Buerkaans

Buerkantch
Buerkáns
Pronunciation	[[Help:IPA|buɛ̯ɾ'kaːns]]
Created by	–
Native speakers	No Census Data (2014)
Language family	Indo-European Germanic Low Franconian? Buerkantch
Language codes
ISO 639-1	bu
ISO 639-2	bue
ISO 639-3	bue
De Huílands' flág

Background

Buerkáns is spoken in the fictitious country of De Huílands, known as such in English, even though the translation is literally The Highlands. I like to imagine De Huylands exists in the same world as Alska, where it would be known in Alska as Højlandene. It has not yet been decided whether Buerkáns shows a strong enough resemblence to Dutch grammar to be classified as Low Franconian, or if it deserves its own branch of the Germanic family.

Buerkáns takes influences from Dutch/Afrikaans, English, and the Scandinavian Languages. I wanted to make something in between all three, with the primary vocabulary a mix of Dutch-Danish/Swedish-derived roots and grammar closer to a simpler version of German.

Phonology

Buerkáns has a large phonology, similar to that of Dutch or Afrikaans, mixed slightly with Danish. There is a large vowel inventory of 13 distinct vowel quantities and a typical Germanic consonant inventory with the exception of /d͡ʒ/.

Vowels

Phonemes
	Front	Central	Back
Closed	i y		u
Near-closed	ɪ
Mid-closed	e ø		o
Central		ɘ
Mid-open	ɛ		ʌ ɔ
Near-open	æ
Open	a

Consonants

Phonemes	Bilabial	Labiodental	Alveolar	Postalveolar	Palatal	Velar	Glottal
Stop	p b		t d			k g
Affricate				d͡ʒ
Nasal	m		n			ŋ
Fricative		f v	s	ʃ		ç~x	h
Approximant			ɾ		j
Lateral approximant		w	l			ɫ

• It is important to know that /x/ can be devoiced to /ç/ in fast speech, or after certain vowels, where a speaker cannot pull their tongue back fast enough to produce a full /x/.

Stress & Phonotactics

Stress generally falls on the root of a word, normally the first syllable, but this is subject to change if certain prefixes are added, which may transfer stress from the root to the prefix, or move primary stress, along with the root, to the second syllable.

Buerkáns' most common syllable structure is CCVCC. A single, double, or triple cluster of consecutive consonants can proceed a vowel, there may be as many as three vowels between consonants. In some special cases there can be four-consonant clusters, but these are generally in archaic words and most have been simplified. Word structure can vary wildy, but every syllable must have at least one vowel as its nucleus. The only syllalbe construction that is not allowed is CVCV, which must be interpreted as two seperate syllables of CV. These sound clusters can be repeated to create longer words which are still phonotactically correct, but this implies a constructed word.

• hoebstedsmetrólyn /'hoɛb.stɛdz.mɛtɾo:.ləi̯n/ - capital city's metro line (CVVC.CCVCC.CVCCV.CVC)
• straade /'ʃtɾæ:də/ - street (CCCVVCV)
• regtíg /'ɾʌx.ti:x/ - correct (CVCVC)
• de /dʌ/ - the (CV)
• alg /ælx/ - interjection, similar to 'ew' (VC)
• áppel /'a:p.əl/ - apple (VCCVC)

Orthography

Vowels with diacritics over them are not indicative of stress, nor do they signify a long version of the unmarked vowel. They are letters in their own right, seperate from vowels without an accent. All letters with ´ are inherently long, and have no short version. In order to make the unmarked vowels long, one simply doubles them:

• a /æ/ - aa /æ:/
• á /a:/
• e /ɛ/ or /ʌ/ - ee /ɛ:/ or /ʌ:/
• é /e:/
• i /ɪ/ - ii /ɪ:/
• í /i:/
• o /ɔ/ - oo /ɔ:/
• ó /o:/
• u /u/ - uu /u:/

U is the only vowel that does not have a marked counterpart. Furthermore, it is not common to see a doubled I or E.
Y is treated as a diphthong representing /ai̯/

The sounds /d/, /k/, /b/, /v/, /t/, /j/, /h/, /f/, /r/, /l/, /p/, /z/, /s/, /m/, and /n/ are all represented by their corresponding letters. There are some special cases where single letters are pronounced differently depending on placement, and some letters do not represent sounds they would normally represent in other germanic languages:

• g /x/
• l /ɫ/ when word-initial
• s /ʃ/ when preceding t or p
• ng /ŋ/
• x /d͡ʒ/
  • xésus /'d͡ʒe:s.us/ - jesus
• e /ʌ/ when following r or d
  • hede /'hɛ.də/ - had
• e /ə/ when unstressed
• y /əi̯/
• w /w/

Vowels can additionally come paired with E (with the exception of E itself), which always produces the construction /Vɛ/ regardless of stress. The original vowel retains its original quality, this occurs only with unmarked vowels.

• oe, ae, ue, ie

There are also additional trigraphs, and one digraph:

• aui /ø/
• aae /æ:e̯/
• aai /æ:i̯/
• iu /y/

Sound Shifts from other Germanic Languages

Perhaps the largest change from Germanic phonology in Buerkáns is the voicing of the original Germanic /v/ or /ʋ to /b/:

Buerkáns	IPA	Danish	IPA	German	IPA	English
hoeb	/hɔɛb/	hoved	/'ho:.ʋɛð/	Kopf	/'kɔpf/	head
bebége	/bə'be:.xə/	at bevæge	/bɛ'ʋɛi̯.gɛ/	bewegen	/bɛ've:.gɛn/	to move
graabe	/'græ:.bɘ/	at grave	/graʊ̯.ʋɛ	graben	/'gra:bɛn/	to dig

Dutch/Afrikaans IE~E to Y:

Buerkáns	IPA	Dutch	IPA	English
hyr	/'həi̯ɾ/	hier	/'hi:r/	here
spyle	/'spəi̯lə/	spelen	/'spe:lɛn/	to play
tyke	/'təi̯.kə/	teken	/'te:.kɛn/	to draw

This tends to happen rather randomly, without a clearly seen pattern, it is most likely the beginning of a full sound shift.

Sandhi

There is a small Sandhi factor to Buerkáns which occurs with the voicing of the last letter of a word in relationship to the phoneme that begins the word after it. This only occurs when a Stop is the last letter of a word, and is followed by an near, mid, or fully-open vowel quality in the next word. If the Stop is not already voiced, it becomes so. In Buerkáns, this means that the letters P~B, T~D, and K are all affected when the next word starts with A, Á, E, or O. The only sound excepted from this function is /ʌ/, which only occurs after R and D, and therefore cannot appear on its own.

This does not change the already voiced stops, but means that there must always be a voiced stop before an open vowel between words:

det áppel
/dʌd‿ˈa:pəl/

the apple

ek spyltet epik
/'ɛk 'spəi̯l.təd‿ˈɛpɪk/

I played well (epically)

jep, oemkí ánaars es hyr
/'jɛb‿ˈɔɛ̯m.ki: 'a:n.æ:rs 'ɛs 'həi̯r/

yep, uncle Ánaars is here

Morphology

Buerkáns morphology is rather simple, and lies somewhere between German and Danish. There are two genders, Common and Neutral, and verbs do not conjugate for person. There are however, three cases for noun declension. Unlike German, Buerkáns is a very regular language.

Pronouns

This is the only facet of Buerkáns that retains a three-gender system, as it is necessary to distinguish between masculine and feminine when speaking about people.

Case	1st person
	Singular		Plural
Nominative	ek		vy
Accusative	my		os
Genitive	myn / myt		on / ont
Case	2nd person
	Singular		Plural
Nominative	ju		jul
Accusative	jy		julle
Genitive	jyn / jyt		jullen / jullet
Case	3rd person
	Masculine	Feminine	Neuter	Plural
Nominative	hy	sy	det	dí
Accusative	him	sy	det	daam
Genitive	syn / syt	syn / syt	syn / syt	dyn / dyt

The reflexive for all persons is the same as the accusative form. The 3rd person nominative pronouns always use syg instead of differentiating gender.

Numbers

Number	Cardinal	Ordinal
0	null
1	én	vauirs
2	tvy	anen
3	try	tred
4	vir	vird
5	fyf	fyfd
6	séks	séksd
7	sebe	sebd
8	ag	agd
9	nyn	nynd
10	tyn	tynd
11	elf	elfd
12	taalv	taalvd
13	trytyn	trytyndí
14	virtyn	virtyndí
15	fyftyn	fyftyndí
16	sékstyn	sékstyndí
17	sebtyn	sebtyndí
18	agtyn	agtyndí
19	nyntyn	nytyndí
20	tvytí	tvytíte
21	énantvytí	énantvytíte
22	tvyantvytí	tvyantvytíte
30	trytí	trytíte
31	énantrytí	tryantrytíte
40	virtí	virttíte
50	fyftí	fyftíte
60	sékstíte	sékstíte
70	sebtí	sebtíte
80	agtí	agtíte
90	nyntí	nyntíte
100	hundrí	hundríte

Numbers have a very regular structure in Buerkáns, with the exception of numbers 1 and 2, which are irregular. The ordinal ending for numbers 3 to 20 is simply d. The ordinal ending for all numbers after 20 is te.

Double-digit numbers are produced as in German. To make the number 21, one must say énantvytí, literally 'one-and-twenty'.