Godelician

Godelician (Godelizge) is a Celtic language spoken in Godelicia on the Iberian peninsula. It is an artistic language set in an alternate history where Goidelic peoples settle the Northern part of the Iberian peninsula. It is descended from Old Irish, and forms part of the Goidelic family of languages, in the Ibero-Goidelic subfamily. This family contains many innovations from Vasconic, Romance and Semitic languages.

Background

Family

• Celtic languages
  • Goidelic languages
    • Ibero-Goidelic languages
      • Godelician
      • Sardin
      • Pyrenaian (†)
    • Hiberno-Goidelic languages
      • Irish
      • Alban
  • Gaulish languages
    • Insular Gaulish languages
      • British
      • Cornish
      • Pictish (†)
    • Continental Gaulish languages
      • Breton
      • Aquitainian

External history

One of the differences about this timeline is that the advent of Old Irish has been pushed back to about 750 BCE, in order to avoid having to work off Primitive Irish or compromise the intended history of Godelicia. In other words, the Celtic languages split sooner in this timeline than in reality.

Dialectology

Aside from the various orthographies and scripts used for the standard language, the forms of Godelician found throughout the nation vary greatly. Some of the more notable varities include Gipuscan (Gıpuþce) in the West, which has a pitch accent, and the "harsh"-sounding Antaran dialect (Vhantarge) in the South, where [k] > [q], [g] > [ɢ], [x] > [χ], [ɣ] > [ʁ] and [t] > [ʔ].

Godelician's two closest relatives are Sardin and Pyrenaian. Pyrenaian developed from Old Godelician as spoken in the Pyrenees and OTL Catalonia, where it was preserved for a long time as a prestige language, due to its use by local nobility even after swearing fealty to the Holy Roman Empire. However, with the 18th-century invasion of the area by France, the language was suppressed. The last native speaker of Pyrenaian died in 1909, but there is an ongoing reconstruction effort.

Sardin is descended from Pyrenaian, as the Duke in the Pyrenees came to possess the county of Sardinia. It is the official language of the current Republic of Sardinia. Comparing Godelician and Sardin, the latter lacks many innovations from Vasconic (including ergative-absolutive alignment), and experienced greater influence from Italo-Romance and Greek.

Phonology

Consonants

	Bilabial	Labio-dental	Dental	Alveolar	Post-alveolar	Retroflex	Palatal	Velar	Uvular	Pharyngeal	Epiglottal	Glottal
Nasal
Plosive
Fricative
Affricate
Approximant
Trill
Flap or tap
Lateral fric.
Lateral app.
Lateral flap

Vowels

	Front	Near-front	Central	Near-back	Back
Close
Near-close
Close-mid
Mid
Open-mid
Near-open
Open