Verse:Irta

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Verse:
Irta
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Irta (EER-tə; Hivantish for "Earth") is a collection of alternate-history languages for IE and nearby cultural regions created by Âthi Trydhen and User:IlL. The premise is "different diachronic evolutions of English, Māori and a few other languages". Some other languages like French and Japanese are a bit more different from our timeline.

The proto-branch of English in this universe is set in what would be Spain and Portugal in our timeline.

The only IE branches in Irta not directly inspired by any real life IE languages are Riphic and Hivantic. Ilithian/Zeuhi is a para-Indo-Iranian or para-Balto-Slavic branch, today spoken in Southeast Asia.

Irta is no longer a unified timeline; instead, each Irtan language not on Earth now has a timeline associated with its evolution.

Team

Active

Inactive

People

  • Emmy Pafnoether /paf'nouθə/ (via a language with dental stops (Irta Maghrebi Arabic?) from Coptic pafnu:tə, from pa-p3-nťr 'he of the god', ~ Pafnuty. -r was added back when her ancestors were Azalic). She shortened it to Noether, unaware of the etymology
  • Aeno Michaelidh
  • Luli Vrijesduchti, a Riphean avant-garde composer
  • Yo-Xev Dub, probabilist

Sprachbünde

"Standard Average Euro-African"

general features: definite articles, SVO word order

Western Europe and North Africa

Large vowel systems

This sound shift/sprachbund began with the development of Proto-Azalic itself.

The Maghrebi sprachbund is considered the "core" of this sprachbund. Languages outside of the Maghrebi sprachbund:

  • Proto-Azalic and English
  • French
  • British Hivantish

Hiberno-Mediterranean (?)

  • Some weird Irish dialects on the continent
  • Galoyseg
  • Nyvierfusiez
  • English/other Azalic
  • Majorcan
  • Knench

North African

Khmerization (from RTR/emphaticness > creaky voice, ATR/nonemphatic > breathy voice), resulting in some of the largest vowel systems in Irta.

Uvular R, which vocalizes in some languages

Headedness varies but likes suffixed definite article

  • Irtan Maghrebi Arabic
  • Maghrebi Azalic
  • Knench

Central European

Very much like our SAE sprachbund: Hivantish, some Riphic languages, Romance languages, a Mixolydian dialect

Riphean is a peripheral member which lacks some sprachbund features

Hivantish

Mixolydian

A satem IE isolate written in the Latin alphabet; pronunciation is quite similar to Pinyin

Inspired by Polish and Albanian (aesthetically); Greek and Latin (grammatically)

z c s zh ch sh r rr j q x = /z ts s ʐ ʈʂ ʂ ɹ/ɽ r ʑ tɕ ɕ/

dz dzh dj = voiced versions of c ch q

Stop aspiration is as in Persian (st sounds like sth etc.)

j from PIE *y, y is used for /j/ in loanwords and from vowel breaking of PIE *e, e.g. yest "is" <- Proto-Mixolydian *esti

today Mixolydian is a small minority language; Mixolydians have almost entirely shifted to local languages (English, Greek, Romance, Iranian, Indian, Chinese)

Latin and Romance

Classical Latin is a tonal language like Greek and Sanskrit

Non-French Romance languages are considered dialects of Modern Standard Latin (survival of medieval Latin as lingua franca)

Hyperfrench

Standard French is essentially the same as our Parisian French; Hyperfrench is an Irtan vernacular

French through Proto-Slavic -> Russian sound changes (nasal vowels get denasalized etc.), plus a lot of Irish influence

r -> h consistently; a four way stop distinction as in Hindi

Latzial

A language actually named after a cognate of "Latin" spoken in Latium; it has a roughly Catalan/Romanian/Occitan aesthetic

L should usually be dark L like Classical Latin l

Should be close to Southern Italian lects (that gave us "capeesh")?

Irta Sardinian

Similar to our Sardinian (modulo some loans) but also has register from Irtan Latin tone

Modern Greek

Written in a version of Linear B, roughly Syllabics + katakana inspired

a lot more ways to write /i/ depending on PIE etymon? maybe *i and *iH can use different glyphs?

Hypergreek

Some sound splits conditioned by PIE etymon which are merged in Proto-Greek but do not affect intelligibility for a Modern Greek speaker

Irtan Yevanic

should be similar to our Modern Greek but with way more Arabic loans

The Yevanim bring Arabic culture to Jews in Irta, whereas in our world it was the Sephardim.

Mitanni

Weirdest interpretation of Mitanni cuneiform

English

Most in-universe English dialects don't merge some PIE sounds, like *ei and *ī, which are merged in Proto-Germanic. Otherwise they sound a lot like English accents from our timeline.

Hyperamerican

an English accent with lots of non-Germanic sound splits as well as General American sound mergers

LOT ~ THOUGHT, but PIE ey !~ PIE ī

Indic

A Hebraization of Sanskrit

ק כּ אק אכּ נק צ ת׳ אצ את׳ נ׳ ט֨ תּ֨ אט֨ אתּ֨ נ֨ ט תּ אט אתּ נ בּ פּ אבּ אפּ מ י ר ל וו ש ש֨ ס ה א

א for /ə/ is always written with shva

אַ ā

אי אוֹ ע אָ אַי אַוֹ i u e o ai au

vertical line under the initial consonant letter for vowel length in i and u

אקאַוֹטאְמאְ אבּוֹאתּתּאְ Gautama Buddha

Aramaic-ish Pali reading

a ā i ī u ū e o = /a a: e i: o u: ɛ: ɔ:/; a is [ɑ] next to an emphatic consonant or /ɴ/

t th d dh are /tˁ t~θ̠ d~ð̠ d~ð̠/; tt tth dd ddh are /tˁː tːʰ dː dː/. Single th d dh are stops only when preceded by a homorganic nasal.

retroflexes and dentals merge into alveolars; b and bh are treated the same.

liturgical language of Irtan Middle Eastern Buddhism; could be part of a "sprachbund" of Aramaic-accented reading traditions, which includes Tiberian Hebrew

samekh with two dots on top = final o?

Manopubbaṅgamā dhammā, manoseṭṭhā manomayā;
Manasā ce paduṭṭhena, bhāsati vā karoti vā,
Tato naṁ dukkhaṁ anveti, cakkaṁ'va vahato padaṁ.

[manɔːpˁobːaŋgamaː ð̠amːaː, manɔːsɛtːʰaː manɔːmajaː]
[manasaː tsˁɛː pˁað̠otːʰɛːna, vaːsɑtˁe vaː qɑɾɔːtˁe vaː]
[tˁɑtˁɔː nɑɴ ð̠okːʰɑɴ anvɛːtˁe, tsˁɑqːɑɴva vahɑtˁɔː pˁɑð̠ɑɴ]

Semitic

Hebrew

Main article: Verse:Irta/Hebrew

Though in-universe Tiberian Hebrew is identical to that in our timeline, Paleo-Hebrew in this universe distinguishes most consonants of Proto-Semitic, unlike in our timeline. This is reflected in some in-universe Hebrew accents which preserve distinctions like צׁ (tsadi w/ right dot) /ts̠/ vs צׂ (tsadi w/ left dot) /ts/, cognate with Arabic emphatic S/Z and D.

Some in-universe reading traditions distinguish

  • cholam from Proto-Semitic *u and *aw = /o/
  • cholam from Proto-Semitic *ā = /u/ (/uə/ in some other reading traditions)
  • Proto-Semitic *ū = Swedish u (/u/ in some other reading traditions)

Arabic

Standardized Classical Arabic, Hijazi Arabic, and Egyptian Arabic are the same as in our timeline. Arabic is not spoken in our Maghreb, but is spoken in our Horn of Africa area with lots of Ethiopian and Cushitic loans.

There is a heavily Irish-influenced Arabic variety spoken in Majorca.

Modern Standard Arabic doesn't exist; though Classical Arabic is still used in Islam, it's considered a different language from vernacular Arabic lects (like Latin and Romance in our timeline). Many distinct Qur'an reading traditions survive to this day, and there is no single modern standard pronunciation used for Classical Arabic.

Sample

Irta Semlangs

'The living fish swims in the water'

  • Knench: Ri tagəs juvuž bə štaśə u p niəməs
  • Majorcan: Tcẁn el ħùte ħajje fi ȝavm gil el mè
  • Proto-Far East Semitic: Nal nun xai sqʰəi ləb me

Earth Semlangs

  • Modern Hebrew: הדג החי שוחה במים /hadag haxaj soxe bamajim/
  • Arabic: as-samakah al-ħayyah tasbaħu fī l-māʔ

Egyptian

get "Noether" or "Paf-Noether" from *nāťar 'god', via a divergent descendant of Old Egyptian (this could be Irta Coptic...)

Māori

Proto-Austronesian in Irta has the same urheimat as in our timeline but a very different phonology and morphology; its phonology is small like Finnish and its morphology is Altaic-ish; its evolution into Māori as we know it, a VSO language, is analogous to PIE's evolution into Irish.

Celtic

PCel is basically the same as ours, but we're taking the liberty to derive more hypothetical words cognatizing directly from PIE.

Alternate history Canadian Gaelic

Can date back to Primitive Irish times, incorporates Algonquian loanwords

or should it be a Celtic-Algonquian creole?

Brythonic

Proto-Brythonic should be the same as ours

Irta Ashkenazim speak a Brythonic language (Irta Modern Hebrew phonetics suggest Celtic)

A priori

Drug names

Phonology

The phonology is a simplified version of Irish phonology:

/k g x č dž š j t d s n p b f v m r l/ c g ch ť ď š y t d s n p b f v m r l; /a e i o u/ a e i o u

č dž š are treated as slender t, d, s in Irish.

There's a restriction on the set of initial consonants, because of Irish initial mutation. The only permissible initial consonants are:

k č t p m n r l

All drug names are treated as masculine in Irtan Irish.

Morphology

The Irtan drug naming system tends to be prefixing rather than suffixing, unlike our timeline's drug names.

Sinitic and Sino-Xenic

Old and Middle Chinese are the same as in our timeline, but Modern Irta has a complete different set of modern Sinitic and Sino-Xenic languages.

  • Old Chinese
    • Middle Chinese
      • Old English gibberish
      • Swedish/Icelandic gibberish
      • Something spoken instead of Vietnamese
  • Sino-Xenic languages
    • Bantu-ish/nontonal polysyllabic Hmong
      • Irish-inspired language

Indosphere and Austroasiatic

Tamil can use Cyrillic

Vietnamese can use an abugida based on the Far East Semitic abugida

Religions of Irta

Europe

  • French, Latzial and Irish: Catholicism
    • French and Hyperfrench: a "Reformation" (the First Remonition) which results in something very much like our Unitarianism but it's started by ex-Catholics
  • Azalic: another Reformation (called the Second Remonition in-universe), which is overtly anti-theist
    • The two Remonitions trigger migration to America and Tricin.
    • Similar movements in the Hivantish and Muslim worlds (even outside Europe; Wādatsu-e-Azaru is an independent Remonition with uncanny similarities to the Azalic Remonition including the name and Buddhist influence)
  • Hivantish: Hivantish paganism, Remonitionists are a minority
  • Balkan Romance and Greek: Greek Orthodox
  • Judeo-Riphean and Irta Yevanic: Judaism (obviously)

Africa

  • Maghreb: Buddhist, Catholic

Asia

  • Tamil, Indian Austroasiatic: druids; Catholic, Remonitionist, Sufi (various levels of syncretism)
  • Togarmite: Sufi, various Hellenistic
  • Far East Semitic: druids, animist, Jewish
  • Irta Japanese (Asia and America): Wādatsu-e-Azaru, a Sufi-Buddhist-animist syncretism