Norþimris

Norþimris
Norþimris
Pronunciation	[[Help:IPA|nɔɹˈθɪmɾɪs]]
Created by	–
Native to	Norþimer
Native speakers	13 million (2011)
Language family	Indo-European Germanic West Germanic Anglo-Frisian Anglic Norþimris
Early forms	Old English Early Norþimris
Official status
Official language in	Norþimer

Norþimris [nɔɹˈθɪmrɪs] (also Northimris or Northumbrian in English) is a Germanic language spoken by the people of Norþimer, one of the four states of Great Britain alongside Scotland, England and Wales. Physically situated between Scotland and England, Norþimris shares much in common with Scots and English, all of which descend from Old English, and may be seen as part of a dialect continuum with those two languages. However, unlike its neighbours, Norþimris has very little influence from French and retains a much stronger Anglo-Norse vocabulary.

Phonology

Dialects

There is a great deal of dialect variation across Norþimer, but there are generally considered to be four main dialects:

• Southern, which is the closest to a 'standard' dialect, found in Yorucscir
• Northern, extending north from Weer Ei (River Wear) to the Scottish border
• Western, the dialect west of the moors
• South-western, the dialect of the Þreiplands, sometimes called Þreiplandris

Consonants

	Bilabial	Labio-dental	Dental	Alveolar	Post-alveolar	Palatal	Velar	Glottal
Nasal	m			n			ŋ
Plosive	p     b		t     d				k     g
Fricative		f     v	θ     ð	s     z	ʃ			h
Affricate					t͡ʃ     d͡ʒ
Approximant	ʍ     w			ɹ		j
Flap or tap				ɾ
Lateral app.				l

Vowels

	Front	Central	Back
Close	iː		uː
Near-close	ɪ		ʊ
Close-mid	eː		oː
Mid		ə
Open-mid	ɛ
Near-open	æː
Open	a		ɒ

Orthography

Graph	IPA	Comments
a	/a/
au	/oː/	sometimes /aː/ in parts of the W
b	/b/
c	/k/
ch	/t͡ʃ/
cg	/d͡ʒ/	traditionally not permitted to occur word initially, but now used in borrowings such as cgin 'engine'
d	/d/
ð	/ð/
e	/ɛ/
ea	/eː/	tending towards /eə/
	/ja/	often word initially or after initial /h/, particularly in N & W (e.g. ean 'one' /jan/, heam /hjam/)
ee	/iː/	often /iə/ in N & W
ei	/iə/	but /iː/ in open syllables (e.g. sei 'sea'). Often /ei/ in N & W
eo	/iː/	/ɪu̯/ in areas bordering Scotland
ey	/ei̯/
f	/f/	initially or before a voiceless plosive
	/v/	medially and finally
f	/f/
g	/g/
h	/h/	initially
	/f/	medially and finally; tends to become /x/ in the far N
	Ø	generally before -t
i	/ɪ/
ie	/ɪ/	only occurs word-finally (e.g. nouhtie 'poor').
iy	/æː/
l	/l/
m	/m/
n	/n/
ng	/ŋ/
o	/ɒ/
oo	/oː/
ou	/ɔu̯/
p	/p/
r	/ɾ/	before a vowel
	/ɹ/	before a consonant
s	/s/	initially, adjacent to a voiceless consonant and sometimes finally after a vowel
	/z/	between vowels or adjacent to a voiced sound, sometimes finally after a vowel
sc	/ʃ/
sk	/sk/	the only permitted use of k in native words
ss	/s/	only occurs following short vowels
t	/t/
þ	/θ/
u	/ʊ/
uu	/uː ~ ʊu̯/
w	/w/
hw	/ʍ/	in some dialects, tending to become /h/ before round vowels and /w/ elsewhere
x	/ks/
z	/t͡s/	used mostly in borrowed words

Notes:

• the only letter which should present any difficulty to the reader is <s>, the pronunciation of which is not always predictable. In this article, voiceless /s/ will be written <ṡ> where confusion may arise (e.g. huuṡ 'house', riyṡ 'rice').

Grammar

Morphology

Articles

The indefinite article is identical to English: a before a consonant and an before a vowel (e.g. a man, an apel).

The definite article is 't in all cases (e.g. 't man, 't apel).

Nouns

Nouns have no grammatical gender and case is limited to the genitive.

The plural of most nouns ends in -s, or -es after a sibilant (e.g. apels, huuses). A few nouns have a rare plural in -en or -er (e.g. een 'eyes', ousen 'oxen', sceon 'shoes', lamer 'lambs', caufer 'calves', childer 'children'). There is also a small number of nouns with a change of vowel in the plural: man 'man' → men, wiman 'woman' → wimen, hand 'hand' → hend, teoþ 'tooth' → teeþ, feot 'foot' → feet, geoṡ 'goose' → geeṡ, muuṡ 'mouse' → miys, cuu 'cow' → ciy.

The genitive has two forms:

• the dependent genitive is used directly before a noun or noun phrase and is unmarked (e.g. 't man huuṡ 'the man's house', his faðer sun 'his father's son').
• the independent genitive usually occurs as the complement in a copular construction and is marked with -s (-es after a sibilant; e.g. 't huuṡ is Cetels 'the house is Cetel's', ðat 's his faðers 'that's his fathers').

Adjectives

Adjectives precede the noun they qualify and are generally immutable, regardless of number or case (e.g. a micel hund 'a big dog', 't hwiyt deors 'the white doors').

All regular adjectives may form a comparative with the addition of -ar and a superlative with -ast (e.g. aud 'old' → audar, audast, healie 'holy' → healiar, healiast).

The following are compared irregularly: il 'bad' → wer/werṡ, werst; geod 'good' → beter, best; micel 'large' → mear/mea, meast; liytel/liyl 'small' → leeṡ, leest.

Numerals

	Cardinal	Ordinal
1	ean	first
2	twea	anar
3	þree	þird
4	four	ferd
5	fiyf	fift
6	sex	sext
7	sefen	sefend
8	auht	auhted
9	niyn	niynd
10	tein	tend
11	elefen	eleft
12	twelf	twelft
13	þretein	þreteind
14	fourtein	fourteind
15	fiftein	fifteind
20	twentie	twentiand
21	ean an twentie	ean an twentiand
30	þritie	þritiand
40	fourtie	fourtiand
50	fiftie	fiftiand
100	hunreþ	hunreþd
1000	þuusan	þuusand
1,000,000	milyoon	milyoond

Pronouns

	Subject		Object
	Unstressed	Stressed	Unstressed	Stressed
1sg	i	ic	mi	mie
2sg	ðu, -tu	ðuu	ði	ðie
3sg m.	hi	hie	him
3sg f.	scu	sceo	her
3sg n.	hit
1pl	wi	wie	us	uus
2pl	yi	yie	yu	yuu
3pl	ðey		ðam

Several of the personal pronouns have different stressed and unstressed forms. The stressed forms are only used in speech and writing when particular emphasis is put on the pronoun, such as when they occur independently (e.g. ic leof him 'I love him', hwea didd ðat? Yuu 'who did that? You') . Elsewhere, the unstressed forms are used (e.g. hi wuns in Yoruc 'he lives in York').

Notes:

• the 2nd person singular -tu is an enclitic form used with interrogative verbs (e.g. censtu Cetel? 'do you know Cetel?').
• the 3rd person singular forms him, her and hit are pronounced without the h in unstressed position, but this is not expressed in writing.
• as in English, 'hi/hie' are used for male humans, scu/sceo for females and hit for inanimate objects.
• Norþimris maintains a T/V distinction, in which 2nd person plural yie etc. can be used as formal 'you' when addressing a single person. Its use is generally more restricted than in many European languages, only used in particularly formal situations and not necessarily expected when speaking to elders or strangers.
• there is an informal use of us/uus in place of mi/mie (e.g. gie us hit 'give me it').

The genitive pronouns have dependent and independent forms, used like the nominal equivalents.

	Dependent	Independent
1sg	miy(n)	miyn
2sg	ðiy(n)	ðiyn
3sg m.	his
3sg f.	her	hers
3sg n.	his
1pl	uur	uurs
2pl	your	yours
3pl	ðer	ðers

There is no independent form for the 3rd person neuter.

Reflexive pronouns are formed with -(s)seln, irregularly pronounced /sɛl/ or /sɛn/ according to dialect, which is added to the object pronouns (e.g. misseln 'myself', herṡeln 'herself'). These pronouns are more emphatic than their English counterparts and the object pronouns are preferred when the sense of reflexiveness is already implied (e.g. i sau mi i 't scewer 'I saw myself in the mirror').

The demonstrative pronouns are:

• ðiss 'this' and ðir 'these', used for objects close at hand or abstracts metaphorically so;
• ðat 'that' and ðea 'those', used for objects or abstracts at a distance or out of sight;
• yon 'that, those', used only for objects in sight but at a distance.

These may be employed as demonstrative adjectives, preceding the noun (e.g. ðat wiyff 'that woman', yon fel 'that mountain').

The interrogatives are:

• pronouns: hwea 'who', hwat 'what', hwilc 'which', referring to things already mentioned or implied, hweðer 'which of two';
• adjectives: hwilc 'what, which', hweaṡ 'whose';
• adverbs: hwiy 'why', huu 'how', hwear 'where', hwan 'when'.