Avendonian

Avendonian
avendoniano
Pronunciation	[[Help:IPA|[[[IPA for Avendonian|[avendoˈni̯ano]]]]]]
Created by	S.C.
Setting	Alt-history Europe
Native to	Avendonia
Language family	Indo-European Germanic West Germanic part. Elbe Germanic Pre-Avendonian creole Avendonian
Early form	Old Avendonian
Standard form	Central Avendonian dialect
Dialects	North Adriatic (nordadriatico) Alpine (alpino) High Burgundian (ocburgundico) Low Burgundian (lagburgundico) Genoese (genoico)
Official status
Official language in	Avendonia
Approximate borders of Avendonia

Avendonian (autoglossonym: avendoniano; Avendonian: [avendoˈni̯ano]) is a West Germanic language, with strong influence of Vulgar Latin. It is the result of a prolonged contact among members of both regions, after West Germanic merchants began travelling to and from the Western Roman Empire. These connections—and the conquest by the Germanic tribes of the northern skirts of the Roman Empire—slowly formed a creole for mutual communication. Eventually, permanent settlements were established in what would become modern-day Avendonia, where Avendonian is primarily spoken, with official status.

While its vocabulary derives for the most part from Proto-Germanic, Latin influence is most notable in its phonology and its grammar.

Etymology

The language name derives directly from the country it is spoken in, Avendonia. It makes reference to the Roman description of the Avendonian peoples, which were settled west of Rome; in the direction of the setting sun. Ultimately from Proto-Germanic *ēbanþs (“evening”), it came to mean “sunset people” or “people of the setting sun”.

Orthography

The Avendonian alphabet consists of 18 letters, five of which are vowels and 13 consonants. There are no diacritics, and contractions make use of the apostrophe to mark vowel omission.

Letters of the Avendonian alphabet
Aa	Bb	Cc	Dd	Ee	Ff	Gg	Ii	Ll	Mm	Nn	Oo	Pp	Rr	Ss	Tt	Uu	Vv

Non-native letters such as J, K, Q, Z, etc. may occur in some foreign words or proper nouns, chiefly in toponyms and given names. Yy is part of the alphabet of the Burgundian dialects of Avendonian, like in dydere.

The letters correspond almost one to one to their pronunciation. The Avendonian orthography is considered a shallow or phonetic, as opposed to deep orthographies like French's. The orthography features that do not follow the correspondance are:

• The letters ⟨c⟩ and ⟨g⟩ make the sound /t͡ʃ/ and /d͡ʒ/, respectively, if followed by ⟨e⟩ or ⟨i⟩. Examples: cicare /t͡͡ʃiˈkare/, geldo /ˈd͡ʒeldo/.
• ⟨t⟩ in the combination ⟨ti⟩ makes the sound /t͡s/. Example: tite /ˈt͡site/.
• The combination ⟨gn⟩ makes the sound /ɲ/, as in Italian or Spanish ñ. Example: gnagare /ɲaˈgare/.
• ⟨i⟩ in intervocalic position or word-initially turns into the semivowel /j/. Examples: iaro /ˈjare/, bluiare /bluˈjare/.
• The digraph ⟨sc⟩ before front vowels (i.e. ⟨i⟩ and ⟨e⟩) makes the sound /ʃ/. Example: sciio /ˈʃijo/.
• The digraph ⟨ch⟩ makes the sound /k/, and it is only found in loanwords.

Phonology

Consonants

Consonant phonemes

	Labial		Dental/ alveolar		Post- alveolar/ palatal		Velar
Nasal		m		n		ɲ		(ŋ)
Stop	p	b	t	d			k	ɡ
Affricate			t͡s		t͡ʃ	d͡ʒ
Fricative	f	v	s		ʃ
Approximant						j
Lateral				l
Trill				r
Flap				(ɾ)

Notes:

• As stated in §Orthography, /k, g, sk/ palatalize to /t͡ʃ, d͡ʒ, ʃ/ before front vowels /i, e/.
• When followed or preceded by a vowel but not word-initially, /i/ shortens and forms a diphthong with the adjacent vowel. Examples: sigie /ˈsid͡ʒi̯e/, perstelitio /persteˈlit͡si̯o/.
• [ɾ] is a permissible allophone of /r/ in fast speech.
• [ŋ] is an allophone of /n/ before velar stops /k, g/, both intra- and intersyllabically, although the former can only happen in the Low Burgundian dialect.
  Examples: drincare /driŋˈkare/, anguste /aŋˈguste/, Low Burgundian clang /klaŋg/ (standard clango).

Vowels

Vowel phonemes

	Front		Central	Back
Close	i	(y)		u
Close-mid	e			o
Open	a

Notes:

• /y/ is native to the Burgundian dialects, evolved from Proto-Germanic *iu which merged with /i/ in the rest of dialects.
• /e, o/ may be realized as [e̞, o̞].

Prosody

Avendonian is strictly paroxytonic, meaning words always receive stress on their second-to-last syllable.

spraca (SPRA-ca) /ˈspra.ka/, ordo (OR-do) /ˈor.do/, bucaria (bu-CA-ria) /bu.ˈka.ri̯a/, etc.

Monosyllabic words like blio have the stress in their only syllable, but it is weaker than those in polysyllabic words, unless emphasized. Enclitic and other unstressed personal pronouns do not affect stress patterns:

elpare-te, /el.ˈpa.re‿te/ and not /el.pa.ˈre‿te/

Longer words (4 and more syllables) may receive a secondary stress in the fourth-to-last syllable (i.e. two syllables before the main or primary stress):

sobgrundsporvego /sob.ˌgrund.spor.ˈve.go/, surstopitio /ˌsur.sto.ˈpi.t͡si̯o/

Grammar

Avendonian grammar is relatively straightforward and akin to the grammar of other Romance languages, due to the influence of Latin.

1. Two sets of articles, indefinite and definite, preceding the noun.
2. Gender and number inflection in nouns, adjectives, and pronouns. Articles and adjectives must agree inflection-wise with the noun or pronoun they modify.
3. Twofold gender system, masculine and feminine. Loss of Latin neuter gender.
4. Fusional verb inflection for person, number, mood, and tense.

However, noun and adjective declension endings, along with the ablaut in strong verbs are elements derived from Germanic.

Articles

Both definite and indefinite articles have four distinct forms, for number and gender:

Indefinite articles

	masculine	feminine
singular	uno	una
plural	uni	une

Definite articles

	masculine	feminine
singular	el	la
plural	li	le

Avendonian articles function similarly as English a and the, but gender and number of the following noun determine the form that must be used. For example:

buce m sg → el buce (“the book”), uno buce (“a book”).

frage f pl → le frage (“the questions”), une frage (“some questions”).

etc.

The definite article el forms a contraction with prepositions a and de, using an apostrophe: a'l, d'el. These are the only standard contractions; other contractions like Ca ga't? from ga + et (“How goes it?”, greeting) are not disallowed but are discouraged in formal writing.

Nouns

Avendonian noun declensions

	A-stem	O-stem	E-stem	U-stem
singular	-a	-o	-e	-o
plural	-e	-i		-u

Nouns in Avendonian fall in one of the following almost fully regular declensions:

• A-stem: mostly feminine nouns. From Latin first declension and Germanic ō- and ōn-stems. E.g. erda.
• O-stem: chiefly masculine nouns. From Latin second declension and Germanic a-stems. E.g. vundro.
• E-stem: both genders. From the third and fifth declensions of Latin and various Germanic stems (like an-stems). E.g. snege.
• U-stem: both genders but mainly masculine. From Latin fourth declension and u-stem from Germanic. E.g. vintro.

Notable exceptions are the productive suffix -tio, which forms feminine o-stem nouns from verbs, and the -ista suffix forms epicene a-stem nouns. Other words have no distinctive feature in the modern language, i.e. differences are etymological.

Personal pronouns

Avendonian personal pronouns

			personal pronouns		possessive pronoun
			subjective	objective
first person	singular		eo	me	mede
	plural		vi	nos	nosde
second person	singular	standard	tu	te	tede
		formal	Si		Side
	plural		i	vos	vosde
third person	singular	masculine	e	si	side
		feminine	si
		neuter	et
	plural		si

Personal pronouns in Avendonian have the following forms:

• Avendonian is not a pro-drop language, as other Romance languages. In other words, the subject, which may or may not be a personal pronoun must appear in every sentence, except in relative clauses where the subject of both statements is the same.

Eo spreco avendoniano. I speak Avendonian

El hundo ce (et) va mudio asatui. The dog which was tired sat down.

• Objective pronouns act as the direct object of a sentence. If the verb is an infinitive or an imperative, the pronoun is attached to it with a hyphen; otherwise, it precedes the verb.

E me gavo uno scenco en el burddago mede. He gave me a present for my birthday.

Bido, sende-me uno posrito cando si encumen. Please, send me a message when they arrive.

• Possessive pronouns can function as determiners and pronouns, i.e. my and mine. Possessives must be written after a definite article, which still agrees in gender and number with the noun.

El vagno mede. My car.          Le sceiate side. His/Her/Their stories.

Perlosasti tu el buce tede? Eo cuno liare el mede. You lost your book? I can lend you mine.

• Avendonian has, as in the Romance languages, T–V distinction. This distinction is lost in the plural. Formal second person pronouns are always capitalized, in all forms, no matter the environment.

Bido ero, ce bi el name Side? Excuse me sir, what is your name? (formal)

Si Si bi perlisato, vi cunamos ledere-Si. If you are lost, we can guide you. (formal)