Brittonica

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Brittonica (Brittoníca) is a reconstructed form of late Common Brythonic dating to about the early 6th century, the time of King Arthur, shortly before the loss of final syllables led to the development of the earliest daughter languages (ancestors of Welsh, Breton and Cornish).

Phonology

Vowels

  Front Near- front Central Near- back Back
Close
 
ʉː
ɪ
ʊ
ɛ(ː)
ɔ(ː)
a
  Near-close
Close-mid
Mid
Open-mid
Near-open
Open

Consonants

Bilabial Alveolar Palatal Velar Glottal
Nasal        m        n        ŋ
Plosive p      b t      d k      g
Fricative   ɸ   (β, μ) s     (ð) x     (ɣ) h       
Approximant        w        j
Trill        r
Lateral app.        l

Notes:

  • All consonants except /w, j, ɸ, x, h/ may be geminate between vowels.
  • The fricatives [β, ð, ɣ] and [μ] (representing a nasalised /β/) are allophones of /b, d, g/ and /m/ respectively, occuring between vowels or between /l, r/ and a vowel.

Stress

Primary stress is routinely placed on the penultimate syllable of polysyllabic words, with secondary stress on the pre-antepenult.

Prefixes and proclitics, such as pronouns and prepositions, do not take stress.

Orthography

The orthography of Brittonica is based on the Latin alphabet, which was adopted during the Roman occupation of Britain. As a result of long usage, the pronunciation of words is not entirely phonemic (though it is predictable) as spelling has remained relatively conservative as pronunciation has changed.

The alphabet consists of the following letters:

Aa Áá Ææ Bb Cc Dd Ee Éé Ff Gg Hh Ii Íí Ll Mm Nn Oo Pp Rr Ss Tt Uu Úú Vv Xx
Graph IPA Notes Example
A a /a/ catta
Á á /ɔː/ máro
Æ æ /ɛː/ cæto
B b /b/ initially bena
[β] between vowels, before or after r, l abona
C c /k/ initially catta
[g] between vowels teca
D d /d/ initially druco
[ð] between vowels, before or after r, l monido
E e /ɛ/ mercess
É é /eː/ ecléssia
F f /ɸ/ fonna
G g /g/ initially gabro
[ɣ] between vowels, before or after r, l dago
H h /h/ henton
I i /ɪ/ viro
Í í /iː/ híro
L l /l/ láma
M m /m/ initially merkess
[μ] between vowels, before or after r, l láma
N n /n/ nanton
O o /ɔ/ cotto
P p /p/ initially pempe
[b] between vowels, before r, l mapo
R r /r/ ríma
S s /s/ priston
T t /t/ initially teca
[d] between vowels, before r, l cenetlon
U u
Ú ú
V v
X x

Morphology

Nouns

Nouns are marked for three genders (masculine, feminine and neuter), three numbers (singular, dual and plural) and five cases (nominative, accusative, genitive, dative and vocative). As with other ancient Indo-European languages, nouns belonged to one of several stem classes.

O-Stems

All o-stem nouns are either masculine or neuter.

Masculine
mapoh "boy"
Neuter
dínon "fort"
Sg. Du. Pl. Sg. Du. Pl.
Nom. mapoh mapú mapí dínon dínú díná
Voc. mape mapíh
Acc. mapon
Gen. mapí mapíh mapon díní díníh dínon
Dat. mapobon mapobo dínobon dínobo

Adjectives

Numerals

Verbs

Prepositions

Conjunctions

Syntax