Wendlandish: Difference between revisions

{{Infobox language

|name          = Wendlandish

|nativename    = lyngra Vinnurlænska

|region        = Alt-Northern Europe

|ethnicity    = Wends/Wendlanders (''Vinnurlænsker'')

|fam3          = Romance

|fam4          = Northern Romance

|created      = Jul 2016

|setting      = Alt-Earth

|nation        = the Wendlands

|agency        = Academy of the Wendlandish Language<br/>''akademíla ið lyngra Vinnurlænska''

}}

'''Wendlandish''', natively ''Vinnurlænska'' or ''lyngra Vinnurlænska'', is a Romance language spoken in an uchronic Earth, in the area of real-world Pomerania.

The only member of the Northern Romance branch, Wendlandish has, due to relative and long isolation from the rest of the Romance-speaking world, followed its own path of evolution and has absorbed lots of words, grammatical features, and influence on phonology, from its neighboring languages: most prominently Old Norse, but also Proto-Slavic, Baltic languages, Low German and, more recently, Standard High German and Polish.

==Introduction==

===External history===

===Internal history===

Wendlandish is the official and national language of Wendland — natively ''Vinnurlond'', "the Wendlands" —, officially the Soviet Republic of the Wendlands (''repuvlik savjetska Vinnurlandana''), a sovereign state in Northern Europe, bordering in the west and south with Germany (''Þysklond'') and in the south and east with Poland (''Sløvjænlond''); it has a long coast on the Baltic Sea (''mær Vinnurlandana'', Sea of the Wendlands), which divides it from Denmark (''Danmork'') and Sweden (''Sværikur'').<br/>

The population of Wendland, at the last census (2014), amounted to about 1,600,000 people; the total number of native Wendlandish speakers is slightly higher, with at least 100,000 people of Wendlandish origin living in other former Soviet countries and a small community in southern Denmark, mostly descendants of people who escaped from Wendland during Soviet times.

Acute accents may be added on all vowels to mark stress; this is in formal writings mandatory word-finally (''-ǽ'' is very common because of Greek -τική words such as ''maþematikǽ'' "mathematics" or ''politikǽ'' "politics") and in some plurisyllabic words ending in ''-s'' if the vowel before it is stressed (e.g. ''granís'' "frontier, border"). In colloquial writing, this is not usually done.

====Cyrillic orthography====

: '''pufl''' (m) (people): pufl (sg. ind.) - pufl'''ir''' (pl. ind.) - pufl'''ir''' (sg. def.) - pufl'''yllir''' (pl. def.) (see below for the ''-ir'' plural)

: '''lynga''' (f) (language): lyng'''a''' - lyng'''ar''' - lyng'''ra''' - lyng'''allar'''

Other special cases:

* Masculine nouns in '''-ð''' change this consonant to '''d''' in declined forms, e.g. '''ølð''' (ship): ølð - ølder - øldil - øldylir;

** This change does not happen after ''-r'' and ''-j'', e.g. '''arvejð''' (work): arvejð - arvejðer - arvejðil - arvejðylir;

* Feminine nouns in '''-æt''' (< Latin ''-itate'') change this final ''t'' into ''ð'' in declined forms, e.g. '''frjæt''' "truth": frjæt - frjæðir - frjæðla - frjæðillar;

* As seen in ''frjæt'', feminine nouns ending in a consonant have ''i'' as the thematic vowel for plural forms, e.g. ''forbindasj'' (''-asj'' < Lat. ''-ātiō'') "connection": forbindasj - forbindasjir - forbindasjla - forbindasjillar.

: ''vovr jæsts gljandænts'' "you (pl.) are looking", ''vovr jærits gljandænts'' "you (pl.) were looking"

: ''ifi sints hrjæjnts'' "they are making", ''ifi jarants hrjæjnts'' "they were making"

==== Irregular verbs ====

! rowspan=2 | jas (to be) !! colspan=7 | Indicative !! colspan=2 | Subjunctive

|-

|-

! jag

|-

! tsu

|-

! if / ifja

|-

! novr

|-

! vovr

|-

! ifi / ifjæ

|-

! Pres. part.

! rowspan=2 | vaðir (to go) !! colspan=7 | Indicative

|-

|-

! jag

|-

! tsu

|-

! if / ifja

|-

! novr

|-

! vovr

|-

! ifi / ifjæ

|-

! Pres. part.

! rowspan=2 | aðir (to come) !! colspan=7 | Indicative

|-

|-

! jag

|-

! tsu

|-

! if / ifja

|-

! novr

|-

! vovr

|-

! ifi / ifjæ

|-

! Pres. part.

! rowspan=2 | tenajr (to have) !! colspan=7 | Indicative

|-

|-

! jag

|-

! tsu

|-

! if / ifja

|-

! novr

|-

! vovr

|-

! ifi / ifjæ

|-

! (impersonal)

|-

! Pres. part.

!Past part.

| tytt

|}

===== To understand (idelajsjir) =====

{| class=wikitable

|-

|-

! jag

|-

! tsu

|-

! if / ifja

|-

! novr

|-

! vovr

|-

! ifi / ifjæ

|-

! (impersonal)

|-

! Pres. part.

! rowspan=2 | pisir (to be able to) !! colspan=7 | Indicative

|-

|-

! jag

|-

! tsu

|-

! if / ifja

|-

! novr

|-

! vovr

|-

! ifi / ifjæ

|-

! (impers.)

|-

! Pres. part.

! rowspan=2 | vjal (to want) !! colspan=7 | Indicative

|-

|-

! jag

|-

! tsu

|-

! if / ifja

|-

! novr

|-

! vovr

|-

! ifi / ifjæ

|-

! (impers.)

|-

! Pres. part.

===== To say (ditsir) and to talk (prilufir) =====

{| class=wikitable

! rowspan=2 | ditsir (to say) !! colspan=7 | Indicative

|-

|-

! jag

|-

! tsu

|-

! if / ifja

|-

! novr

|-

! vovr

|-

! ifi / ifjæ

|-

! (impers.)

|-

! Pres. part.

|-

! jag

|-

! tsu

|-

! if / ifja

|-

! novr

|-

! vovr

|-

! ifi / ifjæ

|-

! (impers.)

|-

! Pres. part.

===Russian influence and ''Savjetskalgia''===

Russian influence in Wendlandish is mostly concentrated in the last century, but there's no doubt that it has tremendously impacted the language, not only in Soviet times but, possibly even more deeply, after the Soviet Union broke up. The early post-Soviet years were marked by a huge decline in the Wendlands and people immediately developed a strong sense of nostalgia for the Golden Age of the Wendlands - the days of the Soviet Union, when the Wendlands were a strategically important and cosmopolite part of the country due to it being its westernmost extent. This sense of nostalgia — called ''savjetskalgia'' as a portmanteau of ''savjetski'' (Soviet) and ''nostalgia'' — is still enormously visible in the prestige that the Russian language, emblem of the Soviet era, has in the Wendlands, probably even more than in Russia itself. Russian loans are entering Wendlandish en masse, often with a more "official" meaning when compared to the native Wendlandish term, and Russian is the preferred language of the Academy of the Wendlandish language in order to coin terms, to the extent that Wendlandish academics have recently coined terms from Russian roots that do not even exist in Russian, like ''vosjeni'' "car" (< ''воженный'' "driven"; though colloquial Wendlandish uses ''lada'' from the car brand) or ''hadifon'' for "mobile phone" (from ''ходить'' "to walk" and Wend./international ''telefon'').

Example of Russian loans into Wendlandish are:

* various words for things that were not part of everyday Wendlandish life before Soviet times - e.g. ''plitá'' (gas/electric stove), ''haladilnik'' (fridge), ''marazilnik'' (freezer), ''tilivizar'' (television), ''rubil'' (ruble), ''kapjek'' (kopek), ''hrusjovka'' ([https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Khrushchyovka khruščëvka]);

* post-Soviet coinages from Russian roots or hybrid Russian-Wendlandish ones, like the ''vosjeni'' and ''hadifon'' mentioned previously; ''viliksjetj'' (internet, from ''великая сеть'' "great net"), ''patpojst'' (subway < ''под'' (under) and ''поезд'' (train)), or ''elekpisjmó'' (e-mail, from ''электронное письмо'' (electronic letter)).

===Countries and demonyms===

| Germany || Þysklond || Berlin || þyskrisk

|-

|-

| Sweden || Sværikur || Stokholmur || svæjsk