Evonish

Evonish (subject to constant renaming) is a constructed language (for a possible constructed world) mostly limited to my day dreaming and notebooks. It is a-posetriori and influenced primarily by (West) Germanic, (Insular) Celtic, and Russian. Its phoneme inventory is based on General American phonology. The wordstock has many influences of Germanic languages, Celtic languages, Slavic languages, and some a priori vocabulary.

Imagine Germanic tribes such as the Anglo-Saxons with eastern tribes gathering together with Celts and sailing the Baltic Sea. They landed near modern day Saint Petersburg where they established their own nation, absorbing some northern Russian groups. Essentially, it is the Romania of the Northwest in a sense. Sweet maps of this will be made.

Evonish Evonic (?)
Progress: 22%
Type
Fusional
Alignment
Nominative-Accusative
Head direction
Initial	Mixed		Final
Primary word order
Verb-second
Tonal
No
Declensions
Yes
Conjugations
Yes
Genders
Common/Neuter
Nouns decline according to...
Case		Number
Definiteness		Gender
Verbs conjugate according to...
Voice		Mood
Person		Number
Tense		Aspect

Objectives

• to create a poetic, flowing language
• to preserve old Germanic grammar
• to preserve Celtic vocabulary
• to create a left-hand friendly writing system

Previous Task: Define Goals --> Current Task: Determine Consonants --> Next Task: Determine Vowels

Phonology

Æ-Tensing, a process by which the vowel /æ/ is raised and lengthened to produce /æ̝ˑ/ before a nasal consonant, is in free variation and is merely an allophone. Iotation may feature in the language for a form of inflection. Palatalization occurs in /sk/ consonant clusters rendering them /ʃ/.

Consonants

Parenthesis indicate allophones.

Bilabial	Labio-dental	Dental	Alveolar	Post-alveolar	Palatal	Labio-velar	Velar	Glottal
m /m/			n /n/				ŋ /ŋ/		Nasal
p /p/ b /b/			t /t/ d /d/				k /k/ g /g/		Plosive
	f /f/ v /v/	þ /θ/ ð /ð/	s /s/ z /z/	c /ʃ/ /ʒ/			x /x/	h /h/	Fricative
		r /ɹ/			j /j/	q /ʍ/ w /w/			Approximant
			l /l/						Lateral

Vowels

Parenthesis indicate allophones. The following table includes the rhotic vowels as well.

Front	Near-front	Central	Near-back	Back
i /i/				u /u/	Close
	i /ɪ/		y /ʊ/		Near-close
e /e/, er /e˞ː/				o /o/	Close-mid
		e /ə/			Mid
e /ɛ/, er /ɛ˞ː/		ur /ɝː/		u /ʌ/ · /ɔ/, or /ɔ˞ː/	Open-mid
a /æ/ (æ̝ˑ)					Near-open
				a /ɑ/, ar /ɑ˞/	Open

Writing

The writing system may be from right to left. The thirty letter alphabet is a modified Latin alphabet that contains the following bookstaves:

• a, b, c, d, ð, e, f, g, h i, j, k, l, m, n, ŋ, o, p, q (ƕ), r, s, t, þ, u, v, w (ƿ), x, y, z

• ṡ /ʃ/, ż /ʒ/

The IPA for Varevon is sorely out of date, and is subject to change soon. A dot is placed over s and z which changes them to distinct, but related sounds; these are regarded as separate letters. Umlauts are written with a diaeresis/umlaut, and doubled vowels indicate long vowels or gemination.

Pronouns

Personal pronouns are the most complex. The sole relative pronoun is [TBD].

Person	Number	Nominative	Accusative	Genitive	Dative
Singular	First	Ik	Mek	Meyn	Mě
	Second	Ðǔ	Ðek	Ðeyn	Ðě
	Common	Sey
	Neuter	Hit	Hin	His	Him
Plural	First	Wě	Uns
	Second	Jě
	Third	Hě	Hen	Her	Hem
Indefinite	Reflexive		Sek	Seyn	Sě
Interrogative	Common
	Neuter

Determiners

The negative article is understood as indefinite; there is no negative definite article so the verb of the sentence is negated instead. Determines are key to distinguish to distinguishing gender. the E at the end of some determiner plurals is an ancient pluralizing form.

Determiners		Article			Demonstrative
		Definite	Indefinite	Negative	Proximal	Distal
Common	Singular	Ðee	Een	Neen	Ðis	Jeen
	Plural		-		Ðise	Jeene
Neuter	Singular	Ðat	Een		Ðit	Jeen
	Plural	Ðoo	Sum		Ðite	Jeene

Table of Correlatives

Lorem Ipsum.

Morphology

Adjectives

Certain adjectives decline only in an attributive position; they do not in a predicative position. Cf. German die schwarze Magd vs die Magd ist schwarz. Some adjectives undergo mutation. Furthermore, there are many common affixes which form adjectives, whose list will be available in time.

Mutations

Ablaut

In progress

Grammatischer Wechsel

The language is descended from Proto-Germanic. Thus it includes Grimm's Law and Verner's Law; however, it retains a unique variant, as does all modern Germanic descendants. It's variant of these two laws creates different sound changes within verb paradigms known as the Grammatischer Wechsel. Commas indicate the second phoneme occurs in the case of Verner's Law. Phonemes in parenthesis were allophones and innovations in their respective languages.

Proto-Indo-European	Proto-Germanic	Old Norse	Old English	Old High German	Evonish
*p	*ɸ, β	f	f (v)	f, b	???

Nouns

Their declension depends upon case and number. The plural genitive ending is used in compound words much like kennings. The umlaut occurs in some plurals, in some cases, and sometimes in whole words. The vocative, instrumental, and locative forms disappeared since Proto-Germanic. A pseudo-vocative form is made with the clitic O' (from Celtic) and uses the zero conjugation.

Strong

The vowel a became associated with plural and e with singular. Vowel dropping may be apparent spoken, but it is not written, such as Engel not declining to Eng'la.

Strong - Engel (Angel)	Singular	Plural
Nominative/Accusative	Engel	Engelas
Genitive	Engeles	Engela
Dative	Engele	Engelam

Weak

Weak - Name (name)	Singular	Plural
Nominative/Accusative	Name	Namen
Genitive	Name(n)s	Nam(en)a
Dative	Namen	Namen

Augmentative & Diminutive

Lots of Stuff here

Verb

Verbs or verb forms in quotes are either an English equivalent or a work in progress. The infinitives of the frequentative form are -eln and -ern; these can be made of many verbs. The infinitive form in Evonish is the lemma form of the verb, meaning it is the one used in dictionaries. The primary aspects are simple, perfect, progressive, habitual, and inchoative. Simple aspect is used for:

• Stative verbs
• Gnomic aspect

Further aspects are formed by nonstandard ways or purely by context.

Form	Suffix
Lemma
Frequentative
Aspect	Main	Auxiliary
Habitual	infinitive	"to do"
Inchoative	supine	"to begin"
Perfect	past participle	"to have"
Progressive	present participle	"to be"
Tense	Person	Auxiliary
Future	First	"shall"
	Second	"will"
	Third	"go"

The particle [TBD] after the main verb negates the verb. The following table shows the conjugation of the verb fällen, a weak 1 class verb. The auxiliary verbs in the table are the verbs used with the participles to form two different aspects.

zdfbzdcb
Nonfinite	Infinitive
	Gerund
	Supine
Participle	Tense	Positive	Negative
	Present
	Past
Mood	Tense	Singular	Plural
Indicative	Present		[TBD]
			[TBD]
			[TBD]
	Past		[TBD]
		[TBD]	[TBD]
		[TBD]	[TBD]
Subjunctive	Nonpast
	Past
Imperative	Present

Syntax

Comparisons

Comparative forms use a particle followed by the noun(s) being compared to. Depending on that noun's case will determine which noun is first making the comparison. These can imply drastically different meanings, for example:

• "He ate pie quicker than I" would yield "than I ate pie" (in this example the compared noun is in the nominative).
• "He ate pie quicker than me" would yield "than he ate me" (in this example the compared noun is in the accusative).

Word Order

The standard word order is V2; when a phrase, clause, adverb, or adjective precedes the subject for emphasis, the second argument is always the verb. This can be demonstrated in the somewhat archaic or fanciful use "From the ground grew the tree." Word order is flexible due to conjugations however the primary form for independent clauses is Subject-Verb-Object. Questions without interrogative pronouns(yes or no) have verb first and subject second. Dependent clauses have a special word order:

• Subject
• Indirect Object
• Direct Object
• Instrument
• Verb.

Relative clauses follow the same pattern as independent clauses when appended to independent clauses and follow the dependent pattern when appended to a dependent clause.

Dictionary

Kinship
																					Grandmother		Grandfather				Grandmother		Grandfather
Uncles Wife		Uncle		Uncles Wife		Uncle		Uncles Wife		Uncle		Aunts husband		Aunt		Aunts husband		Aunt		Aunts husband		Aunt		Father		Mother		Uncles Wife		Uncle		Uncles Wife		Uncle		Uncles Wife		Uncle		Aunts husband		Aunt		Aunts husband		Aunt		Aunts husband		Aunt
Male Cousin		Female Cousin		Male Cousin		Female Cousin		Male Cousin		Female Cousin		Male Cousin		Female Cousin		Male Cousin		Female Cousin		Male Cousin		Female Cousin						Male Cousin		Female Cousin		Male Cousin		Female Cousin		Male Cousin		Female Cousin		Male Cousin		Female Cousin		Male Cousin		Female Cousin		Male Cousin		Female Cousin
										Twin Sisters Husband		Twin Sister		Little Sisters Husband		Little Sister		Big Sisters Huband		Big Sister		Wife		Self				Husband		Big Brother		Big Brothers Wife		Little Brother		Little Brothers Wife		Twin Brother		Twin Brothers Wife
										Niece		Nephew		Niece		Nephew		Niece		Nephew		Son		Daughter		Son		Daughter		Niece		Nephew		Niece		Nephew		Niece		Nephew

Example texts

Lorem Ipsum.