Filch

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Filch
fylsch
Created byUser:Prinsessa
Germanic
  • Filch

Introduction

Filch (fylsch, equivalent to "folk" + "-ish") is an artistic auxiliary language in the Germanic family.

It is not actually intended as an auxiliary language but designed for fun with the intention of the highest possible intelligibility to modern Germanic speakers while still seeming like a naturalistic descendant of Proto-Germanic that evolved organically. Ease of learning and producing Filch fluently is secondary. Vocabulary and phrases are only added if they have widespread counterparts, so Filch does not necessarily have a one-word translation of everything, and descriptive language to get around this is expected.

For the English name compare "French" from Old English Frenċisċ with the same umlaut and palatalisation.

Sample

Næhst de aulde·lighe cyrce stoud e heugh byrc, full e breune mærce opaų s' barc. Come somer wære de leufe greune, æfter dæt geulwe, e fore de jaur s' ende wære dei reude. Come wįter fælle dei af, dogh thącc de sneu war de byrc ne nace næy, for dæ war gefe e hweit croune. Warme weder sunge flyghene foghele; caulde weder saung frysene wind.

Design goals and process

Filch is meant to cast as wide a net as possible in terms of understanding. This makes peripheral varieties such as Icelandic and English, which often have less in common with the rest of the family, equally important when deciding on words or phrases.

An example of the considerations made in such a choice:

PG HWG LWG IWG NG Filch
*bi bei bij by (bí) *bei
*wiþ- (wider) (we[d]er) (with) við *wid
*at *at at at *at
*midi mit met með *mid
*nēhwist nächst naast next [to] ~næst [eftir] næhst

Representative branches are very roughly divided into somewhat inaccurate, but useful, groups: Proto-Germanic, "High West Germanic", "Low West Germanic", "Insular North Germanic" and North Germanic respectively. "Insular" refers to the English-Scots continuum. "High" and "low" roughly represent the respective ends of the mainland continuum. Frisian may fall under either of these depending, simply for convenience. North is usually represented by Old Norse unless descendants disagree. Multiple reflexes may occur in one cell, and cells may merge.

Apostrophe, tilde, parentheses and brackets represent various considerations. Filch forms with an apostrophe show what disqualified cognates would look like. The final word in bold matches all branches well enough to be selected.

Grammar

The word order lies somewhere between the extant varieties. Basic order is SVO. Adverbs cause V2. Questions are VSO. Objects may be fronted, especially when auxiliaries are present. Otherwise the auxiliary's main verb may shift to the end.

SVO V2 VSO Fronting Shifting
wi ete æpele neu ete wi æpele ete wi æpele? æpele cunne wi ete cunne wi æpele ete?

Nouns and adjectives

Nouns have lost gender and (mostly) case through mergers. The plural suffix is invariably -e (unless the word already ends in a vowel in which case it is unmarked) but there may also be umlaut.

Singular Plural
Consonant stem No umlaut dægh dæghe
Umlaut gaųs gæ̨se
Vowel stem Stressed schou
Unstressed name

Adjectives take the same suffix in the plural as well as in definite (strong) form and in the dative (see below).

Singular Plural
Indefinite nyw dægh nywe dæghe
Definite nywe dægh

Dative

While nouns are unmarked for case, unmarked dative constructions as in English (e.g. "give the cat some food") are common, and attributive adjectives once again take the same suffix as above in these instances. The construction is also used of partitives.

Attributive Partitive
warm-e weder full-∅ hole

For example:

Caulde weder cann igh socce fulle hole ne hafe opaų mine feute næy.

However full can sometimes also be followed by a singular or plural indefinite article that may seem like a preposition.

Dative nouns are sometimes fossilised with the ending -e in certain expressions, generally without any article.

Igh cam te werlde schreighene e nace.

Articles

There is an indefinite article e used both in the singular and sometimes in the plural, and an indefinite article de. Both articles are invariable for number. They precede the noun phrase. They are not as frequent as in English and the definite article remains more like a demonstrative.

Adverbs

Adverbs are productively formed the same way as definite (strong) adjectives. Some inherited ones have umlaut or otherwise break the pattern, e.g. through suppletion.

Adjective Adverb
Regular full fulle
Umlaut lang længe
Suppletion goud wel

For example:

Igh hafe længe lifd į de heus.

Pronouns

Pronouns come from unstressed forms so lack diphthongisation. First and second person pronouns retain obliques and possessives. Third person only distinguishes between number and anaphora. Preferably avoided as much as possible when composing cross-intelligible texts as these are probably the weakest link between Germanic varieties.

1sg 2sg 1pl 2pl 3sg cataphoric 3sg anaphoric 3pl
subject igh du wi ji dæt, 't dei
oblique mi di ǫss jer
reflexive mi sælf di sælf ǫss sælfe jer sælfe s' sælf s' sælfe
possessive mi(ne) di(ne) ǫsse jere s'

Possession

The nasal forms of the 1sg and 2sg possessives are for plural possessa. Other possessives are invariable.

Singular Plural
mi heus mine heuse

The third person s' also works as a possessive marker on nouns, similar to Scandinavian sin or German sein, e.g. de junge mann s' heus.

Verbs

Infinitives end in -e and take the marker t'. Weak verbs do not differentiate between number and strong verbs only do so in the past, with the exception of the copula and preterite-present stems. Participles work like adjectives but the present one is invariable. The past one (or the supine) never takes a prefix like German ge-.

Weak dental stems

These take a dissimilatory vowel between the stem and the past tense/participle suffix.

Present Past Imperative Pres. participle Past participle
Singular hate hatede hat (du) hatene hated
Plural hate (ji) hatede

Weak non-dental stems

These attach the dental past tense/participle suffix directly to the non-dental stem. Voicing assimilation occurs.

Present Past Imperative Pres. participle Past participle
Singular hacce haccte hacc (du) haccene hacct
Plural hacce (ji) haccte

Strong stems

These follow various inherited ablaut patterns for the past tense/participle. The past participle ends invariably in -e.

Present Past Imperative Pres. participle Past participle
Singular finde fand find (du) findene funde
Plural funde finde (ji)

Copula

Irregular and defective but simplified through analogy between the few remaining forms.

Present Past Supine
Singular es war wæst
Plural ese wære

Preterite-present stems

These look like strong past forms in the present and like weak past forms in the past. They are defective similarly to the copula.

Present Past Supine
Singular cann cųdde cųdd
Plural cunne

Mood

Indicative and conjunctive/subjunctive have merged, but the latter is still formed syntactically by fronting the verb and applying VSO order.

Come ji te mi, gefe igh jer mi heus.

Separable verbs

Verbs with a preposition-like particle as an inseparable part of the lexeme are common as in other Germanic languages. They generally don't fuse.

Greune leufe falle af, e lande opaų de frose græs.

Phonology and spelling

There isn't necessarily a strict pronunciation system meant to be followed, but in the spirit of maximising intelligibility also here, these are the baseline.

Spelling is largely phonetic, the main exception being ⟨sch⟩ for [ʃx~ʃç] with an etymological ⟨c⟩ to aid in recognition.

Stress is always on the first syllable.

Consonants

Labial Coronal Palatal Velar Glottal
Nasal ⟨m⟩ [m] ⟨n⟩ [n] ⟨n⟩ [ŋ]
Plosive Voiceless ⟨p⟩ [p] ⟨t⟩ [t] ⟨c⟩ [c~k]
Voiced ⟨b⟩ [b] ⟨d⟩ [d] ⟨g⟩ [ɟ~g]
Fricative Voiceless ⟨f⟩ [f~v] ⟨th⟩ [θ] ⟨h⟩ [ç~x~h]
Voiced ⟨dh⟩ [ð] ⟨gh⟩ [ɣ]
Sibilant ⟨s⟩ [s~ʃ~z]
Rhotic ⟨r⟩ [r]
Lateral ⟨s⟩ [l]
Glide ⟨w⟩ [w] ⟨j⟩ [j]
  • Velar nasal [ŋ] occurs before /k g/; the ⟨g⟩ is pronounced in the ⟨ng⟩ cluster.
  • Velar stops /k g/ are palatal around front vowels.
  • Labiodental frivative /f/ is voiced [v] between vowels and before voiced consonants.
  • Glottal frivative /h/ is velar [x] in clusters around back vowels and [ç] in clusters around front vowels.
  • Sibilant fricative /s/ is voiced [z] between vowels and before voiced consonants, and [ʃ] in the /sh/ cluster (spelled ⟨sch⟩).

Vowels

Filch is characterised, like the rest of its family, by many vowel qualities and diphthongs. Vowel length is not phonemic, but phonetically vowels are long in stressed open syllables. There are nasal vowels marked by an ogonek; in nasal diphthongs it goes on the last vowel letter.

Vowel Long Short
⟨a⟩ [aː] [a]
⟨e⟩ [eː] [e]
⟨æ⟩ [ɛː] [ɛ]
⟨i⟩ [iː] [ɪ]
⟨o⟩ [oː] [ɔ]
⟨u⟩ [ʊ]
⟨y⟩ [yː] [ʏ]

Nasals are pronounced like their oral counterparts with nasalisation, and diphthongs are pronounced like their monophthong constituents in succession. Long ⟨u⟩ does not exist because original PG diphthongised and PG *u turned into either ⟨o⟩ or ⟨y⟩ in open syllables depending on umlaut.

Examples

Spelling Pronunciation
⟨fisch⟩ [f]

Translations

These are all loose and rely on rewording to capture the ideas of the original texts using only widely recognisable vocabulary. They may also provide more information than the original story to add context that could help understand words that might be trickier in isolation. This is how Filch would actually be used for auxiliary purposes, but of course this is not actually the intention.

Article one of the universal declaration of human rights

All folc come frei te werlde.
Dei hafe leice weurde e rehte.
Dei hafe goude heufde opaų næcce.
Dei finde alle life weghe leice.
All folc es freunde.

Schleicher's fable

Į de greune græs war e gæyte-bocc.
Wull hafde ne de bocc næy; dæ war wulle-leus.
So saugh dæ folc comene, reidene; dei ræyde opaų merre.
Fyrste merr drough e waughen; aųdhere merr baur e weghene byrde.
Bocc sæghde te merre: «igh finde peine į mi heurte, neu igh sæe mænne reide opaų merre».
Merre sæghde: «heur ǫss; wi finde peine į ǫsse heurte, neu wi sæe mænne į wulle-clæyde, næhst e wulle-leus bocc».
Bocc heurde merre, e leupte af wegh.

First paragraph of The Hobbit

Į hol under eurde lifde e «hobbe».
Ne was 't e scheite-hol full e wate næy; her wære ne creupene worme, ne feul rotning næy.
De hol war ne bar, ne nace, ne full e sand næy.
Her cųdde folc sitte, e her cųdde dei ete: 't war e «hobbe-hol», e dæt seghe, her es 't goud.

Phrases

Greetings

  • goude morgening
  • goude dægh
  • goude næht
  • wel come
  • fare wel

Questions

  • hwat es de name?
  • hwat es de eur neu?
  • hafe hunger?
  • hafe thorste?

Answers

  • name es…
  • eur es…
  • ja
  • næy
  • thącce

Numbers

  • æyn
  • twæy
  • thri
  • feure
  • feųf
  • sehs
  • seų
  • æhte
  • neų
  • teų
  • elefe
  • twælf
  • hundred(e)
  • theusend(e)

Other

  • Lange fische fylle mi flyghene schip!