Mergian

Introduction

Goals

I wanted to try my hand at a realistic Germanic conlang. I've seen so many typical Germanic conlangs, that I tried to get Mergian nice and unique.

History

In 410, the Gothic king Alaric I sacked Rome. That year was an astonishing victory for all Goths. However, Alaric died that same year due to a hunting accident. The Goths were left without a suitable king, and they began to fracture into petty bickering. Almost none of the tribes wanted to leave the lush Roman Empire, and neither did they want to fight the Emperor. However, the Simmeck tribe, led by their chief Wallia, decided to abandon the Roman Empire. The year that the Simmecks left, the Roman general Constantius III crushed the remaining Goths, and all that were left were the men of Wallia's armies.

Soon after, Constantius became emperor and permitted the Simmecks to live north of Moesia. They acted as the first line of defense against the Huns. They lived in relative peace, and the Romans promised to not bother them. Around 440, the invasion of the Huns forced out the Simmecks all the way to the Rhine. They formed an alliance with the Alemanni and in 451, alongside the Romans, they defeated the Huns at the Battle of the Catalaunian Plains. Wallia died in the battle, and Theodoric rose to power.

After the battle, the Pope Leo I converted Theodoric from Arianism to Nicene Christianity. He appointed Theodoric on a holy mission, citing it to be a revelation given to him by God. The Simmecks were to be the guards of the Christendom. He told them to move north and to establish a church there, to defend Rome and the Christian world.

Theodoric agreed to follow the word of the Pope, and he moved his kingdom east. They settled on the Elbe and Warta. He also adopted the name Fīnēs Rōmae (The borders of Rome). As a thanks, the Romans sent their best architects to design places for the Simmecks to live. Eventually, the Latin name dropped and instead the Old Mergian name Rumi marga stuck. That name evolved to the word Rommerg which is where the word Mergian comes from.

It is important to note that there is no documented "Old Mergian" language. It is simply used as a catch-all term for the language spoken before Modern Mergian.

Phonology

Morphology

Nouns

Cases

Mergian retained the nominative, vocative, accusative, genitive, dative cases from Gothic. The vocative, as in Gothic, did not have its own independent suffixing. Instead, the accusative singular could also act as the vocative singular, and the nominative plural could act as the vocative plural.

The description of the cases is as follows:

• The nominative (nom.) case is used to mark the subject of a verb. It is also used in the predicate of the copula and as the dictionary form.
• The vocative (voc.) case is used when addressing someone.
• The accusative (acc.) case is used to mark the object of a verb. Some prepositions govern the accusative.
• The genitive (gen.) case is used to mark possession, measurement, source or other relations between nouns. A small amount of prepositions govern the genitive.
• The dative case (dat.) is used to mark the indirect object of a verb. The patients of causative actions are also in the dative. This is different to English where we would find a direct object instead(e.g. Ig ima (dat.) þangjen tafde vs. English "I made him (acc.) think"). The majority of prepositions govern the dative.

Gender and Number

Gothic gender was unpredictable. Over time, the Slavic influence on Mergian caused for the genders to regularize. Mergian has three genders: the masculine (m), feminine (f) and neuter (n). The masculine is attributed to biologically masculine nouns (e.g. father, son, boy) or nouns ending in a consonant. The feminine is attributed to biologically female nouns (e.g. mother, daughter, girl) or nouns ending in -a, -i or -ij. The neuter is attributed exclusively to intangible nouns (e.g. sky, name, sun) and to nouns ending in -o or a consonant.

Gothic made a distinction between gendered plurals, but Mergian lost this distinction. The new plural number inherited the masculine plural endings. Gothic's dual number was lost for the most part. However, it replaced the plural series of all pronouns.

Pronouns

The personal pronouns were inherited almost exactly from Gothic. The 3p pronoun come from two different sources. The accusative, genitive and dative declensions all come from eis, the nominative is an innovation so that it would fit the -ð paradigm of við and juð. The 3sn pronoun ta was influenced by Slavic *to

Personal pronouns

	1s	2s	3sm	3sn	3sf	1p	2p	3p	refl.
Nominative	ig	þo	e	ta	si	við	juð	ið
Accusative	mig	þog	ina		ja	unge	ing	ins	sig
Genitive	mijne	hijne	e		izou	ungra	ingra	izei	sijne
Dative	me	þu	ima		izai	unge	ing	im	se

The demonstrative pronouns changed a slight bit. These pronouns used to also be used to mark definiteness, but Mergian lost that feature. Most namely did the pronouns in the nominative change. sa replaced Old Mergian sou (which had come from sō) to prevent merging with the relative particle sou (which had come from swē). sen replaced Old Mergian sa, to fit the -a paradigm of feminine nouns. The accusatives were innovated to fit their nominative counterparts, except for the neuter and the plural. Lasty, final vowels got dropped off as a result of fast speech eliding them.

Demonstrative pronouns

	Masculine	Neuter	Feminine	Plural
Nominative	sen	þed	sa	þai
Accusative	þen		þa	þans
Genitive	þe		þis	þizei
Dative	þem		þizai	þaim

The interrogative pronouns experienced the most alteration from Gothic. In Old Mergian, two sets of pronouns existed for the interrogative: the simple and the intensive. The simple was derived from the words ƕas (who) and ƕa (what). The intensive was derived from the word ƕaþar (which of them, originally "which of the two" but duals replaced plurals in pronouns). The difference in the simple and the intensive was the emphasis placed on the object of interrogation. With time, the simple came to only be used with inanimate objects and the intensive came to only be used with animate objects. Since Old Mergian was out of a pronoun meaning "which of the two" and "which of them", the words *ƕa-baddjē and *ƕa-ize ("what of the two" and "what of them" respectively) began to be used to refer to inanimate nouns and *mannē-ƕas ("who of the men/people") began to be used to refer to animate nouns. These words evolved and lexicalized into the modern Mergian pronouns used today.

Interrogative pronouns

	What?	Who?	Which (of the two)?	Which (of them)?	Who (of them)?
Nominative	ha	haðar	haaðei	haazei	maniua
Accusative		haðna			maneuna
Genitive	he	haðre	hispaðei	hisizei	maniue
Dative	hama	haðma	hamfae	hamizei	maneuma

The indefinite pronouns are formed by suffixing -ug after consonants. After a vowel, -zug is instead used. These suffixes come from the -uh conjunction in Gothic. Originally, they were used for universal pronouns but the meaning shifted.

Indefinite pronouns

	Something	Someone
Nominative	hazug	haðarug
Accusative		haðnazug
Genitive	hezug	haðrezug
Dative	hamazug	haðmazug

The universal pronouns were replaced by the word alls in the masculine plural for the animate and in the neuter singular for the inanimate.

Universal pronouns

	Everything	Everyone
Nominative	aal	ale
Accusative	aal	alens
Genitive	ale	alsei
Dative	alma	alem

Negative pronouns are formed by prefixing ni- before the indefinite pronouns. It should be written with a hypen between the ni- and the pronoun.

Negative pronouns

	Something	Someone
Nominative	ni-hazug	ni-haðarug
Accusative		ni-haðnazug
Genitive	ni-hezug	ni-haðrezug
Dative	ni-hamazug	ni-haðmazug

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Particles

Syntax

Vocabulary