Brytho-Hellenic

Brytho-Hellenic
Elynig (to kaen)
Pronunciation	[[Help:IPA|ɛ'lənig 'tɔ 'kai̯n]]
Created by	–
Native to	Elas to Kaen
Native speakers	52 millions (2012)
Language family	Indo-European Hellenic Celto-Hellenic Brytho-Hellenic
Official status
Official language in	Elas to Kaen
Language codes
ISO 639-1	el
ISO 639-2	ely
ISO 639-3	ely
New Greece or "Elas to Kaen"

General information

Brytho-Hellenic, Brythohellenic or simply Neohellenic (the native name is Elynig) is a language that is spoken nowadays in a different timeline in a country that corresponds almost exactly to our England. In that timeline the Persians have won the wars against Greece and the Greeks have been forced to emigrate and to flee. Firstly the Greeks find protection in Magna Graecia, but, as the Persians conquer those territories, they shift to Northern Italy, where the Romans withstand the Persian troops. In 389 b.C. Rome is destroyed and both Romans and Greeks flee to Carthage, enemy of the Persian empire. Together they try to attack the Persian fleet, but they are defeated again. In the last days of 382 b.C. an imposing expedition sails away from a harbour on the coast of New Carthage - our Cartagena in Spain. Its mission is to find new territories where they can live in peace and prosperity, far from the Persian threat. In 381 b.C. Conon the Athenian and his Greeks reach our Scilly Islands: they have chosen to sail northward, because they had heard about legends that spoke about a fertile and grassy island in the North. It is the beginning of the New Greece or Elas to Kaen (IPA ['ɛlas 'tɔ 'kai̯n]).

Phonology

Alphabet

After the defeat against the Persians almost the entire Greek people fled towards Roman territory: Rome triplicated its population and was greekized. During their living together Greeks and Romans used mainly the Greek language to communicate, whereas the Latin language became a secondary and socially lower language, spoken mainly by common people. Nevertheless - almost incomprehensibly - the Greeks adopted the Latin alphabet, maybe trying to be understood even by the lower social classes. As we are talking about the modern language, we don't consider the first versions of the alphabet that were used in ancient times. The alphabet of Brythohellenic contains 24 letters:

Letters	Pronunciation	Further informations
a	[a]	-
b	[b]	-
d	[d]	-
dh	[ð]	like the English 'th' in the word that
e	[ɛ] / [e]	it can pronounced either open or closed, but it doesn't affect the meaning
f	[f]	-
g	[g]	it is always pronunced as in the English word get
gh	[h]	it was pronounced as [x], but nowadays it is pronounced the same as 'h'
h	[h]	-
i	[i] / [j]	often it forms a diphthong when precedes or follows another vowel
k	[k]	-
l	[l]	-
m	[m]	-
n	[n]	-
o	[ɔ] / [o]	it can be either open or closed, but it doesn't affect the meaning
p	[p]	-
r	[r]	trilled just as in Italian
s	[s]	always voiceless
t	[t]	-
th	[θ]	like the English 'th' in the word thin
u	[u]	-
v	[v]	-
w	[w]	-
y	[i] / [ǝ] / [j]	in monosyllabic words it is read as [i], in polysyllabic words it is read [i] if in the last syllable, otherwise [ǝ]; often it is read [j] if precedes or follows another vowel

A circumflex accent over the y indicates that it is read as [i] even if it is in a position where it would be read as [ǝ] or [j], ex.: ŷthias, "fish (pl.)" (IPA ['iθjas]).

Consonantal phonemes

Brythohellenic has the following consonantic phonemes:

Phonemes	Bilabial	Labiodental	Dental	Alveolar	Postalveolar	Palatal	Velar	Glottal
Stop	p b			t d			k g
Affricate
Nasal	m	(ɱ)		n			(ŋ)
Fricative		f v	θ ð	s			(x)	h
Approximant				r		j	w
Lateral approximant				l

In the South-Western area (our Cornwall) the digraph gh is pronounced as [x].

Vocalic phonemes

Brythohellenic has the following vowel system:

Phonemes
Opening	Front	Back
Closed	i	u
Mid-closed	e	o
Mid-open	ɛ	ɔ
Open	a

Diphthongs and digraphs

In Brythohellenic there are 23 diphthongs, that is clusters of two vowels pronounced with a single emission of air. These diphthongs are:

Diphthongs	Pronunciation
ae, ai, ay	[ai̯]
au	[au̯]
ei, ey	[ɛi̯] / [ei̯]
eu	[ø]
ia, ya	[ja]
ie, ye	[jɛ] / [je]
io, yo	[jɔ] / [jo]
iu, yu	[ju]
oe, oi, oy	[ɔi̯] / [oi̯]
wa	[wa]
we	[wɛ] / [we]
wi	[wi]
wo	[wɔ] / [wo]
wy	[wi] / [wə]

We have just seen the digraphs of Brythohellenic: dh [ð], gh [h], and th [θ].

Stress

Ancient Greek has undergone deep changes during its coexistence with Latin and above all with the Brythonic languages. Two main changes have been:

• often the hiatus with 'i' has become a diphthong, ex.: σοφία > *σόφια > seifegh, "knowledge";
• almost always the last syllable has fallen, ex.: καινός > kaen, "new"; θάνατος > thanadh, "death".

These two phoenomena have influenced heavily the stress system of Brythohellenic. Nowadays the stress steadily falls on the last but one syllable: this means that in the plural forms of nouns it shifts, ex.: thalas ['θalas], "sea" > thalasas [θa'lasas], "seas"; aelur ['ai̯lur], "cat" > aeluroe [ai̯'luroi̯], "cats".

Grammar

Nouns, gender and number

Even if Ancient Greek had three genders and three numbers, the system simplified a lot and Modern Elynig has got two genders - masculine and feminine - and two numbers - singular and plural. It is hard to distinguish the gender of a noun, because there are not specific gender-linked endings: mostly nouns end with consonant regardless for the gender. Forming plural is not so complicated, as there are only three plural endings:

• oe, that is typical of masculine nouns;
• ae, that is used with feminine nouns;
• as, less spread and used with both masculine and feminine nouns.

Unfortunately there are also some irregularities which have to be learned by heart, ex.: the plural of ŷth, "fish", is ŷthias; the plural of gy, "earth", is gae; the plural of yr, "water", is ŷdhas, and so on. Irregular nouns, however, are few. Here is a list of nouns with plural form:

Singular	Plural	Gender	Meaning	Singular	Plural	Gender	Meaning
lidh	lidhoe	masculine	stone	pud	podas	masculine	foot
hyr	hyrae	feminine	land	oran	oranoe	masculine	sky, heaven
kryvid	kryvidas	feminine	shoe	fys	fŷdhas	masculine	light
biodh	biodhoe	masculine	life	lys	lysae	feminine	language
thyr	thyras	masculine	animal	bivyl	bivloe	masculine	book
eyv	avae	feminine	love	lig	ligoe	masculine	wolf
koeran	koeranoe	masculine	lord	koerein	koeranae	feminine	lady
einyr	annyr	masculine	man	gnyg	gnaeg	feminine	woman
kyr	keirdae	feminine	heart	kefeil	kefalae	feminine	head
tov	tovoe	masculine	place	kron	kronoe	masculine	time
odhyr	odhroe	masculine	morning	yver	yverae	feminine	day
dyl	dylae	feminine	afternoon	efer	eferae	feminine	evening
nith	nithas	feminine	night	helyn	helynae	feminine	moon
keldh	keldhoe	masculine	priest	kyldh	keldhae	feminine	priestess
denyr	denyras	masculine	tree	gadh	gadhas	masculine	hand
dyr	deras	masculine	star	omadh	omadhas	masculine	eye
keidydh	keidydhas	masculine	teacher	fil	filoe	masculine	friend
ethyr	ethroe	masculine	enemy	edhaer	edhaeroe	masculine	lover
kyn	kinoe	masculine	dog	kom	komoe	masculine	world

Loan words

As the Greeks reached Great Britain found a completely new world, full of animals and plants they had never seen. Celtic people had highly different customs and beliefs and spoke an unintelligible language. Even if the Greeks considered them to be barbarian, they were the "owners" of the new land, so Greeks had to learn to live together with Brythons and to forget about prejudices like "superiority" or "inferiority". During the coexistence and the mixing with Brythons, the Greeks have adopted some Celtic words:

Original word	Singular	Plural	Gender	Meaning
derwen	darwyn	darwenae	feminine	oak
derwydd	darwydh	darwydhas	masculine	priest, magician, druid
bryn	bryn	brynae	feminine	hill
nifwl	nivyl	nivloe	masculine	mist, fog
llyn	lyn	lynoe	masculine	lake
gwellt	gweldh	gweldhas	feminine	grass
ofydd	ovydh	ovydhas	masculine	ovate
bardos	bard	bardas	masculine	poet
awen	awyn	awenae	feminine	inspiration

Some words have a counterpart whose meaning has shifted: from the Greek ουάτις, a word mentioned by Strabo and of Proto-Celtic origin (*vatis), comes gweidh, "astute person" < "one who can predict the moves of enemies" < "soothsayer". From the same root comes of course the Brythonic word ofydd, that has been taken as loan once the Greeks reached Great Britain. Another example is the word bard, that has substituted the Ancient Greek ἀοιδός, whose descendant, awid, has got the meaning of "artist". Even the word awyn has substituted another Greek word, daevon < *δαιμόνος < δαιμόνιον, that now has the meaning of "puck, spirit"; the plural Awenae is also used to mean Mosae, plural of Mos < Mοῦσα, "Muse".

Formation of feminine

It isn't easy to distinguish between a masculine and a feminine noun, because there is no gender-linked ending. However, when we speak about entities that have got a physical gender, such as people and animals, it can be useful to be able to distinguish between masculine and feminine gender. Mostly the feminine form of such nouns come from the masculine one by adding some suffixes:

• -yr (pl. -(y)rae), mostly added to masculine nouns ending with -ydh and denoting agent, ex.: melbydh (= "singer") > melbydhyr (plural: melbydhrae);
• -ein (pl. -anae), added to many nouns, ex.: ethyr > ethrein (plural: ethranae); fil > filein (plural: filanae);
• -ei- (pl. -a-ae), that replaces the ending a + consonant of many masculine nouns, ex.: elaf (= "deer") > eleif (plural: elafae); maw (= "sorcerer") > meiw (= "witch") (plural: mawae).

Sometimes the feminine form is obtained by changing the last vowel, ex.: keldh > kyldh (plural: keldhae).

Articles

Brythohellenic hasn't got indefinite article, to translate phrases like "a cat" or "some women" we have just to omit the article: aelur means both "a cat" and "cat", and gnaeg means both "some women" and "women". There is only one kind of article, the definite one: this article is used to talk about well known things that are familiar to the speakers, because they have already been talked about, or because they belong to the experiences baggage of the speakers, that is we use the definite article to talk about known informations, to talk about determined informations. The definite article has got one invariable form, to, that is used both for masculine and feminine nouns, for singular and plural nouns: to omyr, "the rain"; to sŷvadh, "the body"; to lŷsae, "the languages"; to nysoe, "the islands", and so on.

When a noun is determined, that is preceeded by the article or other determiners (such as possessives or demonstratives) and is followed by an adjective - in standard Elynig the adjectives always follow the substantives - the article shifts bewtween noun and adjective, ex.:

• to omyr > omyr to sŷrin (= "the cold rain", lit. "rain the cold (one)");
• to nysoe > nysoe to euwedhoe (= "the fertile islands", lit. "islands the fertile (ones)").

Even when a noun doesn't need the article - for example proper nouns - it appears between this noun and the possible adjective, ex.:

• Elas (= "Greece") > Elas to Kaen (= "the New Greece", lit. "Greece the New (one)";¹
• Elyn (= "Helena") > Elyn to plysd keil (= "the most beautiful Helena", lit. "Helena the most beautiful (one)".

¹ Nowadays they tend to use the expression Elas to mean Elas to Kaen.