Grekelin

Grekelin
Γρεκελένικην, Γνύjα Γρεκελένικην
Pronunciation	['ɣnʊd͡zə ɣr̥ɛkɛ'lɛnikin]
Created by	Aggelos Tselios
Date	2023
Native to	Slovakia, Hungary, Serbia, Ukraine
Language family	Indo-European Hellenic Greek Attic-Ionic Koine Greek Medieval Greek Grekelin
Early form	Proto-Grekelin
Standard form	Urlogreckae ('Υρλόγρέκέλινιν')
Dialect	Slavic (σλαβίν)
Official status
Official language in	Csongrád-Csanád
Regulated by	Grekelin Language Administration

Grekelin (Autoglossonym: Γνύjα Γρεκελένικην, pronounced: /'ɣnʊd͡zə ɣr̥ɛkɛ'lɛnikin/, lit. "The Grekelin language") is a Hellenic language with strong Hungarian influence. It was initially coined as a result of contact between the Greek refugees in Hungary in the 12th-13th century, although the language in that era is referred to as Proto-Grekelin and Grekelin itself has diverged too much from it. Grekelin is written using the Greek alphabet, although some letters have changed sounds and others have been added or removed.

Etymology

Grekelin comes from the Urlogrok word Groko, which means Greek. The suffix -lin comes from Proto-Grekelin "Ελλήν" which is the ethnonym for the Greeks. Eventually, Groko reverted to the Latin-related "Greko" and, as the tradition has it, the two worlds met to form Grekelin.

Another legend says that Grekelin was a very old Slavic word to describe the Greeks of the Black Sea, during the Kievan Rus times. It appears that the surname Grekelin exists in Ukrainian and Belarusian (Грекелін).

Alphabet and Orthography

The Grekelin alphabet consists of 28 letters, six of which are vowels and 22 are consonants.

Letters of the Grekelin alphabet
Αα (/ə/)	Ββ (/v/)	Бб (/b/)	Γγ (/ɣ/)	Δδ (/ð)	Дд (/d/)	Εε (/ɛ/)	Ζζ (/zʲ)	Θθ (/tʰ/)	Ιι (/i/)	Ηη (/i/)	Κκ (/k/)	Λλ (/l/)	Μμ (/m/)	Νν (/n/)	Ξξ (/ks/)	Οο (/ɵ/)	Ππ (/p/)	Ρρ (/r̥/)	Σς (/s/)	Ss (/ʂ/)	Jj (/d͡z/)	Ττ (/t/)	Υυ (/ʊ/)	Φφ (/pʰ/)	Χχ (/kʰ/)	Ψψ (/ps/)	Ωω (/ɔː/)

The letters correspond always to their pronunciation, unless there's a borrow used (eg. είς). The Grekelin orthography is considered a phonetic, as opposed to deep orthographies like French's.

In addition, the following digraphs are used within the language:

Digraphs in Grekelin orthography
Ει (When behind a consonant or ο, it makes the /ji/ sound)	Κχ (Makes the /ɟkʰ/ sound)	Γγ (Makes the /ɡ/ sound)	αυ (Makes the /ɔ/ sound)	ζζ (Makes the /ʐ/ sound)

Vowels are split into long and short vowels. Longer vowels are always stressed (If they appear twice or more in a word, the first one will be stressed), whereas short vowels may or may not be stressed. One exception is (ι) which can never be stressed. The short vowels are (α, ε, ι, υ and the long vowels are ω and η).

The Grekelin orthography was reformed recently, as part of a larger reform within the conlang. As a result, some texts that preexisted on the internet may not comply with the modern form of the language.

Grammar

The grammar of Grekelin is generally very simple and consistent. It is very conservative compared to Greek (Or dialects of it).

1. Grekelin has two articles, ά and έγυ. ά becomes έ (Remnant of Greek genders) if the subject or object ends with -ή.
2. Grekelin has also lost it's grammatical genders, although traces of it still remain in the language. The loss of articles was seen during the shift to Proto-Grekelin, which did not distinguish inflections as much as Greek, leading to gender endings merging together.
3. Fusional verb inflection for person, number and tense.
4. Grekelin has 4 cases: Nominative, genitive, accusative and vocative. In the Slavic dialect, another case persists from Proto-Grekelin, the dative case:

Noun declension in Grekelin

Case	Singular	Plural
Nominative	(Ά) γνύjα	(Ά) κεγνύjεκ
Genitive	Γνυjηή	Κεγνυjηήκ
Accusative	Έξ γνύjα	Έξ κεγνύjηηκ
Dative	Γνυjαδύ	Κεγνυjαδύ
Vocative	Ώ γνύjαε	Ώ κεγνύjεκ

Geographic Distribution and Demographics

Grekelin today has about 16 thousand speakers, spread out all across Central Europe. Out of them, 8.000 lived in Hungary, where a region uses it as an official language, another 2.500 live in Serbia or Greece, and 5.500 live in Slovakia or Ukraine (Carpathia). It forms the majority language in villages of North Banat and some spread out parts of Slovakia and Ukraine. It forms a significant language in Hungary and is also spoken in Greece, primarily from learners. Generally, its speakers are considered of Greek descent or natives of the land they live in, adopting Grekelin as their language. The populations of Serbia and Slovakia speak the Slavic dialect whereas the Hungarian and Greek populations speak the Standard dialect.

Stress

Grekelin does not have any rules on the stress placement. The stress may go on any position unless the final vowel is doubled, where the stress is automatically passed there. The stress may be indicated with an accute accent ('), except for longer vowels which have to use a circumflex. Grekelin has a stress accent, although some users of the Slavic dialect use a pitch accent.

When a word is an agglutinative one and is too long for a stress to be placed somewhere comfortably, the word may accept up to three stresses. Two syllables may not have more than 1 stress consecutively.

Words

Conversation

English (Εκχλέζεκιν)	Grekelin (Γρεκελένικην)	Pronunciation (IPA)
Yes	Νέ	/nɛː/
No	Ού / ύ	/ʊː/
Of course!	Φιjή!	/pʰj'd͡ʒiː/
Hello!	Jόβορζζο (Formal) / Γειά! (Informal)	/'d͡ʒoːβor̩ʐo/ /ɣjɑː/
How are you?	Χτέ έςτε?	/pɛ 'ɛːstɛ/
Good morning!	Jό ρεκχέτι!	/d͡zoː r̩ɛ'ɟkʰɛːti/
Good night!	Jό νικτρά!	/d͡zoː njk'tr̩ɑː/
Have a nice day!	Είς jόδιλα ςεί!	/jis 'd͡ʒoːðjlɑ sjɪ/
Goodbye!	Βιςοντλατάsρα!	/visontɭa'tɑːʃr̩a/
I love you	Αγαπό σεί	/aɣa'poː sjiː/
Please	Κερμό σεί	/kɛr̩'moː sjiː/
Thank you!	Κέsενμε!	/'κɐːʃɐnme!/
Who?	Πκιός?	/pkjoːs/
What?	Τί?	/tiː/
When?	Πόθε?
Where?	Χτέ?
How?	Πώς?
Why	Jατιέ?
Again	υγρά
What is your name?	Τί έςτα ά νόμα σεί? / Πώς έςτα νόμα ςεί? (Informal)
My name is...	Νόμα μεί εςτά ...'
This is...	Δάβτο έςτα...
Yes, I understand.	Νέ, μέκχερτο.
I do not understand.	Ού μεκχέρτο.
Do you speak English?	Ρελαλίτε είς Εκχλέζεκιν?
I do not understand Grekelin.	Ού μεκχέρτο γνύjα Γρεκελένικην
Help me!	Βοήθια!
You are right/wrong!	Έςτε σωστάν/λαθκάν!
What time is it?	Τί κρόνι έςτα τώρα?	/ʈi 'kr̩oːni 'eːsta toːr̩a/
How much is it?	Τίμη?	/ti'mɪː/
The study of Grekelin sharpens the mind.	Μάθκηση Γρεκελενικηή πειά ά νύ κοβτόερτα.	/'maːθkisi ɣr̩ɛkɛlɛːni'kjiː pjɑː α nʊː koβʈoˈɛːr̩ta/
Where are you from?	Χτέ έςτε έξ?	/pɛː ɛːstɛ ɛːks/
I like ...	Αρέςκομο είς ά ... /ɑr̩'ɛːskomo jiːs aː/

Dialects

Grekelin has two dialects, depending on where each is spoken. These are the Slavic and Urlogrockae dialects.

Slavic

The Slavic ("Διαλέκτα Σλαβήν", "/ðʝa'lɛkta sla'vin/" or "/ðʝa'lʲekta slaviŋ/") dialect can be distinguished by some certain features that aren't present in Standard Grekelin:

• Feature of Palatalization (phonetics), primarily borrowed from Russian and other Eastern Slavic languages.
• Skipping of the verb "to be" (έςτ') in the present tense (Τάν έςτα' εγύ βλεμινή -> Τάν' έγυ βλεμινή), if the subject can be assumed.
• In some more isolated places (South-East Slovakia for example), the Cyrillic alphabet is used altogether.
• The letter "υ" represents the "ɨ" sound instead of the "u" one, when stressed.
• Borrow of Slavic words instead of using Grekelin ones (Ά κάρκα -> Ά στύλα).
• Preserving the dative case (Είς ά μήρα -> Μηραηδύ) (NOTE: The dative case fixes the stress on the last syllable, which must be an ύ).

The Slavic dialect is spoken fluently in the Vojvodina region of Serbia, where it is flourishing as a local language. It is also spoken by a tiny community living in Čierna (Jέρνα).

Urlogrockae

The Urlogrockae ("Υρλoγρέκελην", /urle'ɣrɛkelin/ dialect is the one used as the standard language. It's closer to Hungarian when it comes to phonetics but closer to Greek when it comes to orthography. Key features of this dialect, compared to the Slavic one and mainly to other languages like Hungarian and Greek are:

• Skipping the final vowel in pronounciation, if it's a short one (υ or ι).
• "E" does not use the Proto-Grekelin "/e/" sound but the Urlogrok "/ε/".
• /k/ instead of /s/ as the final letter in the plural.
• Higher effect of soft and hard Tsitakismos (/j/ becomes /d͡ʒ/, /k/ becomes /t͡s/, etc), similar to multiple Greek dialects.

Example texts

Basic sentence

English
I would like a coffee and biscuits, thank you.
Grekelin
(Γρώ) θήλκω εγύ καφέ κιά κέбισκότηκ, jόμο.

Lord's prayer

Πατρηή κεμείκ

είς αυρανά είστασε

είς αγιάσιν ναύμα σεί,

είς ρεπατισμή βασιλέη σεί

είς jηση θήλεμα σεί

είς κχέα άς έςτα είς υρανό.

Δώκχε κεμεί άρτη κεμείκ

κιά σχώρε κεάρματι κεμείκ

αγώ κεςχορύκ κεαρμάτηκ ακχτρήν κεμείκ

κιά ού κοτςιύε κεμεί είς πείρη

Μα λήτροςε κεμεί έξ ροςζηή

Αμήν.

Our Father, who art in heaven,

hallowed be thy name;

thy kingdom come,

thy will be done

on earth as it is in heaven.

Give us this day our daily bread,

and forgive us our sins,

as we forgive those who sin against us;

and lead us not into temptation,

but deliver us from evil.

Amen.