Brittainese

Brittainese
bretneis
Pronunciation	[brɛtˈneːz]
Created by	Llwcybwy
Date	2022
Language family	Indo-European Romance West Romance North-West Romance Brittainese
Early forms	Latin Old Brittainese
Standard form	Standard Brittainese
Dialects	Brittish American Standard Brittainese
Writing system	Latin

Brittainese (bretneis [brɛtˈneːz] or leng bretneis [ˈlɛŋg brɛtˈneːz]) is a Romance language spoken by around 400 million people as a native language, mainly in the Brittish Isles, North America, Australia, India and Africa. It is most closely related with the Channel languages and French, with which it forms the North-West branch of the Romance languages, and with which it shares many linguistic features.

Introduction

Brittainese is a language created by user Llwcybwy, heavily inspired by Ray Brown's fantastic but yet unfinished conlang with the same name. I cannot however claim that this is a continuation of the language, as my conlanger skills are as of now very lackluster as compared to his. Furthermore, some features of the language are, while in my opinion realistic, also influenced by personal taste, and thus breaking one of the rules set up for continuing the conlang.

The goal of the language is basically the same as that which was described by Brown: it is a study of what Latin would have evolved into in the Brittish Isles, meaning that the language is meant to be as realistic as possible. The world is essentially the same as ours however.

Phonology

Consonants

Consonant phonemes

	Labial		Dental		alveolar		Post- alveolar/ palatal		Velar		Glottal
Nasal		m				n				(ŋ)
Stop	p	b			t	d			k	ɡ
Affricate							t͡ʃ	d͡ʒ
Fricative	f	v	θ	ð	s	z	ʃ	ʒ			h
Liquid		w			l	ɾ		j		(w)

Notes:

• Unvoiced stops are most often not aspirated.
• [ŋ] is only an allophone of /n/ preceding /k/ or /g/.
• /θ/ is only marginally phonemic in Brittainese, only appearing in loan words, names and is a common realisation of the cluster /ðs/.
• /ɾ/ can be pronounced in a number of ways depending on the speaker and the situation. It is most commonly weakened to an aproximant or may, depending on the dialect, even be deleted before another consonant or word-finally, sometimes lengthening the previous vowel. It is however never pronounced as [ɻ], and its realisation as [ʀ] has mostly died out in the historically concerned dialects.

Vowels

Vowels in Brittainese varies greatly between dialects. Below is listed one rendering of the vowels for the Standard Brittainese, Brittish Brittainese and American dialects, although the view in the matter may differ among specialists.

Standard Brittainese

	Front		Central		Back
	short	long	short	long	short	long
Close	i	iː			u	uː
Mid	ɛ	ɛː eː	ə		ɔ	ɔː oː
Open			ɐ a		ɑ	ɑː
Diphthongs	ai̯   ei̯   eu̯   u̯i

Brittish Brittainese

	Front		Central		Back
	short	long	short	long	short	long
Close	ɪ	iː	ʉ			uː
Mid	ɛ	eː	ə		ɔ	oː
Open		æː	ɐ a		ɒ	ɑː
Diphthongs	ai̯   ei̯   øʏ̯

American Brittainese

	Front		Central		Back
	lax	tense	lax	tense	lax	tense
Close	ɪ	i			ʊ	u
Mid	ɛ	e	ə		ɔ	o
Open		æ	ɐ		ɒ	ɑ
Diphthongs	ai̯   ei̯   eu̯   u̯i

Vowel Length

Vowel length is phonemic in Standard Brittainese, but is only contrastive on the primarily stressed syllable. It arose from the allophonic vowel length of Proto-West-Romance, that became phonemic due to the loss of many vowels in the Old Brittainse stage of the language. Vowels will always be long in open syllables, but may be either long or short in closed syllables.

Vowel length used to be phonemic in all Brittainese dialects, although this has been lost in favor of a lax/tense distinction in American Brittainese. It was instead replaced by an allophonic lengthening of stressed vowels in open syllables and final syllables with a one-consonant coda.

Unstressed Syllables

Unstressed Brittainese vowels are pronounced differently from stressed vowels in every dialect, although their precise realisation may differ. In Standard and Brittish Brittainese unstressed vowels must always be short, as only primarily stressed vowels may be long. In the American dialect however, as it lacks a contrastive vowel length, only stressed vowels may be tense, while unstressed vowels are always lax. All dialects however contrast three unstressed vowels /ə i u/. Below are listed their exact pronunciations in Standard, Brittish and American Brittainese.

• Standard Brittainese: [ə i u]. /a/ is pronounced [ɐ] in secondarily stressed syllables.
• Brittish Brittainese: [ə ɨ ʉ]. /ʉ/ is unrounded to [ɨ] before coda /r/ or /n/. /a/ is pronounced [ɐ] in secondarily stressed syllables.
• American Brittainese: [ə ɪ ʊ].

Stress

Most Brittainese words can receive both primary and secondary stress. Only a few words receive no stress, such as articles, clitics, prepositions e.t.c. The primary stress is phonemic, but is most often given to the last full syllable. In that case, a secondary stress is given to the first vowel. Some words however have their stress on another vowel than the last full. In addition to the secondary stress on the first syllable, they also receive a secondary stress on the last vowel.

Compound words created from two or more words keep their original secondary stress, but the primary stress of all words but the last are converted to secondary stress, leaving only one vowel with primary stress.

Grammar

TODO