ʊi