Buerkaans: Difference between revisions

Perhaps the largest change from Germanic phonology in Buerkáns is the voicing of the original Germanic /v/ or /ʋ to /b/:

!'''Buerkáns'''

|/hɔɛb/

!'''Buerkáns'''

Buerkáns also experiences a general voicing of plosives in mid-word positions.  Word-final plosives are subject to change with voicing sandhi, and word-intial plosives can be pronounced either way, depending on where the speaker is from.  Southern Buerkáns tends to lean heavily towards mostly-voiced plosives, and Nothern Buerkáns always devoices intial plosives.

!'''Buerkáns'''

There is a small Sandhi factor to Buerkáns which occurs with the voicing of the last letter of a word in relationship to the phoneme that begins the word after it.  This only occurs when a Stop is the last letter of a word, and is followed by an near, mid, or fully-open vowel quality in the next word.  If the Stop is not already voiced, it becomes so.  In Buerkáns, this means that the letters ''P~B'', ''T~D'', and ''K'' are all affected when the next word starts with a single ''A'', ''Á'', ''E'', or ''O''. (This rule does not apply to di/trigraphs)  The only sound excepted from this function is /ʌ/, which only occurs after ''R'' and ''D'', and therefore cannot appear on its own.

| phrase = det áppel

| phrase = jep, oemkí ánaars is hyr

| IPA = /'jɛ'''b'''‿'''ˈɔ'''ɛ̯m.ki: 'a:n.æ:rs 'ɨs 'həi̯r/

Buerkáns morphology is rather simple, and lies somewhere between German and Danish.  There are two genders, Common and Neutral, and verbs do not conjugate for person.  There are however, three cases for noun declension.  Unlike German, Buerkáns is a very regular language.   

|èn métj

|métjes

|de métj

|dí métjes

|dí knaags

|dí hoonde

|èn riuksak

|riuksakke

|de riuksak

|dí riuksakke

|et huus

|huuser

|det huus

|dí huuser

|et áppel

|áppeler

|det áppel

|dí áppeler

|dí ár

As shown above, there are 3 different ways to express plurality in Buerkáns.  The first two are by suffixing ''-s'' or ''-e'' to words of the common gender.  There is no pattern for this, some words recieve the 'e-plural' while others receive the 's-plural'.  However, most common gender words are made plural by the addition of '-s'.  In the neuter gender, the plural marker is always '-er'.

When using the '-e' suffix, word-final consonant doubling sometimes happens, as shown in ''riugsak'' --> ''riugsa'''kk'''e''.   

* ''riuksak''  -  ''riuksakke''  -  backpacks

There are also a few special words which cannot be put into plural form, analagous to 'information' in English.  An example is given in the table above with the word ''ár'' - 'year'.  The ony way to tell if the word is being used plurally is in when it is definite. There can one see the definite plural article ''dí''.

There are two diminutive suffixes in Buerkáns: ''-kí'', and ''-ken''.  Common gender words take ''-kí'', and neuter words few use ''-ken''.  Words that have no plural form tend to favor the ''-ken'':

The diminutive form is often used to convey an affectionate or nepotic feeling towards the noun being marked  For example, one would say ''sokkís'' instead of just ''soks'' to denote their favorite pair of socks from all the other pairs.  Other times it is used to literal effect, and sometimes just for poetic license (for example, to fit a rhyme scheme).

|métj

|métjkí

|knaagkí

|huus

|huusken

|kóelkaast

|kóelkaastken

This is the only facet of Buerkáns that retains a three-gender system, as it is necessary to distinguish between masculine and feminine when speaking about people.   

|díe

|anen

|vir

|vird

|séks

|séksd

|trytyndí

|virtyn

|virtyndí

|fyftyndí

|sékstyn

|sékstyndí

|sebtyndí

|agtyndí

|nytyndí

|tvytí

|tvytíte

|énantvytí

|énantvytíte

|tvyantvytí

|tvyantvytíte

|trytí

|trytíte

|énantrytí

|tryantrytíte

|virtí

|virttíte

|fyftí

|fyftíte

|sékstíte

|sékstíte

|sebtí

|sebtíte

|agtí

|agtíte

|nyntí

|nyntíte

|hundrí

|hundríte

Numbers have a very regular structure in Buerkáns, with the exception of numbers 1 and 2, which are irregular.  The ordinal ending for numbers 3 to 20 is simply ''d''. The ordinal ending for all numbers after 20 is ''te''.   

Double-digit numbers are produced as in German.  To make the number 21, one must say ''énantvytí'', literally 'one-and-twenty'.

Verbs are only conjugated for tense in Buerkáns, not number/person.  Beyond this, all conjugations of a given verb are usually regular according to other verbs in their category. There is only one irregular verb, each verb class has a distinct conjugation pattern.  Every verb conjugates the same in Present Tense, and verbs are kept in the infinitive if they are not the primary verb in the sentence.  However, this functions more like English and the Scandinavian languages in that two verbs can follow each other directly, as opposed to German where and secondary verbs must be at the end of a sentence or phrase.

!'''syne'''

|hét gesynd

|hétte gesynd

!'''te eide'''

|eider

|hét gigaan

|hétte gigaan

|schoet gaae

!'''te schude'''

|schuder

|schkod

|hét gigschod

|hétte gischod

|schoet schude

|schudes

|hét gihort

|hétte gihort

|schoet hore

One can see that, for the most part, verbs in Buerkáns do not have different past and perfect/pluperfect forms.  The only real difference is that the prefix ''gi'' is added to indicate the tense, as well as the use of ''hét'' and ''hétte''.  Future tense can be made with either ''muet'' - must, ''schoet'' - should, must, or ''vil'' - will, depending upon the situation.

''Én luus dág, in de midnagt,'' <br />

''tvy tode knaags stud op om te schlooes.'' <br />

''Riug géen riug konfrontírt díe daamánder,'' <br />

''toog sye swárdkís ut en schod daamánder.'' <br />

''Dí dauife polísman hétte dehyr klaang gihort:'' <br />

''kom en schkot dí tvy tode knaags.'' <br />

''ib ní jy trauwe dehyr luug ní sant is,'' <br />

''frag énmál de blinde man; hy sá et aukso.'' <br />