Borchennymendi
Borchennymendi is the native language spoken by approximately 4,250,000 inhabitants of the Kingdom of Borchennymi, situated in the Atlantic Ocean, to the south of the Azores and to the west of the Canary Islands. The island country has been a constitutional monarchy since 1253. Its name means: 'mainland in the ocean', although it is never spoken of as 'Sealand'. Borchennymendi is a language isolate, featuring complex verbal constructions. Its orthography retained an archaic character, while its modern pronunciation is the result of a clearly phased development under the influence of the Portuguese tongue in the 15th and 16th centuries and the English language in the late 17th and early 18th, although Borchennymi was never colonized. A British attempt to do so in 1768 failed after 44 years, when the foreign oppressors were expelled after a short and rather peaceful insurrection in 1812. The Borchennymendi vocabulary shows some Latin influences as an effect of missionary activities from Gaul as early as the 5th century and from the British Isles in the 9th. A plenty of words are derived from Portuguese, Old English, Gaulish, Old Franconian, Gothic and Vulgar Latin.
| Borchennymendi | |
|---|---|
| bhodhrchedhnumendhui | |
| File:Bhodhrchedhnumistae.jpg Flag of the Kingdom of Borchennymi | |
| Pronunciation | [vɒr.ɮɪ.nu'mɛn.ʒiː] |
| Created by | Nilhaeu |
| Date | 2012 |
| Setting | Kingdom of Borchennymi |
| Ethnicity | Borchennymendi |
| Native speakers | 4.2 million (2025) |
Atlantic?
| |
Early forms | Proto-Atlantic?
|
| Official status | |
Recognised minority language in | |
| Regulated by | Royal Borchennymendi Language Academy |
| Language codes | |
| CLCR | qbm |
| BRCL | bcnm |
The status of the Borchennymendi according to UNESCO’s Atlas of World’s Languages in DangerZ | |
It is the one of the few ranked Category V(2200hours/88weeks), by the U.S. Department of State's Foreign Service Institute (FSI). It has a lexicon of over 12 million lemmas. In 2024, the last edition from the Official Borchennymendi Dictionary, published by the Royal Borchennymendi Language Academy every ~15 years, states exactly 12,308,952, with almost no borrowings(proportionally)!(~480,000 = ~3.9%), proportionally. The dictionary has been around since 1874. The Borchennymendi Wiktionary has 20,941,055 entries as of January 1, 2025. It is the largest wiktionary in the world, with the second place being held by English. Along with it, is the only other major language on Earth that uses the Latin Alphabet but no diacritics. Along with Lushootseed(Salishan), is the only other language that uses the Latin Alphabet but no capital letters.
Phonology
Consonants
/m n ɲ ŋ/ /p b t d/ /ϕ f v θ ð s z ʃ ʒ ʁ h ɦ/ /t͡ʃ d͡ʒ/ /ʋ r ɹ j w ɾ/ /ɬ ɮ l ʎ/
Vowels /i y u ɪ ʏ ʊ e ø/ /ɘ o ə ɛ œ ʌ ɔ æ/ /ɐ a ɑ ɒ/
Lots of vowels can be long and nasalised. More is available at the specific page about Borchennymendi’s phonology.
Alphabet
The alphabeth consists of only seventeen letters:
a b c d e g i (h only in digraphs) l m n o p r s t
Digraphs:æ œ bh ch dh gh lh mh nh ph rh sh th
In books printed in Borchennymi h looks like ß, ſ is used for s except at the end of a syllable, q represents the digraph ch, and h at the end of a word looks like an undotted j. The letter “u” looks like an “y”, and the “r” looks like an “z”. Uncial scripts and fonts are widely used. Capitals are not in use. There is only one punctuation mark (.) or (:).
Phonotactics
Although the syllable structure of Borchennymendi gives the impression of complexity, it is in fact very transparent. It allows the following possibilities:
- / V / -
C / V / -
CC / V / -
CCC / V / -
- / VV / -
C / VV / -
CC / VV / -
CCC / VV / -
- / VVV / -
C / VVV / -
CC / VVV / -
CCC / VVV / -
- / V / C
C / V / C
CC / V / C
CCC / V / C
- / VV / C
C / VV / C
CC / VV / C
CCC / VV / C
- / VVV / C
C / VVV / C
CC / VVV / C
CCC / VVV / C
- / V / CC
C / V / CC
CC / V / CC
CCC / V / CC
- / VV / CC
C / VV / CC
CC / VV / CC
CCC / VV / CC
- / VVV / CC
C / VVV / CC
CC / VVV / CC
CCC / VVV / CC
- / V / CCC
C / V / CCC
CC / V / CCC
CCC / V / CCC
- / VV / CCC
C / VV / CCC
CC / VV / CCC
CCC / VV / CCC
- / VVV / CCC
C / VVV / CCC
CC / VVV / CCC
CCC / VVV / CCC
V stands for vowel; C for consonant; - for none.
The seeming opacity is mainly caused by the written digraphs consisting of a vowel and h, which in fact is nothing more than a diacritic. They are regarded as one vowel in the pronunciation.
In the onset of a syllable Borchennymendi allows:
no consonants, which implies the absence of an onset; one consonant: b, c, d, g, l, m, n, p, r, s, t and bh, ch, dh, gh, lh, mh, nh, ph, rh, sh, th; two consonants: bl, br, cl, cr, dr, gl, gr, pr, st, tl, tr; bhl, blh, brh, chl, chr, clh, crh, dhr, drh, ghl, ghr, glh, grh, phr, prh, shl, sht, slh, sth, thl, thr, tlh, trh and bhlh, bhrh, chlh, chrh, dhrh, ghlh, ghrh, phrh, shbh, shlh, shth, thlh, thrh.
three consonants: str and shtr.
A vowel cannot be part of the syllable onset in the written language. The glottal stop is not a part of the consonant inventory and the spoken Borchennymendi shows a strong tendency to avoid it altogether. Words with an opening syllable as represented in the leftmost column of the table above are often preceded by a palatal approximant (j), a voiceless (h) or a voiced (ɦ) glottal fricative as indicated in the diagram. This does not apply to syllables of this type within a word.
The nucleus may encompass:
one vowel: a, e, i, o, u, ae oe;
two vowels: ai, ao, au, ea, ei, eo, eu, ia, ie, oa, oi, ua, ue, ui;
three vowels: aou, eai, eoi, iai, iei, oai, uai.
In a three-vowel cluster only the one in the middle position is a genuine vowel. Both the first and the last are semivowels; the labiodental approximant (ʋ) in oai, uai and the palatal approximand (j) in eai, eoi, iai en iei.The only exception is aou, in which -ao- is a diphthong: aːw or the long open-back rounded: ɒː and u the semivowel ʋ.
No consonants are permissible in the nucleus.
In the coda three possibilities are allowed:
no consonants, which implies the absence of a coda;
one consonant: c d g l m n r s t and bh, ch, dh, gh, lh, mh, nh, ph, rh, sh;
( The consonantal digraphs ch, dh and gh are often (but not always) inaudible.)
two consonants:
ct, lb, ld, lt, mb, nd, nt, rd, rm, rn, rt, st,
bhr, cht, cth, dhl, dhr, drh, ghl, ghm, ghr, ghs, ght, lbh, lch, ldh, lgh, lht, lmh, lth, mbh, mtg, mth, nbh, nch, ndh, ngh, nhd, nsh, nth, pht, rbh, rch, rdh, rgh, rhs, rht, rmh, rsh, rth, sht, sth, tch, trh,
chrh, chth, dhrh, ghsh, ghth, lhth, mhbh, mhth, nhdh, nhgh, phth, rhmh, rhsh, rhth, shth, thch, thgh, thrh.
three consonants:ntg, rtg, ghtg,
Over syllable boundaries the theoretical maximum length of a consonant cluster can be six positions (orthographically eight), but such a length is an extremely rare phenomenon. There are no radices that show it, so that it could appear only as a result of adding a suffix to a radix. The rule that no single vowel, vowel group, consonant or consonant group may be doubled often reduces the length of syllable clusters. If the application of this rule would obscure the meaning of a verbal of a nominal construction, a synonym for the radix is chosen from the extensive vocabulary. This is one of the main causes for the existence of irregular conjugations and declensions.
In the pronunciation the last consonant of a group of two generally becomes inaudible if it is written as bh, ch, dh, gh, lh and th at the end of a syllable followed by a syllable with a consonant or of consonant cluster in its onset.For instance: albh is pronounced as halʋ 'equinox', but thalbhoir is: θaˈ.ʋoɹ 'solstice'.