Cumbraek
Cumbraek is a modern reconstruction of the lost medieval language of Cumbric, a Brythonic Celtic tongue once spoken in parts of southern Scotland and northern England.
Phonology and Orthography
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 | x | h | ||
| Affricate | t͡ʃ d͡ʒ | |||||||
| Approximant | w | j | ||||||
| Trill | r | |||||||
| Flap or tap | ɾ | |||||||
| Lateral app. | l | ɫ |
Vowels
| Front | Central | Back | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Close | iː y(ː) | u(ː) | |
| Near-close | ɪ | ||
| Close-mid | eː | oː | |
| Mid | ə | ||
| Open-mid | ɛ | ʌ ɔ(ː) | |
| Near-open | æː | ||
| Open | a(ː) |
Vowel Length
Pure vowels have long and short forms, with vowel length being determined by environment:
- Long vowels occur in monosyllables where the syllable ends in a single consonant or no consonant (-VC, -V)
- Short vowels occur in all polysyllables; in monosyllables ending in more than one consonant (-VCC(C)) and in proclitics
Note that the digraphs th, dh and ch are considered to be single letters.
Orthography
Cumbraek is written with the Latin alphabet and uses the following letters.
a b c/k ch d dh e f g gw h hw i j l m n o p r s t th u v w y
The table below shows the correspondences between letters and pronounciation.
| Graph | IPA | Comments |
|---|---|---|
| a | /a(ː)/ | |
| ae, ay | /æː/ | takes stress in final syllables |
| ai | /əɨ̯/ | |
| aw | /au̯/ | |
| b | /b/ | |
| c, k | /k/ | c occurs word initially and in the digraph ck, k occurs everywhere else |
| /g/ | word-finally, before a voiced sound in the next word | |
| ch | /x/ | |
| d | /d/ | |
| dh | /ð/ | |
| e | /eː/ | long |
| /ɛ/ | short | |
| ea, ee | /eː/ | takes stress in final syllables |
| ey | /ɛɨ̯/ | |
| ew | /ɛu̯/ | |
| f | /f/ | |
| g | /g/ | |
| gw | /gʷ/ | |
| h | /h/ | word-initially |
| Ø | between vowels | |
| hw | /xw ~ ʍ/ | the distinction between /xw/ and /ʍ/ is largely a matter of personal choice |
| i | /iː/ | long |
| /ɪ/ | short | |
| iw | /ɪu̯/ | |
| j | /d͡ʒ/ | |
| l | /l/ | |
| l | /ɫ/ | |
| m | /m/ | |
| n | /n/ | |
| ng | /ŋ/ | |
| o | /oː/ | long |
| /ɔ ~ ɒ/ | short (/ɒ/ is more common in the south) | |
| oa | /ɔː ~ ɒː/ | /ɒː/ is more common in the south |
| oe | /oː/ | takes stress in final syllables |
| oo | /uː/ | long |
| /u/ | short | |
| ou | /yː ~ ʉː/ | long; /ʉː/ is the southern form |
| /y ~ ʉ/ | short; /ʉ/ is the southern form | |
| oy | /ɔɨ̯/ | |
| ow | /ɔu̯/ | |
| p | /p/ | in most environments |
| /b/ | word-finally, before a voiced initial | |
| r | /r/ | |
| rr | /r/ | |
| s | /s/ | generally written <ss> between vowels |
| t | /t/ | in most environments |
| /d/ | word finally, before a voiced initial | |
| u | /uː/ | long |
| /u/ | short, in monosyllables | |
| /ʌ/ | in pretonic syllables and proclitics | |
| uw | /uː/ | |
| v | /v/ | v is a weak consonant, liable to be lost in final position unless a vowel initial follows |
| w | /w/ | |
| y | /j/ | before vowels |
| /ɪ/ | in word-final, unstressed syllables only |
Diacritics
Cumbraek makes occasional use of three diacritics:
- the acute accent is used to show an unexpected long vowel (e.g. bónt 'they may be'); when it occurs in the final syllable, it also marks stress (e.g. cantín 'canteen')
- the grave accent is used to show an unexpected stressed syllable (e.g. gràvity 'gravity'); it is also used to mark a short vowel in monosyllables (e.g. bùs 'bus')
- the trema is used to mark diaeresis and is place on the second vowel of a sequence (e.g. troäv 'I turn', troöun 'I was turning')
Grammar
Consonant Mutations
As with all modern Celtic languages, Cumbraek makes extensive use of initial consonant mutations to help signal grammatical and syntactic information. Cumbraek has three main mutations: lenition (mootthei), spirantisation (anadhlolhei) and nasalisation (troonolhei). There is a fourth type of mutation called aspiration (anadhleth) in which word-initial vowels take an h'- before them.
The changes caused by the mutations are summarised in the following table.
| Radical | Lenition | Spirantisation | Nasalisation |
|---|---|---|---|
| p | b | f | |
| t | d | th | |
| c | g | ch | |
| b | v | m | |
| d | dh | n | |
| g | h | ng | |
| gw | w | nw | |
| j | y | ny | |
| m | v |
For brevity, words routinely causing mutations will be marked with superscript letters in this article: L for lenition, S for spirantisation, N for nasalisation and H for aspiration.
Vowel Mutations
Cumbraek also has two vowel mutations, which occur regularly. Feminisation is generally restricted to adjectives and causes an i to become e and a u to become o. Alternation is common in the formation of plurals and in certain verb forms, and causes the following changes:
| Radical | Alternate |
|---|---|
| a | e |
| e | i |
| o | |
| ae | ea |
| ay | |
| oy | oo |
| a...a | e...e |
| a...e | e...i |
| a...o | |
| o...o | |
| a...u |
In some cases, these changes work backwards (e.g. gwrek 'woman' has the plural form gwragedh).
Articles
There is no indefinite article in Cumbraek, the noun alone is indefinite (e.g. gur 'man, a man', gwrek 'woman, a woman').
The definite article is er, sometimes reduced to 'r after a preposition ending in a vowel or after the locative verbema (e.g. er gur 'the man', du'r egloos 'to the church').
The definite article causes lenition to feminine nouns (e.g. er wrek 'the woman').
Nouns
Nouns are either masculine or feminine in gender.
Plurals may be formed in one of several ways:
- by adding an ending, most commonly -ow, -yow, -yon, -on, -edh, -et, -ot (e.g. cadow 'battles', dinyon 'people, men', privet 'insects')
- by alternation (e.g. bran 'raven' → bren, oyn 'lamb' → oon)
- by adding an ending plus alternation (e.g. gwrek 'woman' → gwragedh, map 'boy, son' → mebyon)
- irregularly (e.g. ci 'dog' → cun, didh 'day' → diow, ti 'house' → tey, hwair 'sister' → hwioredh, broadur 'brother' → brodir)
A number of words, including many plant and tree names and many animals, have a base form with a collective meaning to which the singulative endings -inn (masc.) or -enn (fem.) are added (e.g. deriw 'oak trees' → derwenn 'oak tree', moch 'pigs' → mochinn 'a pig').
Nouns are not formally marked for case, but the following observations may be noted:
- the genitive of possession is shown by placing the genitive noun after the thing possessed (e.g. ti Neven 'Neven's house', gwrek mu tat 'my father's wife')
- some intransitive verbs such as devot 'come' and munet 'go' permit the indirect object to behave as if it were the direct object of a transitive verb, allowing the preposition to be dropped (e.g. compare mi carav Yowann 'I love John' with mi av Lounnen 'I am going (to) London').
- nouns in the vocative are preceded by the particle aL (e.g. a Vathow! 'Matthew!'). This particle may be dropped in speech, particularly before a vowel, but lenition is always retained (e.g. oucher da, Vathow 'good evening, Matthew').
Adjectives
Most adjectives follow the noun they qualify and must agree in gender and number with that noun.
A few adjectives are regularly preposed, notably henL 'old' and pennL 'chief'. These adjectives always cause lenition to a following noun (e.g. hen wur 'old man').
Adjectives following feminine singular nouns undergo lentition (e.g. gwrek voar 'large woman'). Where possible they also undergo the change of i → e and u → o (e.g. ci gwinn, cath wenn 'white dog, white cat', gur druk, gwrek dhrok 'bad man, bad woman').
Adjectives may undergo alternation following plural nouns, though this is not always the case (e.g. ti glan 'clean house' → tey glen).
An exclamative adjective can be formed by adding -het to the positive (e.g. gwinnet 'how white!, so white!', glanhet 'how clean!, so clean!'). This may also be used as an equative adjective in phrases like cun winnet a'r err 'as white as the snow'.
The 'comparative' adjective is formed by adding -ach to the positive adjective, and the superlative takes -hav (e.g. gwinnach 'whiter', gwinnav 'whitest', caledach 'harder', calettav' 'hardest').
The following adjectives are compared irregularly:
| Positive | Equative | Comparative | Superlative | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| near | agos | nesset | nes | nessav |
| small | bechan | leyhet | ley | leyhav |
| good | da | custadhul | gwell | gorow |
| bad | druk | cunruk | goeth | goetthav |
| old | hen | hinhet | hin | hinhav |
| large | moar | cumment | moy | moyhav |
| young | yowank | yohwet | yow | yohwav |
Adverbs of quality may be formed by placing enL before an adjective (e.g. en dha 'well', en gadarn 'strongly').
Pronouns
Personal
| Subject | Object | Possessive | Infixed | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1sg. | mi | -m | mu(n)N | 'mN |
| 2sg | ti | -thL | deL (jeL) | 'thL |
| 3sg m. | ev | -yH, -wH | iL | 'yL |
| 3sg f. | hi | -sH | iSH | 'ySH |
| 1pl | ni | -nH | anH | |
| 2pl | hwi | -ch | ach | |
| 3pl | oo | -sH | owNH |
The subject pronouns are used:
- before a personal verb to express the subject (e.g. mi carav 'I love')
- as auxiliary pronouns, added to the end of a verb by a hyphen for clarity (e.g. eth welus-ev 'he saw you')
- as auxiliary pronouns, in conjunction with possessive adjectives (e.g. i nen-hi 'her grandmother')
- independently following prepositions and conjunctions (e.g. mi a thi 'me and you')
- as the object of an imperative verb (e.g. ladh oo 'kill them')
The object pronouns must be attached to a preverbal particle or, in extremely colloquial usage, to a subject pronoun preceding the verb (e.g. eth garav or mith garav 'I love you'). 3sg masculine -w is used following the perfective particle ru (e.g. ruw gwelest 'you have seen him').
The possessive pronouns are used:
- as possessive adjectives, before the noun they qualify (e.g. i thi 'her house', ow nwely 'their bed')
- as the object of a verb noun (e.g. de welet 'seeing you', i gano 'singing it')
- with -houn to produce reflexive pronouns (e.g. mu-houn 'myself', an-houn 'ourselves')
NB: mu is used before a consonant and mun before a vowel. The form je is a colloquial spelling of de, representing a more general pronunciation.
The infixed pronouns are contracted forms of the possessive pronouns used following prepositions and conjunctions ending a vowel (e.g. a'm tat 'and my father', o'y wlat 'from his country').
Possessive pronouns proper only exist in the first and second person singular: mow 'mine' and tow 'your'. The so-called 'genitive particle' now is used with the subject pronouns to produce possessive pronouns in the other persons (e.g. now-hi 'hers', now-ni 'ours').
Demonstrative
The demonstrative pronouns display a three-way distinction, with hunn referring to objects close at hand, hunnedh referring to objects out of sight or abstract and hunnunt referring to objects in sight but distant. Each of these has masculine, feminine and plural forms.
| Masc. | Fem. | Plural | |
|---|---|---|---|
| this | hunn | honn | hinn |
| that | hunnedh | honnedh | hinnedh |
| that yonder | hunnunt | honnunt | hinnunt |
The hunn and hunnedh forms may be used as demonstrative adjectives following a definite noun (e.g. er gur hunn 'this man', er cestill hinnedh 'that castle'). Hunnunt is replaced by hunt 'yonder' in this use (e.g. er wragedh hunt 'those women').
Interrogative
| what | peth pebeth |
pronouns |
|---|---|---|
| peL | adjective | |
| who | puwL | |
| which one(s) | p'oun | singular |
| p're | plural | |
| how many | petL | |
| where | p'le | |
| when | p'oar pe brit |
|
| how | pe dhel' pe vodh |
|
| why | p'rak per |
|
| how much | pe vent |