Niemish
This article is private. The author requests that you do not make changes to this project without approval. By all means, please help fix spelling, grammar and organisation problems, thank you. |
This article is a construction site. This project is currently undergoing significant construction and/or revamp. By all means, take a look around, thank you. |
Niemish | |
---|---|
Nimsk | |
Pronunciation | [/nʲimsk/] |
Created by | User:Tardigrade |
Date | 2015 |
Official status | |
Official language in | Niemgard |
Language codes | |
ISO 639-3 | qnm |
BRCL | grey |
Niemish (Nimsk) is an East Germanic language descended from Wulfilan Gothic, the oldest Germanic language with a sizeable text corpus. The name originated from Proto-Slavic *němĭcĭ, an exonym given by speakers of Slavic languages to Germanic speakers. Niemish has undergone extensive influence by Slavic languages and is a member of the Balkan sprachbund, having such features as suffixed definite articles and deriving the future tense from present subjunctive. There is also considerable influence from languages such as Turkish, Hungarian, Greek, Latin and Romance languages.
Phonology
Consonants
Labial | Denti-alveolar | Postalveolar | Velar | Glottal | |||||
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
hard | soft | hard (Dental) | soft (Alveolar) | neutral | soft | hard | neutral | ||
Nasal | m ⟨m⟩ | mʲ ⟨mj⟩ | n̪ ⟨n⟩ | nʲ ⟨nj⟩ | ŋʲ ⟨ngj⟩ | ŋ ⟨ng⟩ | |||
Plosive | voiceless | p ⟨p⟩ | pʲ ⟨pj⟩ | t̪ ⟨t⟩ | tʲ ⟨tj⟩ | kʲ ⟨kj⟩ | k ⟨k⟩ | ||
voiced | b ⟨b⟩ | bʲ ⟨bj⟩ | d̪ ⟨d⟩ | dʲ ⟨dj⟩ | ɡʲ ⟨gj⟩ | ɡ ⟨g⟩ | |||
Affricate | voiceless | ʦ̪ ⟨tz⟩ | ʦʲ ⟨tzj⟩ | ʧ ⟨cz⟩ | |||||
voiced | ʣ̪ ⟨dz⟩ | ʣʲ ⟨dzj⟩ | ʤ ⟨dsz⟩ | ||||||
Spirant | voiceless | f ⟨f⟩ | fʲ ⟨fj⟩ | s̪ ⟨s⟩ | sʲ ⟨sj⟩ | ʃ ⟨sz⟩ | xʲ ⟨chj⟩ | x ⟨ch⟩ | h ⟨h⟩ |
voiced | v ⟨v⟩ | vʲ ⟨wj, vj⟩ | z̪ ⟨z⟩ | zʲ ⟨zj⟩ | ʒ ⟨zsz⟩ | ||||
Approximant | w ⟨w⟩ | ɫ̪ ⟨l⟩ | lʲ ⟨lj⟩ | j ⟨j⟩ | |||||
Tap | ɾ̪ ⟨r⟩ | ɾʲ ⟨rj⟩ | |||||||
Trill | r̪ ⟨rr⟩ |
Vowels
Front | Central | Back | ||||
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Long | Short | Long | Short | Short | Long | |
Close | /iː/ ⟨í⟩ | /ɪ/ ⟨ì⟩ | /ɨː/ ⟨ý⟩ |
/ʊ/ ⟨ù⟩ | /uː/ ⟨ú⟩ | |
Mid | /eː/ ⟨é⟩ | /ɛ/ ⟨è, ä̀⟩ |
/ə/ ⟨ỳ⟩ |
/ɔ/ ⟨ò⟩ | /oː/ ⟨ó⟩ | |
/ɛː/ ⟨ä́⟩ | ||||||
Open | /aː/ ⟨á⟩ | /a/ ⟨à⟩ |
⟨a, ä, o, u, y⟩ occur after plain consonants and ⟨e, i⟩ occur after palatalised.
The acute and grave accents are often used in dictionaries and pedagogical material to mark stressed long vowels and stressed short vowels respectively, but they are not usually used in other situations. This does not usually present problems, as:
- most (but not quite all) words in Niemish are stressed on the first syllable of the root
- long vowels can only occur in open syllables and short vowels in closed syllables
So stressed vowels and their length can be predicted with a high degree of accuracy. See here for notable exceptions.
In most dialects /ɛː/ has merged with /eː/, making the distinction between ⟨é⟩ and ⟨ä́⟩ purely a matter of whether or not the preceding consonant is palatalised.
It is further noted that ⟨ä́⟩ arising from Gothic ⟨ái⟩ — but not ⟨ä́⟩ from Gothic ⟨a⟩ — is pronounced as [eː] in every dialect other than Standard Niemish, and the Standard pronunciation [ɛː] seems to have originated as a spelling pronunciation.
The realisation of ⟨y⟩ varies considerably by dialect; many, including the Capitoline dialect, simply merge it with ⟨i⟩, making the distinction between ⟨y⟩ and ⟨i⟩ purely a matter of whether or not the preceding consonant is palatalised. Other possible realisations include:
- [ɪ̈] or [ɨ] for the short ⟨y⟩
- [ɤ, ɯː]
- [ɘ, eː]
The stressed vowels are represented in Niemish orthography thus:
Vowel | Niemish orthography | ||||
---|---|---|---|---|---|
After a plain consonant using /b/ as example |
After a palatalised consonant using /bʲ/ as example |
After a postalveolar consonant using /j/ as example |
After /h/ | Word-initially | |
/a, aː/ | ⟨ba⟩ | ⟨bia⟩ | ⟨ja⟩ | ⟨ha⟩ | ⟨a⟩ |
/ɛ, ɛː/ | ⟨bä⟩ | ⟨biä⟩ | ⟨jä⟩ | ⟨hä⟩ | ⟨ä⟩ |
/ɛ, eː/ | ⟨be⟩ | ⟨je⟩ | ⟨hä⟩ | ⟨e⟩ | |
/ə, ɨː/ | ⟨by⟩ | ⟨jy⟩ | ⟨hy⟩ | ||
/ɪ, iː/ | ⟨bi⟩ | ⟨hi⟩ | ⟨i⟩ | ||
/ɔ, oː/ | ⟨bo⟩ | ⟨bio⟩ | ⟨jo⟩ | ⟨ho⟩ | ⟨o⟩ |
/ʊ, uː/ | ⟨bu⟩ | ⟨biu⟩ | ⟨ju⟩ | ⟨hu⟩ | ⟨u⟩ |
Front | Central | Back | |
---|---|---|---|
Close | /ɪ/ ⟨i, e¹⟩ | /ə/ ⟨y, e²⟩ | /ʊ/ ⟨u, o⟩ |
Mid | |||
Open | /ɐ/ ⟨a⟩ |
- Unstressed ⟨e⟩ when not absolutely final, e.g. ⟨gomen⟩ /ˈgoːmʲɪn/
- Unstressed ⟨e⟩ when absolutely final, e.g. ⟨grune⟩ /ˈgɾuːnʲə/
A sequence of a hard consonant followed by a front vowel is realised with a velar offglide inserted (or a labiovelar offglide after labial consonants):
- dächs /dɛːxs/ [dɰɛːxs], dialectally [dɰeːxs]
- bärs /bɛɾs/ [bwɛɾs], dialectally [bweɾs]
This also holds in dialects where /ə, ɨː/ have merged with /ɪ, i/ or [ɘ, eː]ː
- kyna /ˈkɨːnɐ/ Standard: [ˈkɨːnɐ], Dialectal: [ˈkɰiːnɐ], [ˈkɰeːnɐ]
- ęfynund /ɪ̃ˈfɨːnʊnd/ Standard: [ɪ̃ˈfɨːnʊnd], Dialectal: [ɪ̃ˈfwiːnʊnd], [ɪ̃ˈfweːnʊnd]
Glide insertion is not phonemic and thus not indicated in most IPA transcriptions.
Scripts
Alphabet
The Niemish alphabet consists of 33 letters.
|
|
|
The acute and grave accent can respectively mark stressed long vowels (or diphthongs) and stressed short vowels. These are generally not used except in dictionaries for clarity.
In addition, Niemish orthography uses six digraphs: ⟨Ch, Cz, Ph, Sz, Th, Tz⟩ and two trigraphs:⟨Dsz, Zsz⟩ These function as sequences of two or three letters for collation purposes.
Outside digraphs, the letters ⟨C, Q, V⟩ only appear in loanwords, as do the digraphs ⟨Ph, Th⟩ and the trigraph ⟨Dsz⟩.
Orthography
Cyrillic script
Letter | Numerical value |
Niemish Latin equivalent |
Phoneme | Name | Name in Latin letters |
---|---|---|---|---|---|
А а | 1 | A a | /a, aː/ | ||
Б б | B b | /b, bʲ/ | |||
В в | 2 | W w | /w, vʲ/ | ||
Г г | 3 | G g | /ɡ/ | ||
Д д | 4 | D d | /d/ | ||
Є є, Е e[1] | 5 | E e | /e/ | ||
Ж ж | Zsz zsz | /ʒ/ | |||
Ѕ ѕ | 6 | Dz, dz | /ʣ/ | ||
З з | 7 | Z z | /z/ | ||
И и | 8 | I i | /i/ | ||
Ѳ ѳ | 9 | Tz tz | /ʦ/ | ||
І і[2] | 10 | I i | /i/ | ||
К к | 20 | K k | /k/ | ||
Л л | 30 | L l | /l/ | ||
М м | 40 | M m | /m/ | ||
Н н | 50 | N n | /n/ | ||
Ѻ ѻ, О o[1] | 70 | O o | /o/ | ||
П п | 80 | P p | /p/ | ||
Р р | 100 | R r | /r/ | ||
С с | 200 | S s | /s/ | ||
Т т | 300 | T t | /t/ | ||
ОУ оу[1] | 400 | U u | /u/ | ||
Ф ф | 500 | F f | /f/ | ||
Х х | 600 | Ch ch | /x/ | ||
Ѡ ѡ[3] | 800 | O o | /o/ | ||
Щ щ | St st | /st/ | |||
Ц ц | 900 | Tz tz | /ʦ/ | ||
Ч ч | 90 | Cz cz | /ʧ/ | ||
Ш ш | Sz sz | /ʃ/ | |||
Ъ ъ | |||||
Ы ы, Ꙑ ꙑ | Y y | /ɨ/ | |||
Ь ь | J j | /ʲ/ | |||
Ѣ ѣ | ä | /ɛ/ | |||
Ю ю | Jo, io | /jo, ʲo/ | |||
ЮУ юу | Ju, iu | /ju, ʲu/ |
Pronouns
Nouns and adjectives
Verbs
Historical changes
Wulfilan Gothic to Post-Gothic
Vowels
Wulfilan Gothic had three (in some analyses five) short vowels and seven long vowels. The short vowels were maintained in Post-Gothic and the long vowels reduced to five; Wulfilan Gothic already showed signs of merging close-mid vowels with close ones:
This is attested in variant spellings such as leikeis for lēkeis. In Post-Gothic this merger was complete.
The most important sound change with respect to short vowels was loss of syllable-final h /h/ with compensatory lengthening:
- Got. mahts /mahts/ → Post-Got. māts /maːts/
- Got. raíhts /rɛhts/ → Post-Got. ráits /rɛːts/
- Got. slaúhts /slɔhts/ → Post-Got. sláuts /slɔːts/
This promoted ā /aː/ from a marginal phoneme to a common one.
Consonants
The proposed Thurneysen's law became fully operational in Post-Gothic, although it was modified:
- Spirants gained or lost voice in dissimilation with the consonant beginning the previous syllable. This occurred in all syllables, not only unstressed ones.
- The condition for the law depended only on the voicing of the consonant beginning the previous syllable, and the effect of consonant clusters beginning that previous syllable did not differ from simple consonants.
- Got. giba → Post-Got. gifa
- Got. bida → Post-Got. biþa
- Got. dagam → Post-Got. daχam
- Got. máiza → Post-Got. máisa
Note that medial b, d, g, /b, d, g/ had the allophonic values [β, ð, ɣ] between vowels.
h did not voice to g because it was a glottal fricative [h], not [x]. It remained unchanged except syllable-finally when it elided with compensatory lengthening of the previous vowel.
g devoiced to a velar fricative [x], transcribed here as χ.
Between a nasal and a following liquid consonant, a voiced plosive was inserted:
- Got. timrjan → Post-Got. timbrjan (note that timbrjan already existed as a variant in Gothic)
- P-Gmc. *þunraz → Got. *þunrs → Post-Got. þundrs
Prefixes such as in- and un- were unaffected however.
Development of Niemish proper
Prepalatal gemination
With the exception of h, w, consonants followed by j were geminated in a similar process to that seen in West and East Germanic but much more extensive, as in Italo-Romance. Sievers's law was no longer operational at this time, as the change also occurred after long vowels (which were subsequently shortened):
Coronal consonants were palatalised during this gemination, and the voiced affricate /dz/ converted to /z/. It is thought that voiced sibilants degeminated before compensatory shortening occurred, but it is also possible that - as with h, w - geminated voiced fricatives were simply disallowed at all stages (this also accounts for why b, d, g ceased to be fricatives with gemination).
tj, dj, sj, zj → /tts, ddz, ʃʃ, ʒʒ/ → /tts, z, ʃʃ, ʒ/
- Got. *platja → *plattsa → platz
- Got. daddjan → *daddzan → dazund
- Got. láisjan → *lēʃʃan → leszund
- Post-Got. aíkkleizjū → *klīʒʒū → klizsza
The prepalatal gemination was a very early sound change, likely beginning in late Post-Gothic itself. The coronal palatalisation is also found in early Romance and what little is attested of the closely related Vandalic language.
It is thought that dj initially became */ddz/ before /z/, both because it patterns with tj → /tts/ and because Gothic daddjan became dazund; had degeminated /z/ arisen in the Post-Gothic period, extended Thurneysen's law would have devoiced the consonant to give *dasund. There are no examples of z arising from the coronal palatalisation being affected by extended Thurneysen's law.
Voiceless plosives also geminated before the syllabic liquid consonants l, n, r:
Other consonants did not:
1. tabul is no longer extant in Niemish, although the dual definite form Tabla is still used as a name for the game Backgammon.
First umlaut (umlaut pattern 1. or i-umlaut)
The first umlaut only affected vowels that were short. Niemish at this stage still preserved the Post-Gothic distribution of long and short vowels, where not shortened by the prepalatal gemination.
Case | Post-Gothic | Medieval Niemish | Niemish | |||
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Singular | Plural | Singular | Plural | Singular | Plural | |
Nominative | daχs | daχōs | dach | dachas | dach | dachs |
Accusative | daχ | daχans | ||||
Genitive | daχis | daχei | dächis | dächī | dächs | däche |
Dative | daχa | daχam | dacha | dachą | dach | dachą |
Case | Post-Gothic | Medieval Niemish | Niemish | |||
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Singular | Plural | Singular | Plural | Singular | Plural | |
Nominative | waúrts | waúrtōs | wort | wortas | wort | worts |
Accusative | waúrt | waúrtans | ||||
Genitive | waúrtis | waúrtei | wurtis | wurtī | wurts | wurte |
Dative | waúrta | waúrtam | worta | wortą | wort | wortą |
Second umlaut (umlaut pattern 2. or a-umlaut)
The second umlaut affected Post-Gothic short i and u and long ái and ei (the last one under limited circumstances). There is debate about whether the second umlaut in fact occurred before the first umlaut, but the current names for the two umlauts are too well established now for renaming them to be practical.
When followed by a back vowel in the following syllable, short i and u were lowered to e and o (see Medieval Niemish in the tables). These lowered vowels persisted after apocope eliminated the original trigger of umlaut, elevating short e and o to full phonemes in their own right, with i/e and u/o alternation often accounting for the difference between nominative singular and dative singular, or genitive singular and nominative plural:
Case | Post-Gothic | Medieval Niemish | Niemish | |||
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Singular | Plural | Singular | Plural | Singular | Plural | |
Nominative | hunds | hundōs | hund | hondas | hund | honds |
Accusative | hund | hundans | ||||
Genitive | hundis | hundei | hundis | hundī | hunds | hunde |
Dative | hunda | hundam | honda | hondą | hond | hondą |
Case | Post-Gothic | Medieval Niemish | Niemish | |||
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Singular | Plural | Singular | Plural | Singular | Plural | |
Nominative | wiχs | wiχōs | wich | wechas | wich | wechs |
Accusative | wiχ | wiχans | ||||
Genitive | wiχis | wiχei | wichis | wichī | wichs | wiche |
Dative | wiχa | wiχam | wecha | wechą | wech | wechą |
The second umlaut affected Post-Gothic long ái and ei slightly differently. When followed by a plain consonant (or when not followed by a front vowel in the following syllable in the second umlaut first hypothesis) , ái [ɛː] was broken to first [jɛ] then lowered to [ja], and ei was lowered to /ɨː/:
Second umlaut was unable to occur in ja- or ju-stem nouns, and only occured in the singular of i- and u-stems. This gave rise to the three stems all Niemish masculine nouns belong to: hard (a-stems), soft (ja- and u-stems) and mixed (i- and u-stems).
Feminine nouns either underwent the second umlaut in all inflected forms (jō-, jōn- and ein-stems) or not at all (all others). Thus as with first umlaut, vowel alternations due to second umlaut do not occur in feminine nouns. Note that ái [ɛː] is not considered a front vowel for the purposes of second umlaut; the umlaut was also predicated on vowel height and ái as a low vowel could trigger second umlaut:
The coronal palatalisation was still active when the second umlaut happened, as:
- Got. taíhun → Post-Got. taíhun → táin → tsjan → tzan
- Got. daigs → Post-Got. daiχs → djach → zach
- P-Gmc. *sairaz → Post-Got. sáirs → sjar → szar
The fricatives that arose from coronal palatalisation were analogically extended to all forms of word where it arose, even those forms where no second umlaut had taken place.
Development of nasal vowels
Wherever a nasal consonant occurred word-finally or before a spirant in Post-Gothic, it disappeared in favour of nasalisation of the previous vowel. The length of the vowel was not affected, or else any change in vowel length happened too late to affect the first umlaut and was ultimately rendered irrelevant by syllable weight neutralisation:
- Got. dagam → Post-Got. daχam → dachą
- Got. uns → ųs
- P-Gmc. *kunstiz → kųst
- Lat. amphora → Post-Got. amfaúra → ąfor → ąchor
After syncope, /ml, nl, mr, nr/ were reintroduced into the language outside of prefixes.
Subsequently, /n/ was lost before liquid consonants /l, m, r/ with compensatory gemination of the liquid consonant:
There was no compensatory gemination when the syllable with the nasal coda was unstressed, as with words prefixed with an-, in-, un-:
/m/ was not lost, but experienced stop insertion much as in Post-Gothic:
- P-Gmc. *sumaraz → somar → sumbar
Early medieval Niemish had forms such as somar and somor, which developed into sǫwr in the Westlandic dialect. Presumably the /b/ was inserted into the definite form somran, the /o/ lowered by the /mb/ to give sumbran, and the /b/ later spread to all forms of the word by analogy. Likewise, the Westlandic form developed from somran → sǫwran in a sound change more akin to that described above for /n/ with similar analogical spreading.
Nasal vowels followed by a fricative in unstressed final syllables lost their nasalisation:
- Got. tug̃gōns → Post-Got. tug̃gūns → tungą̄s → tungas
- Got. in → į → i (although note in before words beginning with a vowel)
Nasals that formed the end of a root, as in háims and aljan were either not lost or more likely restored by analogy with forms with inflectional endings; the Niemish descendants of these words are ham and ällin.
S-palatalisation
Much like Slavic and Indo-Iranian languages (and to an extent High German), Niemish changed s to sz /ʃ/ and z to zsz /ʒ/ before /r, w/ and after /r, uː, iː/:
- Got. swarts → szwart
- P-Gmc. *wazrą → Post-Got. wasr → waszar
- P-Gmc. *barsaz → barsz
- Got. þaúrsus → Post-Got. þaurzus → tzurzsz
- P-Gmc. *mūs → musz
- Got. *hūs → Post-Got. hūz → huzsz
- Got. mēs → Post-Got. meis → mysz
This introduced a simple /ʃ/ sound in addition to the geminated /ʃʃ/ that arose with the prepalatal gemination.
S-palatalisation was blocked before plosives:
Emergence of /ɨː/
Long /iː/ (from Gothic ei and ē) became y /ɨː/ when preceded by a labial or labialised consonant (/p, b, m, f, w, kʷ, gʷ, hʷ/) and not followed by a front vowel in the next syllable. Labialised velars and glottals were subsequently delabialised:
- Got. peiks → pyk
- Got. beist → byst
- Got. mēs → Post-Got. meis → mysz
- Got. infeinan → ęfynund
- Got. wein → wyn
- Got. qēns → Post-Got. qeinū1 → kʷyna → kyna
- Got. ƕeits → hʷyt → hyt
Rarely, y could represent a short vowel /ɪ̈/ in environments where long vowels could not occur, such as before geminate consonants:
- P-Sl.: mydlo → mỳll /mɪ̈lː/
As this sound change was blocked before palatalised consonants, all affected words gained umlaut pattern 2. (rarely umlaut pattern 1. in polysyllabic roots) if the stem alternated between hard and soft endings in flexional forms.
Syllable weight neutralisation
Although open syllable lengthening occurred in all dialects of Niemish, the result was not the same in all dialects.
Open-syllable lengthening was simplest in the Panian dialect, where it affected all stressed open syllables. Consequently vowel length is not phonemic in Panian, other than those of the lowland fringe which have regained it by ceasing to distinguish geminate consonants.
In the Great Plains dialect (and by extension the Standard), open syllable lengthening was blocked before voiceless plosives.
The Westlandic dialect underwent the law of open syllables: where possible, consonants in the syllable coda were resyllabified into the onset of the following syllable. Consequently, more syllables became analysed as open in Westlandic than in other dialects, and open syllable lengthening affected a greater number of words. It also has lost geminate consonants, although vowels before historic geminate consonants remain short.
The Capitoline dialect is a special case. It developed as a koiné from numerous dialects in the capital. It is thus broadly similar to the standard, other than shortening historically long vowels before voiceless plosives (this is due to spelling pronunciation and hypercorrection) and loss of geminate consonants.
Notes
- ^ a b c Initial vs. non-initial shapes: Є/Е, Ѻ/О, IA/Ѧ.
- ^ In words of Greek origin, И and І correspond to Eta and Iota respectively. In the words of native origin И is used where it alternates with Є/Е, otherwise І.
- ^ In words of Greek origin, О and Ѡ correspond to Omicron and Omega respectively. In the words of native origin О is used where it alternates with ОУ, otherwise Ѡ.