Wessedian
| Wessedian | |
|---|---|
| væssoyskur | |
| Pronunciation | [/ˈvɛsː.ɔɪ̯.skʊr/] |
| Created by | Freyja |
| Date | 2024 |
| Native to | Republic of Wessey |
Early forms | Old West Norse
|
| Official status | |
Official language in | Wessey |
Recognised minority language in | Scotland |
| Language codes | |
| ISO 639-1 | ws |
| ISO 639-2 | wsd |
| ISO 639-3 | wsd |
Wessedian (endonym: væssoyskur; Wessedian: [ˈvɛsː.ɔɪ̯.skʊr]) is a North Germanic language it is spoken by about two million people, principally in and around Wessey, where it is the official language. Communities of Wessedian speakers also exist in England and Scotland, where it is recognised as a minority language. Minor Wessedian-speaking communities also exist in Norway, the United States and Canada.
Wessedian, like all other North Germanic languages, is descended from Old Norse, the common language of the Norsemen during the Viking Age. Wessedian is descended from the West Norse dialect group, along with Icelandic, Faroese and Norwegian. However, unlike the continental Scandinavian languages — namely Swedish, Danish and Norwegian — Wessedian is not easily mutualy intelligible with other Scandinavian languages. Wessedian has borrowed some vocabulary from the Goidelic languages, especially Scottish Gaelic, Scots and Northern English dialects, due to shared historical contact between between the languages in the region.
History
Although no exact date is know, it is suspected that the first Norse settlers came to Wessey in the late 8th and early 9th century. Most of these settlers were from the western region of modern day Norway, and brought their dialects of the Old Norse language with them. Other than a few runestones, very few texts of the early settler period survive, some stories managed to survive through oral tradition, and were later written down by scholars.
Orthography
The Wessedian alphabet consists of 30 letters, thirteen of which are vowels and 17 are consonants.
| Majuscule forms | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| A | À | B | D | Ð | E | È | F | G | H | I | Ì | J | K | L | M | N | O | Ò | P | R | S | T | U | Ù | V | X | Y | Æ | Ø |
| Minuscule forms | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| a | à | b | d | ð | e | è | f | g | h | i | ì | j | k | l | m | n | o | ò | p | r | s | t | u | ù | v | x | y | æ | ø |
Non-native letters mostly appear in some foreign proper nouns, like toponyms and given names, and loanwords that haven't been adapted to Wessedian spelling.
Diasystems
Words written in Wessedian are generally spelt the same across every dialect, regardless of the speakers pronunciation. This is accomplished with the use of diasystems, which are always spelt the same but can be pronounced differently depending on the speakers dialect.
- A list of diasystems will be added soon
Phonology
Consonants
| Bilabial | Dental | Alveolar | Postalveolar | Palatal | Velar | Glottal | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Nasal | m | n | ɲ* | (ŋ) | ||||
| Plosive | voiceless | p | t | c | k | |||
| voiced | b | d | ɟ | ɡ | ||||
| Affricate | t͡ʃ* | (t͡ɕ)* | ||||||
| Fricative | voiceless | f | θ* | s | ʃ | ɕ* | (x)* | h |
| voiced | v ~ ʋ | (ð)* | ||||||
| Approximant | j | |||||||
| Trill | r | |||||||
| Lateral approximant | l | ʎ | ||||||
Notes:
- Sounds with an asterisk indicate that the usage of said consonant depends on the speaker's dialect.
- /x/ is only ever found as /xʷ/.
- /ŋ/ is an allophone of /n/ in front of /k/ and /g/.
- In fast speech /r/ is often pronounced as [ɾ].