Grekelin

Grekelin
A gnudzsa Grekelenikin
Created by	Aggelos Tselios
Date	2023
Native to	Slovakia, Hungary, Serbia
Ethnicity	Greeks
Native speakers	approx. 200 thousand (2023)
Language family	Indo-European Hellenic Greek Attic-Ionic Koine Greek (?) Medieval Greek Cappadocian Greek (?) Grekelin
Early forms	Proto-Indo-European Proto-Greek Proto-Grekelin
Standard form	Standard Modern Grekelin
Dialects	Slavic Grekelin Western Grekelin †
Official status
Official language in	Vojvodina
Regulated by	Grekelin Language Administration

Grekelin (Autoglossonym: Grekelenikin, pronounced: [grɛ.kɛ.ˈɫɛ.ni.kin]), also known as Rhumaecen (Grekelin: Rumejkin, [ɾuˈmɛi̯ˌkin], lit. "The Roman one") is a Hellenic language spoken in Vojvodina, Southern Hungary and some isolated villages of Slovakia. Grekelin is a descendant of Medieval Greek, from whom it split in the late 11th century with the mass settlement of Hungary by Greek refugees following the Seljuk Turks' raids. For the largest part of its existence, Grekelin was mostly a spoken language, and the language began systematically being written down around the 19th century (From where it gained it's modern orthography by Catholic priests and scholars). Due to its low social prestige, most of its educated speakers preferred writing in Latin or Hungarian (Also Koine before the Catholicisation of the Grekelin-speaking people) and few texts were written until then in Grekelin, most of which used the Greek script instead (See Old Grekelin).

As a related language to Greek, Grekelin shares with Modern Greek and its dialects multiple features and cognates. The language, although officially having a free word order, has become an SOV one (As opposed to most Indo-European languages which are SVO) due to extensive Hungarian influence. It's core vocabulary has remained Greek however many Hungarian words can be found often in the language (Especially those relating to law and government), due to the strong adstratum formed by Hungarian (Though, due to geography, the Slavic dialect got its name from its stronger Slavic influence). Grekelin is the most isolated Hellenic language currently in the entire world, with about 1200 kilometers separating it from the closest Greek speaking territory.

Classification

It is not easy to classify Grekelin as a language. Although a Hellenic language, it possibly derives instead from Attic-Ionic dialects spoken in Anatolia (Since the initial settler wave mostly came from Greeks of the area), and, as such, may be more closely related to Pontic than Modern Greek itself, which derives from Koine Greek. The most obvious example is that iotacism never developed in the language (Compare Greek "ήλιος" ([ˈiʎos]) and Grekelin "elya" ([ˈɛʎa]), both meaning "sun"). Hence, Grekelin can be classified as an Indo-European language of the Hellenic branch derived from the Attic-Ionic dialects of Asia Minor.

Grekelin and Tsakonian do seem to share some vocabulary similarities, however these are coincidences and the two have not been at contact almost never.

Phonology

Grekelin's phonology is extensively influenced by Hungarian, and, in the Slavic dialect, by other Slavic languages. The accent varies depending on the location, so this is the standard Grekelin phonology that is used in education and formal speech:

Consonants in Grekelin

↓Manner/Place→	Place of Articulation
	Bilabial	Labiodental	Alveolar	Alveolo-palatal	Palatal	Velar
Nasal	/m/	/n/			/ɲ/
Stop	/p/ /b/		/t/ /d/		/c/ /ɟ/	/k/ /g/
Affricate				/ʥ/ /ʨ/
Fricative	/f/ /v/	/s/ /z/		/ɕ/ /ʑ/	/j/	/x/
Approximant				[j˖]
Tap			/ɾ/
Lateral approximant			/l/		/ʎ/

Vowels in Grekelin

	Height
	Front	Back
High	/i/	/y/	/u/
High-mid	(/ø/)*		/o/
Low-mid	/ɛ/
Low			/ɑ/

* Although it only appears in Hungarian or German loanwords, it is often written down using "ö", so people that write the language consider it a native sound. It is considered more of a marginal phoneme.

Grekelin palatalizes (ʲ) many consonants that would otherwise use a palatal version of themselves. When a fricative is followed by /i/, /e/ or /ø/, the preceding consonant becomes its palatal allophone, referred in Grekelin as "lowering" (katizma). Palatalization is not a contrastive or grammatical feature, but only a feature of the Grekelin accent.

Although Grekelin does have diphthongs, they appear rarely and usually merge into one vowel when realized. Most of these diphthongs are not inherited from Greek directly, but developed on their own over the centuries.

Diphthongs in Grekelin

Written diphthong	Common realization	Example
ai /ɑi̯/	[ɑː]	fair [fɑːr̩] (Just person)
oi /oi̯/	[y]	anoigyo [aˈnyɟo] (I open)
ui /ui̯/	[uː]	fui [fuː] (Child)
eu /ɛu̯/	[ɛv]	euckola [ˈevkoɫa] (Easily)
au /ɑu̯/	[ɑv] or [aw]	gaunna [ˈgawna] (Tall mountain)

Grekelin does not favor consonant clusters, often using metathesis to break them apart. The only exception are affricates since they are considered a single sound in Grekelin.

Although not written, the final consonant (If the word ends with a consonant) always becomes devoiced in colluquial speech.

Alphabet and Orthography

The Grekelin alphabet consists of 24 letters, six of which are vowels and 18 are consonants.

Letters of the Grekelin alphabet
Aa (/ɑ/)	Bb (/b/)	Cc (/t͡s/)	Dd (/d/)	Ee (/ɛ/)	Ff (/f/)	Gg (/g/)	Hh (/x/)	Yy (/y/)	Ii (/i/)	Kk (/k/)	Ll (/ɫ/)	Mm (/m/)	Nn (/n/)	Οο (/o/)	Pp (/p/)	Rr (/r/)	Ss (/s/)	Jj (/j/)	Tt (/t/)	Uu (/u/)	Vv (/v/)	Zz (/z/)

The letters correspond always to their pronunciation. 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
ei (/ji/)	cs - /t͡ɕ/~/t͡ʃ/	zs - /ʑ/	sz - /ɕ/)

Grammar

The grammar of Grekelin is generally very simple and consistent. It is very conservative compared to Greek (Or dialects of it), eg. by retaining the old imperative. The most outstanding feature would probably be that of vowel harmony, which is found at least in both the standard and slavic dialects, and possibly evolved from the extensive Hungarian adstratum.

Articles

Grekelin has both indefinite and definite articles, which are inflected exclusively based on the number and the noun ending.

Articles in Grekelin

Ending	Definite Article	Indefinite Article	Plural Form
-i noun ending	E /ε/	eni /ˈɛɳi/	Ek /ek/
Other noun endings	To /to/	en /ɛɳ/	Ta

Cases

Grekelin has 4 cases: Nominative, genitive, accusative and vocative. In the Slavic dialect, another case exists, the dative case. Remember that Grekelin has developed vowel harmony in the language so while the endings here are influenced by the nearby vowels, other words may have different inflections.

Noun cases in Grekelin

Case	Singular	Plural
Nominative	To gnudzsa	Ta gnudzsuk
Genitive	Ca gnudzsus	Co gnudzsun
Accusative	Ecs gnudzsan	Ecs gnudzsuk
Vocative	O gnudzse	Oh gnudzsen

Nouns ending in -i are slightly different but overall not very hard:

Noun cases in Grekelin (With -i ending)

Case	Singular	Plural
Nominative	E kukli	Ek kukljuk
Genitive	c' Kuklu	Co kuklun
Accusative	Ecs kuklin	Ecs kukljuk
Vocative	O kukli	Oh kukljuk

Verbs

Verbs in Grekelin have tense, number and voice inflection. For this reason, they are highly irregular yet they carry much more information than English verbs. Here is the verb "peio" (To create, make) inflected by voice and number:

Verb inflection in Grekelin

	Singular	Plural	Passive (Singular)	Passive (Plural)
1st person	Peió	Peiómen	Epeióme	Epeiómetta
2nd person	Peié	Peiéte	Peióse	Epeiósase
3rd person	Peiei	Peíanda	Peiándande	Epeiándande

A tense inflection table (Grekelin has 4 tenses: Present, Aorist, and Future. One interesting feature that is inherited all the way from PIE is the ablaut system which is used especially in the past tenses instead of suffixes.

Verb tenses in Grekelin

	Present	Aorist	Imperfect	Future
1st person	Peió	Ipeia	Ipeiamane	Enna Peiso
2nd person	Peié	Ipeiate	Ipeiate	Enna Peise
3rd person	Peiei	Ipeiande	Ipeian	Enna Peisei
1st plural person	Peiómen	Ipeiamen	(Same as past perfect)	Enna peiomen
2nd plural person	Peiéte	Ipeiande	(Same as past perfect)	Enna peiete
3rd plural person	Peíen	Ipeiane	(Same as past perfect)	Enna peien

Additional tenses (Such as the perfect and the pluperfect and many others) are often found especially in colloquial speech, in a way similar to English (Standard Ipeia (I made) vs Colloquial Peio eo (I have made), literally "I made I have").

Geographic Distribution and Demographics

Grekelin today has about 100 thousand speakers, spread out in Hungary, Serbia and a tiny minority in Slovakia. It forms the majority language in villages of North Banat and some spread out parts of Slovakia. It forms a significant language in Hungary (where the standard dialect evolved too). The populations of Serbia and Slovakia speak the Slavic dialect whereas the Hungarian population speaks the Standard dialect, although the dialect does not change by the border.

Evolution

Vowels

Grekelin preserved all Medieval Greek vowels (Thanks to shared phonology with Hungarian). Depending on the dialect, vowel length did evolve (Usually where the stress fell), however Standard Grekelin does not enforce vowel length distinction in any vowel. ('íosz' (son) and 'iosz' (death) are the same except for the first vowel, which is a long one in son). The phoneme /ø/ eventually entered Grekelin from Hungarian loanwords and can now be found exclusively in those loanwords.

Little historical changes occured in vowels. The two most common ones are:

1. The raising of unstressed /o/ to /u/, unstressed /e/ to /i/ and unstressed /a/ to /y/. The last two only occured in dialects.
2. Consonants behind /i/ and /e/ become palatalized (softened), except when these vowels are stressed or come before the stressed vowel.

Unlike Greek, Byzantine Greek /y/ did not collapse to /i/ like all other Greek dialects except for Old Athenian (and Tsakonian). By extension, consonants become aspirated before /y/.

Consonants

Grekelin completely eliminated almost all consonant clusters, either through metathesis or through the insertion of a vowel when there could be vowel harmony in that word, eg. Greek Αλεύρι vs Grekelin Alevir. Apart from the palatalization mentioned above, there was no major sound change in Grekelin's consonants, except for the fortition that took place later: Grekelin had inherited the fricatives /θ x ð ɣ/ from Greek's previously softened /tʰ kʰ d g/, however that change was reversed around the 18th century when /θ x ð ɣ/ merged with /tː k͡x d g/ (Later further merged into /t x d g/).

Vocabulary

Grekelin has about 60.000 words in total, with another 15.000 obsolete ones, amounting to 75.000 words in total. Most of Grekelin's vocabulary is derived from Greek directly, and very few Greek borrows (Mostly reborrows) actually exist within the language. There is an estimated 20 to 40% Hungarian-borrowed vocabulary, depending on the dialect and the person themselves. In the Slavic dialects there is a strong Slavic influence (hence the name), which also shows in the vocabulary part; Between 5% and 25% of all words in Grekelin come from Slavic dialects. The remaining 5% that doesn't belong in any of these categories is either German, Turkic or does not have any clear etymology, like the word leotti. Some theorize Grekelin was in contact with Pannonian Avar speakers which may provide explanation for some of the strange words in Grekelin.

Words

Numbers

English	Grekelin	Pronunciation (IPA)
0	Miden	[mʲiˈdɛn]
1	Ena	[ˈɛna]
2	Djo	[djo]
3	Tria	[ˈtɾia]
4	Tessera	[ˈtɛsʲeɾa]
5	Pende	[ˈpɛndʲe]
6	Ess	[ɛs]
7	Efta	[ɛˈftɑ]
8	Uchta	[uˈxtɑ]
9	Enya	[ɛˈɲɑ]
10	Decka	[ˈdɛka]

Conversation

English (Egzlezikin)	Grekelin (Grekelenikin)	Pronunciation (IPA)
Yes	Ne	/nɛ/
No	Y	/y/
Hello!	Dzsóvorzo! (Formal) / Gya! (Informal)	/'d͡ʑovorzo/ /ɟɑː/
Good morning!	Dzso regetti!	/d͡ʑo rɛ.ˈgɛ.ti/
Good night!	Dzso niktrá!	/d͡ʑo nik'trɑ/
Have a nice day!	Eis dzsódοla sei!	/jis 'd͡ʑodolɑ si/
Goodbye!	Visondlataszra	/'visontɭatɑːɕr̩a/
Thank you!	Dzsómmo!	/ˈd͡ʑomo/
Who?	Pkios?	/pki̯os/
What?	Ti?	/ti/
When?	Ponte?	/ˈpo.ndɛ/
Where?	Pe?	/pɛ/
How?	Posz?	/ˈpoɕ/
Why	Dzatti?	/'d͡zɑti/
Again	Ura	/uˈrɑ/
What is your name?	Ti entá a nóma sei?	/ti ɛnˈta ɑ ˈno.mɑ sʲi/
My name is...	A noma mei enta ...'	/ɑ ˈno.ma mʲi enˈtα/
Do you speak English?	Relalíte eís to Egglézikin?	/rɛ.ɫɑˈɫite jis to ɛkˈɫɛ.zikiŋ/
I do not understand Grekelin.	Y nyó a gnúdzsa Grekelénikin.	/y ɲo ɑ ˈɡnud͡ʑɑ ɡrɛˈkɛ.ɫɛnikin/
Help me!	Voettja!	/ˈvoˈtʲɑ/
How much is it?	Pószo entá?	/ˈpoɕo ɛnˈtɑ/
The study of Grekelin sharpens the mind.	Mattisi c'Grekelenikis fjann' to essa kovtoérta.	/'matkisi t͡si grɛkɛˈɫɛ.nikis pjɑ α ˈɛ.sa kovtoˈɛr.ta/
Where are you from?	Pe este ecs szÿ?	/pɛ ˈɛste ɛt͡ɕ ɕy/

Dialects

While Old Grekelin was evolving into the modern Grekelin language, regional, social and stratum factors were influencing Grekelin in many degrees. Old Grekelin had 4 dialects: The Western-Vienna, the Danubian, the Southern and the Savvian dialect. No descendants exist of the first and the last dialects, although the former provided some loanwords to Grekelin and made it to the 19th century. For the sake of history all three dialects will be mentioned in this section.

Danubian

The Danubian dialect is the one spoken in southern Hungary and the base of the standard literary language. It shares most of the Grekelin speakers and it's the one used in education and formal speech. It developed out of homonymous Old Grekelin dialect, having split from the Southern (Slavic) dialect around the 13th century.

Slavic Dialects

The Slavic dialects are split into two subgroups: Northern and Southern. The two are not shared by genetic relationship as the Northern branch split from a blend of Danubian and Slavic speakers during the Industrial Revolution and the subsequent immigration. The northern branch is going extinct today, and can be characterized by a heavy Czech/Slovak influence. The Southern branch on the other hand is thriving south of the Danubian dialect, being an official language of Vojvodina.

Northern Branch

The northern branch has evolved /o/ to /ɔ/ and /y/ to /ɨ/. It also uses an alveolar trill as the main rhotic instead of the southern branch's tap. It also merged weak and strong verb classes into one, similar to Western Grekelin.

Southern Branch

The southern branch is close to the Danubian dialect, largely because the two have constantly been at contact. The most prominent feature is the iotation of word-initial vowels (Danubian dialects also contain this feature, but only for the /e u/ vowels) and the lack of aspiration for consonants before /y/.

Western Dialect

The Western dialect went extinct in the 19th century. It was an evolution of Old Grekelin's Western dialect, itself having split from Danubian Grekelin around the 16th century. When the two dialects reentered linguistic contact after the siege of Vienna, many German loanwords entered through it the Danubian dialect. It went extinct eventually as its speakers either switched to German/Hungarian or adopted the Danubian dialect instead.

The most interesting sound change to occur in Western Grekelin was the reduction of plain /a/ to /æ/ and later /ə/ when unstressed. Some subdialects further reduced /o/ to /ɒ/ and then /ɐ/ although that change was only limited to a small area. Apart from those, very little divergence existed from the Danubian Grekelin; Most speakers didn't realize they spoke different dialects without extensive exposure to each other's speech. This is mostly attributed to Western Grekelin becoming a very isolated dialect with little outside influence, mostly limited to trade.

Example texts

Basic sentence

English
I would like a coffee and biscuits, thank you.
Grekelin
(Go) tílko eni kave kia biszkotek, dzommo.

UN Human Rights Declaration, Article 1

English:
All human beings are born free and equal in dignity and rights. They are endowed with reason and conscience and should act towards one another in a spirit of brotherhood.

Grekelin:
Padi eleottek eleszterek kya memisek evortamek eis meltosagi kya jogatek. Demdorizandek mi eszelin kya sÿnindisin, kya prepi a ecsinalamek en eis allila eis en selemi c' aderfiktas.
[ˈpa.dʲi ɛlɛˈo.tek ɛˈlɛɕtɛˌrɛk ca meˈmʲisɛk ɛˈvortamʲɛk jis ˈmɛɬto.ˌsaɟi ca ˈjogatʲek ‖ demˈdorizaˌndɛk mi ˈɛɕɛɫin kʲa synʲindʲisʲin ca prʲepʲi na ɛt͡ɕiˈnɑlnamʲek ɛn jis ˈalʲiɫa jis ɛn ˈɕɛlʲɛmʲi t͡s aˈderfʲiktas]

Lord's prayer

In liturgical usage, Grekelin is rarely a preferred language. The prayers are usually in Hungarian or Serbian, however villages with proportionally larger Grekelin population use a slightly modified form of the lord's prayer, written below. In previous centuries, Latin was also fairly common, and, before the conversion of Grekelin people to Catholicism, Koine was the common liturgical language.

Patera mek, en eis ta juranak,

Az agyasta to noma sei,

Az megyérkeszel to vasileu sei,

Az gyenn to tilkima sei,

Eis gea as enta eis to menny

A megbocsát sei ta martÿmatak mek

As megbocsátamen davtak p' martana ellen mek.

Ce y engedélys mek eis kiszertesz,

Ma védens mek ecs to kacka.

Amin.

Πατέρα μεκ, εν ιης τα ιουράνακ,

Αζ αγυάστα το νόμα ση,

Αζ μέγυεερκεεσ̌ελ το βασηλέβ ση,

Αζ γυενν το τήλκημα ση,

Ιης γέα ας εντά ιης το μέννυ,

Α μέγμποτσ̌αατ ση τα μαρτοϋματακ μεκ,

Ας μεγμποτσ̌ααταμεν δάβδακ π΄μαρτάνα έλεν μεκ,

Τσε οϋ ένγεδεελυς μεκ ιης κίσ̌ερτες̌,

Μα βέεδενς μεκ ετς̌ το κακά.

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.