Modern Ravenish

Ravenish
tiudisko
Pronunciation	[tiu̯.dis.ko]
Created by	wfosøra
Language family	Indo-European Germanic Proto-Ravenish Old Ravenish Middle Ravenish Ravenish
Early form	Middle Ravenish
Writing system	Latin

Ravenish (autoglossonym: tiudisko; Ravenish: [tiy̯.dis.kø) is a Germanic language, with strong influence from Finnish. It is the result of a prolonged contact among members of both groups after the Ravenish tribe migrated to the area that is now North Ostrobothnia. These connections slowly formed the modern language, which, under influence of Finnish for centuries, led to the innovation of several new forms, such as a conditional verb form and definiteness distinctions in nouns.

Introduction

Goals

• Fun
• Learn more Germanic

Setting

• North Ostrobothnia

Inspiration

• Finnish
• Proto-Germanic
• My love for old Germanic languages

Summary of changes from Proto-Germanic

All case endings are fully dropped, Genitive and Dative are marked through affixes, nominative and accusative are marked through vowel harmony.

Etymology

The language name derives from the same source as German Deutsch, þiudiskaz. The English name is in reference to a cultural aspect of the people, their unusually large reverence for Ravens, they place an oddly high importance on Ravens even for a Germanic tribe.

Phonology

Orthography

Orthography

IPA	Letter
/ɑ, æ/	a, ä
/d/	d
/ɤ, e/	ë, e
/h/	h
/i/	i
/j/	j
/k/	k, g¹
/l/	l
/m/	m
/n/	n, *m
/o, ø/	o, ö
/p/	p
/r/	r
/s/	s, f¹
/t/	t, *d
/u, y/	u, y
/ʋ/	v, b¹

• letters with '*' are only pronounced that way at the end of words, done as a way to preserve etymology.

1. retained for etymology, 'g' may be /g/ in loan words, f may be /f/ in loans, b is identical to 'v' except in loans (where it may be /b/)

Sometimes a barred letter will be used for loan words when the letter is pronounced differently from native, 'ƀ' for /b/, 'ǥ' for /g/, 'ꞙ' (double-f) or 'ſ' (zero-f) for /f/

Consonants

Consonant phonemes

	Labial	alveolar /Palatal	Velar /Glottal
Nasal	m	n	(ŋ)¹
Stop	p	t̪, d	k
Fricative		s	h
Approximant	ʋ²	l, j
Trill		r

1. allophone of /n/ before /k/
2. Can be pronounced as /w/ or /v/ and be understood by natives ( I pronounce it as /v/ since I can't quite get /ʋ/)

Vowels

Vowel phonemes

	front		back
	unround	round
close	i	y	u
mid	e	ø	o
open	æ		ɑ

Prosody

Stress

Stress, like in PG, still lies solely on the first syllable unless prefixed, where stress moves with the root word.

Grammar

Morphology

Take ALL forms with '^?' with caution, the proto-Germanic form is unknown so this is me doing very, VERY basic comparisons to figure out a Possible form.

Pronouns

Standard personal pronouns

			Nominative
first person	singular		i
	plural		vir
second person	singular		tuu
	plural		juur
third person	singular	masculine	ir
		feminine	sii
		neuter	it
	plural	masculine	iir
		feminine	ijaar
		neuter	ijo
reflexive			se

Colloquial personal pronouns

			Nominative
first person	singular		minä
	plural		me
second person	singular	formal	Te
		familiar	sinä
	plural		te
third person	singular		hän
	plural		he
reflexive			se

Gender marking has become relatively rare in everyday speech, while additional affixes for it do exist, they're treated as unnecessary unless the distinction is important to the given information.

Nouns

All stems merged under a stemless form marked with vowel harmony and suffixes, this greatly reduced system makes the grammar arguably simpler than an analytical system due to how severely basic the inflectional system is.

Grammatical
Nominative	-
Accusative	-/-n
Genitive	-n
Partitive	-(t)a/-(t)ä
Locative (internal)
Inessive	-ssa/-ssä
Elative	-sta/-stä
Illative	-an, -en, etc...
Locative (External)
Adessive	-lla/-llä
Ablative	-lta/-ltä
Allative	-lle
Essive
Essive	-na/-nä
Translative	-ksi
Marginal
Instructive	-n/-in
Abessive	-tta/-ttä
Comitative	-ne-/-në-

Verbs

Verb declensions haven't changed much, the dual has fell out of use outside of formal situations, where even there it's rare, the dual is sometimes still used casually for couples, like 'they're walking together (as partners)' is {translation here}

Adjectives and Determiners

Adjectives and determiners use the same declension as nouns except a very small difference, an infixed '-i-', so 'rusty' would be '*rustiar' (actually 'rustag'), this has no etymological origin, instead being added as a countermeasure to keep nouns and adjectives from declining, and thus appearing, identical.

Texts

I will put short snippets of texts here as a preview with the full text being linked under the snippet.

Beowulf Sentence 1

Language	Sentence 1 of Beowulf
English	Indeed (or 'Yes!')! We of the Spear-Danes, in days old, had our great kings who discovered the glory of what that man's courage could do.
Old English	Hwæt! wē gārdena in geārdagum þēodcyninga ⁠þrym gefrūnon, hu ðā æðelingas ellen fremedon.
Ravenish	hvat! me gairdien yn järdiä teudkunumia trum gafreegun, hvo to atulungaret aljana framideedun.
Pronunciation	hʋɑt me kɑi̯r.die̯n yn jær.diæ̯ teu̯d.ku.nu.miɑ̯ trun kɑs.reː.kun hʋo to ɑ.tu.luŋ.ŋɑ.ret ɑl.jɑ.nɑ srɑ.mi.deː.dun
Full text

Other resources

• Swadesh
• Phrases
• lemmas