Atlantic/Older version
| Atlantic | |
|---|---|
| ondartigòr; ra nimba ondartigora | |
| Pronunciation | [[Help:IPA|[[ɔndartiˈɡɔr], [ra ˈɲimba ɔndartiˈɡɔra]]]] |
| Created by | Lili21 |
| Date | May 2018 |
| Setting | Alt-Earth |
| Ethnicity | Atlantics (ondartigorot) |
| Native speakers | 66,000,000 (2017) |
Indo-European
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| Official status | |
Official language in | Atlantic Provinces |
Atlantic, also known as Atlantic Latin or Atlantic Romance, natively ondartigòr (ra nimba ondartigora) [ɔndartiˈɡɔr], [ra ˈɲimba ɔndartiˈɡɔra] is a Romance language spoken in an alternate history version of Earth in the Atlantic Provinces (Ondàrtigot [ɔnˈdartigot]), a country located in the northwestern corner of Africa. The country's name is a remnant of Roman history, when the area - including the Atlas Mountains as its main geographical feature - was divided in the provinces of Numidia, Mauretania Caesariensis, and Mauretania Tingitana.
It has various dialects, usually grouped in two main varieties called Mauritanian (muridoinens [muridɔˈɲens]), the one the standard is based on, and Numidian (numigens [numiˈzens] or [numiˈdzens]); some sources distinguish two further variants, Teneréïc (teneriens [teneˈʒens]) and Senegal Riparian (naia-uruminiens [ˌnæjæ.urumiˈɲens]); these two varieties are greatly influenced by the non-Romance languages they coexist with.
Distinctive features
Atlantic is part of its own branch among Romance languages, but shares many common features with Western Romance languages, notably Catalan.
The typical distinctive feature of Atlantic is its shifting of Vulgar Latin vowels which, while not completely unlike to how it developed in Sicilian, has a unique - and easily noticeable - change in having kept long and short /a/ distinct, with (Vulgar) Latin /aː/ being reflected as /o/. This is easily noted for example in all first conjugation verbs, as COMPROBĀRE > cumpuruòi "to like" /kumpurˈwoi̯/ or LV̄DITĀRE > nauuidòi "to practice" /nau̯wiˈdoi̯/.
Among mid vowels, the short ones were raised to /i u/ while the long ones remained /e o/, cf. TERRA > tira "land, earth, soil", FOCVM > fug "fire", RATIŌNEM > raçon "reason, cause", TRĒS > çet "three (m/f)".
Long vowels /iː uː/ were diphthongized to /ai̯ au̯/ when in open syllables, while they shortened and merged into /i u/ in other cases: LV̄NA > rauna "moon", VICĪNVM > uiçain "neighbour; close", MAURĪTĀNIAM > Muridonea "Mauritania", NV̄LLIFICĀRE > nuiifigòi "to cancel, revoke". Latin /au̯/ had probably merged with /uː/ before, and shifted back to /au̯/ for the same reason, cf. AVRA > *ūra > aura "gold" (plurale tantum).
Short word-final vowels except for /a/ were lost as in Gallo-Romance, but in some words short vowels, usually /i/ or /u/, were later added again in order to break clusters; typically it was inserted into a -Cr cluster (CASTRVM > *castr > caistur "city", cf. CASTRA > caistra "cities") but after a -NC cluster (QVĪNQVE > *quingui > *pimb > pimbi "five"). /-ts/ (> /s/ today in most dialects) and /s/ + stop clusters were not changed, cf. LACTEM > *nasti > nast "milk".
/l/ completely disappeared from the Vulgar Latin dialects that became Atlantic, often by dissimilation to /r/ before other consonants (cf. (PRŌVINCIĀS) ĀTLANTICĀS > *Ordanticot > Ondàrtigot), and usually by turning into /j/ (after front vowels or /a/) or /w/ (after back vowels), cf. CABALLVM > cauài "horse", MĪLLE > miu "thousand".
Word-initially, it most commonly turned into /n/ – cf. LINGVAM > nimba "language" – but if the word contained an onset nasal, then it turned into /r/, as in LV̄NA > rauna "moon". This is the origin of the two sets of definite articles used in Atlantic, with the usual forms being in and na, but with ir and ra being used if the word they attach to has a nasal in its first syllable (cf. na rauna "the moon" but ra nimba "the language"). Originally this only applied to the feminine article, and if the word had a nasal but in coda it didn't apply, but analogy has extended this to all cases (cf. ir ondartigòr "the Atlantic man").
/l/ changed this way also in the FL- initial cluster, where (just as in FR-) the initial /f/ became first an approximant /w/ and then got fully vocalized to /u/, giving ur- or un- in such words, like FLŌREM > */wnor/ > unòr /uˈnor/ "flower" or FLV̄MEN > */wrau̯m/ > uraum /uˈrau̯m/ "river". PL-, however, consistently became pr-, which means that /l/ got rhotacized before it got lost in other places (cf. PLVVIAM > pruia "rain").
/l/ was later reintroduced into the language through Arabic loans and later Latin and Greek learned reborrowings – cf. luua "dialect" from Arabic لغة luḡa.
Atlantic palatalized /k ɡ/ as most Western Romance languages did, to /ts dz/; /ts/ also resulted from -TI- and -TR- (but not -STR-) clusters. These were later deaffricated to /s z/ in most dialects, but a few Numidian ones still retain the affricates. See RATIŌNEM > raçon "reason, cause" /raˈtson/ > /raˈson/, TRIA > çìa "three (disj.)" /ˈtsi.a/ > /ˈsi.a/, GELĀRE > giuòi "to freeze" /dziˈwoi̯/ > /ziˈwoi̯/. -DI- developed differently depending on whether it was followed by a front or by a non-front vowel. Before non-front vowels, the palatal element was lost so that it developed as regular intervocalic /d/ (see below); before front vowels, it palatalized to /dz/ much like -TI- did; cf. NVMIDIAM > *Numida > Numìua "Numidia" /nuˈmiwa/ and NVMIDIĒNSEM > numigens /numiˈdzens/ > /numiˈzens/ "Numidian".
Intervocalic lenition of stops also follows the Western Romance pattern: unvoiced stops become voiced and voiced stops become fricatives, with original /d/ becoming */ð/ > /w/ and original /ɡ/ becoming */ɣ/ > /w/ or */ɣ/ > /j/ according to nearby vowels:
- CAPERE > *cabi > cab "to understand"
- VĪTAM > uaida "life"
- CRVCEM > *crugi > ecrug "cross"
- QVOQVE > *pubi > pub "also"
- CABALLVM > *caual > cauài "horse"
- PEDEM > *piði > piu "foot" /piu̯/
- FRIGIDVM > */wriɣiðu/ > uriu "cold"
- MAGVM > */maɣu/ > mau "nomad"<ref>Originally "magician, fortune-teller", this term came to identify wandering fortune-tellers.
Morphology
Numerals
Atlantic cardinal numerals are partially directly inherited from Latin (1-15, 17, and most tens and hundreds) and partially rebuilt on post-Vulgar Latin roots, especially where the numbers would have otherwise become too similar if not identical (as would have been the case with 13 and 16). All numerals ending in 2 and 3 (except 12 and 13), as well as all hundreds except for 100, have a distinct form used only in disjunctive counting, derived from the Latin neuter.
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