Modern Ravenish

Ravenish
tiudisko
Pronunciation	[tiy̯.dis.kø]
Created by	wfosøra
Language family	Indo-European Germanic Proto-Ravenish Old Ravenish Middle Ravenish Ravenish
Early form	Middle Ravenish
Writing system	Latin

Ravenish (autoglossonym: tiudisko; Ravenish: [tiy̯.diʃ.kø) is a Germanic language, with strong influence from Finnish. It is the result of a prolonged contact among members of both groups after the Ravenish tribe migrated to the area that is now North Ostrobothnia. These connections slowly formed the modern language, which, under influence of Finnish for centuries, led to the innovation of several new forms, such as a conditional verb form and definiteness distinctions in nouns.

Introduction

Goals

• Fun
• Learn more Germanic

Setting

• North Ostrobothnia

Inspiration

• Finnish
• Proto-Germanic
• My love for old Germanic languages

Summary of changes from Proto-Germanic

All case endings are fully dropped, Genitive and Dative are marked through affixes, nominative and accusative are marked through vowel harmony.

Etymology

The language name derives from the same source as German Deutsch, þiudiskaz. The English name is in reference to a cultural aspect of the people, their unusually large reverence for Ravens, they place an oddly high importance on Ravens even for a Germanic tribe.

Phonology

Orthography

Orthography

IPA	Letter
/ɑ, æ/	ä, a
/d/	d
/ɤ, e/	ë, e
/f/	f
/g/	g, gv
/h/	h, hv
/i/	i
/j/	j
/k/	k, kv
/l/	l
/m/	m
/n/	n
/o, ø/	ö, o
/p/	p
/r/	r
/s/	s
/t/	t
/u, y/	ü, u
/ʋ/	v, b

Consonants

Consonant phonemes

	Labial	alveolar /Palatal	Velar /Glottal
Nasal	m	n	(ŋ)¹
Stop	p	t, d	k, g
Fricative	f	s	h
Approximant	ʋ	l, j
Trill		r

1. allophone of /n/ before /k/
2. allophone of /n/ before /kʷ/
3. allophone of /s/ before velars and at word ends

Vowels

Vowel phonemes

	Front				Back
	unrounded		rounded		unrounded		rounded
	short	long	short	long	short	long	short	long
Close	i	iː	y	yː			u	uː
mid	e	eː	ø	øː	ɤ	ɤː	o	oː
Open	æ	æː			ɑ	ɑː

Prosody

Stress

Stress, like in PG, still lies solely on the first syllable unless prefixed, where stress moves with the root word.

Grammar

Morphology

Take ALL forms with '^?' with caution, the proto-Germanic form is unknown so this is me doing very, VERY basic comparisons to figure out a Possible form.

Pronouns

Standard personal pronouns

			Nominative	Accusative
first person	singular		muk	mük
	dual		unk	ünk
	plural		uns	üns
second person	singular		tuk	tük
	dual		unk	ünk
	plural		juur	jüür
third person	singular	masculine	ur	ür
		feminine	suu	süü
		neuter	ut	üt
	plural	masculine	uur	üür
		feminine	ijaar	ijäär
		neuter	ijo	ijö
reflexive			se	së

Informal personal pronouns

			Nominative	Accusative
first person	singular		muk	mük
	plural		muka	mükä
second person	singular		tuk	tük
	plural		tuka	tükä
third person	singular		ut	üt
	plural		uta	ütä
reflexive			se	së

All the informal pronouns here are marked under the epicene, see the below noun table to see how to mark for gender.

Nouns

All stems merged under a stemless form marked with vowel harmony and suffixes, this greatly reduced system makes the grammar arguably simpler than an analytical system due to how severely basic the inflectional system is.

	Masculine				Feminine				Neuter				Epicene
	Singular		Plural		Singular		Plural		Singular		Plural		Singular	Plural
	Definite	Indefinite	Definite	Indefinite	Definite	Indefinite	Definite	Indefinite	Definite	Indefinite	Definite	Indefinite
Nominative	-ar	-oo	-ai	-anir	-o	-uun	-aar	-uunir	-an	-oo	-o	-ono	-	-a
Accusative	-är	-öö	-äi	-änir	-ö	-üün	-äär	-üünir	-än	-öö	-ö	-önö	-	-ä
Dative	-äümär	-äümöö	-äümäi	-äümänir	-äümö	-äümüün	-äümäär	-äümüünir	-äümän	-äümöö	-äümö	-äümönö	-äüm	-äümä

Genitive is marked through '-n', it's added after the conjugation stem, so the Genitive nominative of 'rust' would be 'rustarn'

Verbs

Verb declensions haven't changed much, the dual has fell out of use outside of formal situations, where even there it's rare, the dual is sometimes still used casually for couples, like 'they're walking together (as partners)' is {translation here}

Adjectives and Determiners

Adjectives and determiners use the same declension as nouns except a very small difference, an infixed '-i-', so 'rusty' would be '*rustiar' (actually 'rustag'), this has no etymological origin, instead being added as a countermeasure to keep nouns and adjectives from declining, and thus appearing, identical.

Example texts

Beowulf Sentence 1

Language	Sentence 1 of Beowulf
English	Indeed (or 'Yes!')! We of the Spear-Danes, in days old, had our great kings who discovered the glory of what that man's courage could do.
Old English	Hƿæt! Ƿē Gār-Dena in geār‐dagum þēod‐cyninga ⁠þrym gefrūnon, hu ðā æðelingas ellen fremedon.
Ravenish	hat! uns gaizdanarn un järändägäümänir {þeïdöökïnïngöön þrumjaz gafrëëgun, hwo þo aþulungoz aljanan framidëëdun}
Pronunciation

Other resources

• Swadesh
• Phrases
• lemmas