Wessedian

Wessedian
væssoyskur
Pronunciation	[/ˈvɛsː.ɔɪ̯.skʊr/]
Created by	Freyja
Date	2024
Native to	Republic of Wessey
Language family	Indo-European Germanic North Germanic West Norse Wessedian
Early forms	Old West Norse Early Wessedian
Writing system	Latin
Official status
Official language in	Wessey
Recognised minority language in	Scotland
Language codes
ISO 639-1	ws
ISO 639-2	wsd
ISO 639-3	wsd

Wessedian (endonym: væssoyskur; Wessedian: [ˈvɛsː.ɔɪ̯.skʊr]) is a North Germanic language it is spoken by about two million people, principally in and around Wessey, where it is the official language. Communities of Wessedian speakers also exist in England and Scotland, where it is recognised as a minority language. Minor Wessedian-speaking communities also exist in Norway, the United States and Canada.

Wessedian, like all other North Germanic languages, is descended from Old Norse, the common language of the Norsemen during the Viking Age. Wessedian is descended from the West Norse dialect group, along with Icelandic, Faroese and Norwegian. However, unlike the continental Scandinavian languages — namely Swedish, Danish and Norwegian — Wessedian is not easily mutualy intelligible with other Scandinavian languages. Wessedian has borrowed some vocabulary from the Goidelic languages, especially Scottish Gaelic, Scots and Northern English dialects, due to shared historical contact between between the languages in the region.

History

Although no exact date is know, it is suspected that the first Norse settlers came to Wessey in the late 8th and early 9th century. Most of these settlers were from the western region of modern day Norway, and brought their dialects of the Old Norse language with them. Other than a few runestones, very few texts of the early settler period survive, some stories managed to survive through oral tradition, and were later written down by scholars.

Orthography

The Wessedian alphabet consists of 25 letters, nine of which are vowels and 16 are consonants. Some people also consider â and ô to be separate letters, and not just a and o with a circumflex.

Letters of the Wessedian alphabet
Aa	(Ââ)	Bb	Dd	Ðð	Ee	Ff	Gg	Hh	Ii	Jj	Kk	Ll	Mm	Nn	Oo	(Ôô)	Pp	Rr	Ss	Tt	Uu	Vv	Xx	Yy	Øø	Ææ	Åå

Non-native letters mostly appear in some foreign proper nouns, like toponyms and given names. They can also be found in some loanwords, but are usually spelt with the native equivalent of their sound instead, compare centimeter and sentimeter.

Wessedian letters almost always correspond to their pronunciation, Some graphemes however do not correspond directly to their pronunciation, these are:

• The letters k and g become palatised, i.e. are pronounced as /c/ and /ɟ/ respectively, when followed an e, i or j. Examples: tba
• The combinations sj, skj, stj and very rarely ti are pronounced as /ʃ/

Diasystems

Words written in Wessedian are generally spelt the same across every dialect, regardless of the speakers pronunciation. This is accomplished with the use of diasystems, which are always spelt the same but can be pronounced differently depending on the speakers dialect.

• A list of diasystems will be added soon

Phonology

Consonants

		Bilabial	Dental	Alveolar	Postalveolar	Palatal	Velar	Glottal
Nasal		m	n			ɲ*	(ŋ)
Plosive	voiceless	p	t			c	k
	voiced	b	d			ɟ	ɡ
Affricate					t͡ʃ*	(t͡ɕ)*
Fricative	voiceless	f	θ*	s	ʃ	(ɕ)*	(x)*	h
	voiced	v ~ ʋ	(ð)*
Approximant						j
Trill			r
Lateral approximant			l			ʎ

Notes:

• Sounds with an asterisk indicate that the usage of said consonant depends on the speaker's dialect.
• /x/ is only ever found as /xʷ/.
• /ŋ/ is an allophone of /n/ in front of /k/ and /g/.
• In fast speech /r/ is often pronounced as [ɾ].