Hivantish

Modern Hivantish (Úruhivantisur dåzvar) is the most widely spoken descendant of Hivantish, and it's inspired by Modern Greek and Icelandic, drawing on phonological, diachronic and grammatical similarities between the two languages.

Modern Hivantish has two registers, a literary one drawing heavily from Ancient Hivantish and making use of mostly native vocabulary (c.f. Háfrónska and Katharevousa), and spoken Hivantish which has lots of loanwords from English, Greek and Irish.

Modern Hivantish derives mostly from the Tremisian dialect of Ancient Hivantish but there is some koineization from northern dialects.

Todo

• Marked nominatives as in Greek and Icelandic

• The case inventory is reduced to nom/acc/dat/gen; definite article (postposed but a separate word)

• Possessive pronouns follow nouns

• Mediopassive

• Retracted /s/; dental fricatives

• Ancient Hivantish y from *ū -> i (spelled y)

• Hivantish can end sentences with prepositions

• æ pronounced /e:/ from *ai?

Phonology

a á e é i í o ó u ú y æ

ll: lateral fricative

rr: retroflex fricative (these can start words)

Grammar

Noun genders are significantly leveled (most -ar and -ir nouns are masculine, with the exception of personal names and abstract nouns in -tir)

The demonstrative is hinnur, cognate with the Proto-Celtic *sindos.

-llu: equivalent of -tion?

Lexicon

• úrur "new" (cognate with Albanian ri)
• hinur "old"
• jysur "young"
• hama "summer"
• zíma "winter"
• astronómur "astronomer"
• apológija "apology"
• musæ "museum"
• fænómen "phenomenon"
• kentru "center"
• vútur "butter"
• lampar "lamp"
• læwa "olive"
• informallu "information"
  • informallisur "informative"

Todo: develop Hivantic synonyms