Vėtuhapamarėska

Old Pomorian language
(Vėtuhapamarėska gålba)
Pronunciation	[/ˈʋeː.tʊ.ɦɑ.pɑ.ˈma:.reː.skɑ/]
Created by	Raistas
Setting	Parallel World
Language family	Indo-European Old Pomorian language
Early forms	Proto-Indo-European Proto-Balto-Slavic Early Proto-Slavic

The Old Pomorian (Vėtuhapamarėska gålba in Pomorian) is a Balto-Slavic language which is a direct ancestor of modern Pomorian. It's own ancestor could possibly be Proto-Balto-Slavic itself, but because the language shares many common sound changes and vocabulary with Proto-Slavic most scholars agree that the Pomorian language descends from a dialect of Early Proto-Slavic.

Usually Old Pomorian refers to a period from the VIIth to the late XIIIth centuries. During it Old Pomorian was spoken on a large territory of Northern Poland and South-Western Prussia.

The area marked in green represents Pomorian majority on the territory in the XIIth-XIIIth centuries

Homeland and migration

The history of Old Pomorian starts in the VIIth century during the Migration Period. Back then Pomorians lived in Polesie which is now the territory of South-Western Belarus and Eastern Poland. The ancestors of modern Pomorian people were also Baltic tribes, particularly Baltic Prussians.

The exact route of migration is not clear, however it is when a contact with Prussians started, so Pomorians probably headed north first (approximately Vth-VIth centuries) and then they moved to the west, where their current land is. Many Prussian loanwords entered the language during this time. The separation of Western and Eastern branches happened right after the migration had finnished with later mixing between them and creating other dialects.

Phonology

Here the Pomorian phonology of the XII century is represented. Some specific sound changes have not occured yet making the language more similar to its Baltic neighbours than to closer Slavic relatives.

Consonants

The consonant inventory was a bit smaller. Palatalization of velars only began in the Eastern dialect, and many other palatals were still sequences of dentals and "j" sound.

Consonants

		Labial	Dental	Palato-alveolar	Velar
Nasal		m	n̪
Plosive	voiceless	p	t̪		k
	voiced	b	d̪		g
Affricate	voiceless			(t͡ɕ)
	voiced			(d͡ʑ)
Fricative	voiceless		s̪	(ɕ)	x
	voiced		z̪
Trill			r
Approximant		w	l	j

Note:

• /t͡ɕ/ and /d͡ʑ/ sounds appeared as allophones before front vowels at that time only in Eastern dialect, while in Western one they probably stayed as /kʲ/ and /gʲ/ respectively, while the /ɕ/ sound was in every dialect (but has a different outcome in each group).

Vowels

The system of vowels was symmetric in Old Pomorian meaning that all the vowels could be either long or short. During this period the language completely lacked the /o/ sound, typical in modern Pomorian, but it appeared near the end of the XIII century, then turning into /uo/ in Western dialect and later in the rest except Eastern and South-Eastern where it preserved as /oː/

Long vowels Front Back Close i: u: Open-mid ɛ:~æ: Open ɑː

Short vowels Front Back Close i u Open-mid ɛ~æ Open ɑ

Notes:

• /ɑ/ and its long counterpart /ɑː/ could possibly be central rather than back. However it is disputed.
• It is not known, whether Old Pomorian had nasal vowels or they were sequences of an oral vowel and a nasal consonant. Even nowadays in modern Western dialects nasal vowels do not appear after stops.

Diphthongs

	i	u	l	m	n	r
e	ei	jau	el	em	en	er
ē	ēi	(jāu)	ēl	ēm	ēn	ēr
a	ai	au	al	am	an	ar
ā	āi	āu	āl	ām	ān	ār
i			il	im	in	ir
u			ul	um	un	ur

Notes:

• All diphthongs could be either descending (with an acute intonation) and long or ascending (with a circumflex intonation) and short.
• The jāu diphthong is not directly attested.
• Phonetically speaking sequences of a vowel and an approximant were not real diphthongs, but they also were descending or ascending and took part in ablaut.

Prosody

Old Pomorian was a pitch-accented language. Little can be found out about its stress from the few attestations but it is generally considered to be similar to modern Pomorian. There were also two different types of accent - acute and circumflex, but it is not accepted whether acute was the falling and circumflex - the rising accent (the accent system is speculated to be reversed in modern Pomorian). According to the newest data and the research of extinct southern dialects there could actually be three distinct accents, all of which having long or short variation. Some scholars even propose that Old Pomorian had broken tone similar to Danish stød or Latvian lauzta intonacija which then became a long acute accent in modern language. But this topic still needs more research, yet nothing can be stated for sure.

Grammar

Almost all the Old pomorian morphology is reconstructed and not attested. The internal reconstruction was used by comparing different dialects.

Nouns

Noun declension patterns were pretty much recognizable with few differences in endings. There were also seven declensions same as in modern Pomorian. -es (masculine), -ā (feminine), -an (neuter)

	grā́des = hail		galvā́ = head		mârjan = sea
	singular	dual	plural	singular	dual	plural	singular	dual	plural
Nominative	grā́des	grā́dā	grā́dai	galvā́	gàlvai	gàlvā	marjan		marjā
Genitive	grā́dā	grā́dau	grā́dun	galvā́	galvâu	galvun	màrjā		marjun
Dative	grā́dāu	grā́damā	grā́dams	gãlvēi	galvā́mā	galvâms	màrjāu		mariãms
Accusative	grā́dan	grā́dā	grā́dus	gãlvān	gàlvai	gãlves	màrjan		màrjes
Instrumental	grā́dumis	grā́damā	grā́daimy	gâlvajān	galvā́mā	galvā̂my	màrjumis		marjâmy
Locative	grā́dejē	grā́dau	grā́daihu	gâlvajē	galvâu	galvā̂su	mârejē		marjā̂su
Vocative	grā́de	grā́dā	grā́dai	gãlva	gàlvai	gãlvā	màrja		màrjā

Verbs

Verb conjugation was a bit different from modern Pomorian being more archaic. More verbs belong to the fourth conjugation type. Simple present and past tenses have been reconstructed for Old Pomorian. Verb endings are in the table below.

Present tense person Singular Dual Plural 1st *-āu, *-am 1 -(d)vā -ema 2nd -esi -ta -ete 3rd -eti -te -anti

Past tense person Singular Dual Plural 1st -au -vai -āme 2nd *-ais, *-ēi 2 -va -āte 3rd -ēt -ve -ent

Notes:

1. Both endings could be reconstructed for 1st person singular in present tense. The former ending is from Eastern dialects, the latter - from Western ones.
2. According to the modern language the -ais ending is reconstructible for 2nd person singular in past tense, but the form -ēi was attested. However it is not precisely known whether the -ēi ending was real or it could be a misspelling.

Development

To Early and Old Pomorian

• *ē, *ō > *ī, *ū before a final sonorant.
• *ā and *ō > *ā, a change shared with Proto-Slavic.

These changes happened before the IIIth century CE. It was the time when Early Pomorian separated from Early Proto-Slavic while still remaining a dialect of it. Some loanwords from Proto-Germanic and old Indo-Iranian languages and then also from Gothic were entering the language during this time. There were some changes in morphological structure but nothing major had happened by the VIIIth century, when the palatalization of velars started similar to the first Slavic palatalization.

• *k, *g, *x > *č /t͡ɕ/, *dž /d͡ʑ/, *š /ɕ/ before front vowels.
• sk, *zg > *škj, *žgj before front vowels.

Some Germanic words borrowed during this time were also affected by the palatalization. Despite started in the VIII century this process has not finished yet in the North-Western dialect, where words both with and without the palatalization appeared.

At first the nasalization happened only with long vowels approximately in XIIth - XIIIth centuries, after which Old pomorian started developing into Middle Pomorian.

To Middle Pomorian

• In the XIII century most final consonants fell out.
• Nasalization of short vowels happened after fricatives. These short nasal vowels than merged with the long ones in all dialects except Southern.
• In the late XIVth century the process called the iotation happened resulting in new palatal phonemes.