User:Ceige/Ceigean Intergerman

Intergerman-CJ#[1..4]
Created by	Ceige
Setting	Real-world, Alt-Hist.
Language family	Indo-European Germanic (Western Germanic) Intergerman-CJ#[1..4]
Early form	Proto-Germanic

Background

This project is largely a reaction to some comments made by one of the contributors to Interslavic, and also a reaction to Interslavic itself. Earlier on, I had tried making a Germanic IAL (like all new conlangers with an interest in Germanic langauges!), but nothing special or particularly professional. Not that I expect that to have changed, but I would like to try my hand at it again, exploring some new ideas that have popped into my head by seeing success in other areas of making IAL conlangs.

The 3 standards

• #1 (also #1a), the attempt to bridge things between the Anglo-Saxon and Netherlandic/German branches of Western Germanic. It does this by largely winding back the clock on certain changes in the languages till they are close enough to bridge easily.

• #1b, like the above but giving English more influence in terms of post-Proto-Germanic long A.

• #2 does not take into account the current state of sound changes in terms of vowels at least, and sends all vowels back to their Proto-Germanic values. Grammar is based on the most conservative form of the modern Germanic languages.

• #3 is like #1b, but is fundamentally differentiated in that it doesn't attempt to backtrack through sound changes at all to find compromises, instead instituting compromises based on the current value of sounds in English and Dutch/German. This results in a complete merger of *ai and *au, for example.

• #4's guiding principle is "majority (or the closest thing to one) wins; tradition be damned". *ai and open-syllable e(:) merge, *au and open-syllable a-mutation u merge, and so on.

Cross-Standard habits

Design

• English, German and Dutch are the three principal design oriented sources with the Scandinavian languages being there for tie-breaking

Orthographical

• Long vowels (for that standard) are marked by circumflexes, e.g. â, ê, î, ô, û.
• F and V are distinguished in the orthography (Old-English and Norse don't have enough weight to skew this one).

General Trends

Orthographical

• Ð is preferred over Þ, largely thanks to German and Dutch.
• W is often used separately to V, largely thanks to English and Dutch (ʋ).

Grammatical

• #1, #3 and #4 lose majority of inflectional endings, especially nominally.

Sound Changes

Proto-Germanic	IG#1		IG#3		IG#2	IG#4	Natlang Examples					IG Examples
	1a	1b	3a	3b			Proto-Germanic	English	Hochdeutsch	Dutch	Scandy (Swedish)	IG#3	IG#4
ā, a:	â	æ			â	â	hataz	hate	Hass	haat	hat	hæt	hât
ē₁	ê				æ	â	dēdiz	deed	Tat	daad	dåd	dæd	dâd
ē₂	ê						hē₂r	here	hier	hier	här	hêr
ī	ai				î	ai	īsą	ice	Eis	ijs	is	ais
ō	u				ô	u	bōks	book	Buch	boek	bok	buk
ū	au				û	au	hūsą	house	Haus	huis	hus	haus
a+i	ä	e	ä	e	a	e	badją	bed	Bett	!bed	bädd	bäd	bed
ō+i	ü	y	ü	y	ô	u	bōkijǭ	beech	Buche	boek	*bök- (bok)	bük	buk
						ü	bōkīnaz	beechen	büchen	*boeken	(?)	büken	büken
*o+i	ö	e	ö	e	o	ö	-	-	-	-	-	-	-
ū+i	ay~ai				û	au	hūdiz	hide	Haut	huid	hud	haid	haud
							brūdiz	bride	Braut	bruid	brud	braid	braud
	ei~ey					ai (äu)	brūdigumô	bridegroom	Bräutigam	bruidegom	brudgum	braidgum	braidgum/braudgum
u+i	y, ü				u	ü	furistaz	first	Fürst	vorst	först-	fyrst	fürst
u+a	o, ô				u	o, ô	*hupōną	hope	hoffen	hopen	*hoppa	hôp-	hôp-
ai	æ		œ		ai	ê	bainaz	bone	Bein	been	ben	bœn	bên
au	œ				au	ô	raudaz	red	Rot	rood	röd	rœd	rôd
eu	y		i, î	i, î, ju	eu	î	seukaz	sick	siech	ziek	sjuk	sîk	sîk
							skeutaną	shoot	schießen	schieten	skjuta	schjut-	schît
ijō							frijōndz	friend	Freund	vriend	frände	frînd	frînd
þ	ð				þ, -ð-	d (-t?)	thousand	tausend	duizend	tusen	ðausend	dausend
ĭCV	i~e (é?)				i	e	libjaną	live	leben	leven	leva	lév-	lev-
ŭC(:)a	o				u	o	slutą, kukkaz	*slot, cock	schloss, ??	slot	??, < kokkr	slot, cock	slot, cock
ŭC(:)-	u						munþaz	mouth	Mund	mond, muide	mun	munð, mauð	mund, maud
VnS > V:(n)S	freely				no	maybe

Possible Future Considerations

Orthography

• Should long vowels be marked at all beyond immediate syllabic environment?

• Should long vowels be marked with acute accents, macrons, circumflexes, h's, or doubling letters?
• Could long vowels be marked with colons?
• Do people find it easy enough to access the right keyboard layouts to use accent marks?

• æ and œ are harder to put accents on, as are ä and ö

• If umlauting is incorporated (as it almost will certainly be due to English, German and General Scandinavian), how should it be marked as far as o+i and u+i are concerned?

• How should the diphthongs be rendered? Like in IPA, German, English, or Dutch?

• Should IG#4's ê be ei?
• Should IG#4's î be ie?