Valthungian

Gutish is an East Germanic language descended from a language that was probably mutually intelligible with Gothic, though much of its corpus cannot have been inherited from the language of Wulfilas. It is likely, however, that the speakers of the ancestor of Gutish did consider themselves Goths, as reflected in its name. (It is likely similar in development to Modern High German – Deutsch – which is not directly descended from Old High German, but rather a similar dialect spoken by a group who also considered themselves “Diutisk.”) While it shares many of the areal changes of the Northwest Germanic languages, it is also marked by distinctive changes in palatalization, which, while similar to those of Old English, are most likely influenced by contact with Slavic languages.

Writing System

Alphabet & Pronunciation

[ɑ] aska ‘ash’	[eː] ǣjus ‘horse’	[b] berkna ‘birch’	[ɡ] giva ‘gift’	[ʤ] ǧus ‘creature’	[d] daǧ ‘day’	[ð] ǣði ‘mother’	[e̞] erða ‘earth’
[ʐ] akuža ‘axe’	[h] haglas ‘hail’	[θ] þornus ‘thorn’	[i] igil ‘hedgehog’	[j] jēr ‘year’	[k] kune ‘family’	[l] lagus ‘lake’	[m] matna ‘man’
[n] nǭþs ‘need’	[o̞] orte ‘garden’	[p] perðra ‘chance’	[r] rǣða ‘wheel’	[s] sōgil ‘sun’	[ʃ] šug ‘family’	[t] tījus ‘Teu’	[ʧ] čusins ‘chioce’
[u] uvils ‘bad’	[v] ivras ‘boar’	[f] fǣjo ‘cattle’	[w] wynia ‘joy’	[ø̞] œrča ‘farmer’	[y] ynča ‘ounce’	[o̞ː] ǭsus ‘ox’

Non-Alphabetic Variants

[ɑː] āde ‘egg’	[eː] ēls ‘eel’	[ai̯] īs ‘ice’	[uː] ōðlas ‘inheritance’	[au̯] ūrus ‘aurochs’	[ø̞ː] œ̄ja ‘island’	[yː] ȳftigi ‘timeliness’

Though the seven long vowels of the Non-Alphabetic Variants have individual names, they are not considered to be part of the standard alphabet or alphabetical order. Instead, each long vowel is considered alphabetically to be the equivalent of its doubled short counterpart. That is, ‹ā› is equivalent to ‹aa›, ‹ē› to ‹ee›, ‹ī› to ‹ii›, and so on. This becomes complicated by the fact that all long vowels except for ‹ā› are raised, though it’s not actually any different than what happens to the letter names in English. (The long vowels ‹ǣ› and ‹ǭ› are included in the standard alphabetical order, and do not have short forms, though they are written with macrons in their Romanized forms.)

(NB: The Gutish alphabet, while mainly latin- and cyrillic-based, contains several characters which are not readily representable using the standard Unicode characters. The forms presented in this wiki are a Romanization of the letters shown in the table above.)

Orthography

The orthography of Gutish is quite regular to its phonology; indeed, there are very few exceptions – four, in fact:

1. The letter ‹n› is used before ‹g› or ‹k› to indicate the velar nasal [ŋ]. Specifically, ‹ng› is [ŋg] and ‹nk› is [ŋk]. (E.g. drinkna [driŋk.na] ‘to drink’.)
2. In combinations where ‹ng› is followed by another nasal consonant, [g] is elided in speech: ‹ngm› is [ŋm] and ‹ngn› is [ŋn]. (E.g. gangna [gaŋ.na] ‘to go’; not **[gaŋg.na].)
3. The diphthong ‹eu› is realized as [ɛu̯] (rather than the expected [e̞u̯]). (E.g. sneugna [snɛu̯g.na] ‘to snow’.)
4. The diphthong ‹øu› is realized as [œy̑] (rather than the expected [ø̞u̯]).

Stress is indicated in the standard orthography with an acute accent only if:

1. The stress is not on the first syllable, and
2. the stressed syllable is a short vowel. (Long vowels cannot be unstressed, though they may sometimes take secondary stress.)

For example, fergúne ‘mountain’, but garǣts ‘correct’.

Ligatures & Liaisons

When two like vowels of equal value come together, the words may form a ligature. This is most common with the articles (sā + a-, sō + u-, etc.) and particles (e.g nī + i-).

• Articles
  • Mandatory:
    • sā, hwā, twā + a-, ā- → s’ā-, hw’ā-, tw’ā-
      • sā aplas → s’āplas, ‘the apple’
      • twā aðna → tw’āðna ‘two seasons’
    • sō, þō, hō + u-, ō- → s’ō-, þ’ō-, h’ō-
      • sō uréča → s’ōréča, ‘the persuit’
      • sō ōs → s’ōs, ‘the ewe’
    • þǣ, twǣ + e-, ǣ- → þ’ǣ-, tw’ǣ-
      • þǣ ǣjus → þ’ǣjus ‘the horses’
      • twǣ elis → tw’ǣlis ‘two others’
    • nī, þrī, hī + i-, ī- → n’ī-, þr’ī-, h’ī-
      • nī ist → n’īst, ‘isn’t’
      • hī īsran → h’īsran ‘this iron’

Phonology

Final Obstruent Devoicing

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