Grekelin
Grekelin | |
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Γρεκελένικιν, Γνύjα Γρεκελένικιν | |
Pronunciation | [ɣn̪ut̪zɐ ɣɾɛkɛlɛn̪iki] |
Created by | Aggelos Tselios |
Date | 2023 |
Native to | Greece, Hungary, Serbia, Ukraine |
Indo-European
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Early form | Proto-Grekelin
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Standard form | Urlogreckae ('Υρλόγρέκέλινιν')
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Dialect |
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Official status | |
Official language in | Csongrád-Csanád |
Regulated by | Grekelin Language Administration |
Grekelin is a naturalistic Hellenic conlang with strong Hungarian influence. It was initially coined as a result of contact between the Greek refugees in Hungary in the 15th century, although the language referring to that era is referred to as Proto-Grekelin and Grekelin itself has diverged too much from it. Today, Grekelin is spoken in a few Hungarian and Serbian villages, with respectively higher influence from Hungarian and Slavic. Grekelin holds some mutual intelligibility with Modern Greek, if the sentence is too simple and intentionally designed to be similar to Greek.
Grekelin is written using the Greek alphabet, although some letters have changed sounds and others have been added or removed.
Etymology
Grekelin comes from the Urlogrok word Groko, which means Greek. The suffix -lin comes from Proto-Grekelin "Ελλήν" which is the ethnonym for the Greeks. Eventually, Groko reverted to the Latin-related "Greko" and, as the tradition has it, the two worlds met to form Grekelin.
Another legend says that Grekelin was a very old Slavic word to describe the Greeks of the Black Sea, during the Kievan Rus times. It appears that the surname Grekelin exists in Ukrainian and Belarusian (Грекелін), while Russian has a more distinct version Грекелов.
Orthography
The Grekelin alphabet consists of 27 letters, five of which are vowels and 22 consonants.
Letters of the Grekelin alphabet | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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Αα | Ββ | Бб | Γγ | Δδ | Дд | Εε | Ζζ | Θθ | Ιι | Κκ | Λλ | Μμ | Νν | Ξξ | Οο | Ππ | Ρρ | Σς | Ss | Jj | Ττ | Υυ | Φφ | Χχ | Ψψ | Ωω |
The letters correspond always to their pronunciation, unless there's a borrow used (eg. είς). The Grekelin orthography is considered a phonetic, as opposed to deep orthographies like French's.
Prosody
Grekelin does not have any rules on the stress placement. The stress may go on any position unless the final vowel is doubled, where the stress is automatically passed there. The stress may be indicated with an accute accent ('), unless "ε" has to be stressed, where two accute accents have to be placed.
Grammar
Grekelin's grammar is very straightforward and simple, although it will seem strange to new learners of the language:
- Articles can be skipped although some cases may be confusing without it. The only article in the language is "τάν", since Grekelin does not have genders.
- The plural is formed by adding the plural syllable κέ- in the beginning of the word. Eg. μύσι -> κέμύσι
- Grekelin does not make conjugation necessary, if a pronoun precedes the verb. Eg. σίχ θίλο -> θίλε.
- The English article "a" (eg. A block) is used in Grekelin as "έγυ" (Lit. "one").
- Personal pronouns are "Ίχ, σίχ, τίχ | Μύχ, νύχ, βάρ", respectively "I, you, he/she/it | We, you (plural), they"
Dialects
Grekelin has two dialects, depending on where each is spoken. These are the Slavic and Urlogrockae dialects. Very little differences exist between the two, with the former including features such as palatalization and decreasing the use of personal pronouns, as well as higher use of Slavic words (eg. Τάν στύλι in lieu of Τάν κάρκα). The standardized form, due to the higher number of speakers, is Urlogrockae. The Slavic dialect however has become far more popular in the last few decades due to higher recognition from the states.
Lately, a more "Purifying" dialect has also began developing. It involves creating new Grekelin words instead of using the parent languages. Currently it has no native speakers though, and is not regulated by any organization.
Example texts
Basic sentence
English
I would like a coffee and biscuits, thank you.
Grekelin
(Ίχ) θίλο έγυ καφέ ανά κέбισκότι, jόμο.
Greek
(Έγω) Θέλω έναν καφέ καί μπισκότα, ευχαριστώ.
Lord's prayer
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