Brithenese

Brithenese
britheneyses, bridenaises
Pronunciation	[/bri.ðe.ˈnai.zəs/]
Created by	sjacik
Setting	Unnamed Alternate Timeline
Native to	Scotland
Language family	Indo-European Italic Romance Western Romance Brithenese
Early form	Vulgar Latin

Brithenese /brɪ.ðə.ˈniːz/ is an endangered Romance language spoken in central Scotland.

Introduction

Bridansh is spoken in the same world as Modern Gothic. The point of divergence is that around the 1st century AD, magic became real. Roughly speaking, from then until the 10th c. is the same. The 10th to 16th c. are marked by differences caused by the survival or death of various powers. While the 16th c. onward has become radically different.

In this timeline, the Romans were initially able to keep a small foothold in central England. However, due to the Anglo-Saxon invasion they were pushed out. The majority of British Romans went north into Scotland while a minority went west into Wales. The northern British were conquered by the kingdom of Strathclyde in 800s. The western British were conquered by various Welsh kingdoms soon after they migrated. Western Brithenese died in the Middle Ages in favor of Welsh.

There are two competing spelling systems. The first is the traditional style, and it is based off of Early Modern English / Scots. (NOTE: find a way to describe the second)

Phonological History

One defining feature of Brithenese is that unlike every other language descended from Vulgar Latin, the Classical vowels /a/ and /a:/ did not merge and instead became /a/ and /ɔ/. Compare French chanter and Jacques to Brithenese chantor|chentor /tʃən.ˈtor/ and Jegows|Jègaus /dʒe.ˈgaus/.

Phonology

Consonants

	Labial	Dental	Alveolar	Post-alveolar	Dorsal
Nasal	m		n1		(ŋ)2
Plosive	p b	t d			k g
Affricate				tʃ dʒ
Fricative	f3 v	θ3 ð	s3 (z)4	ʃ3 ʒ	h5
Approximant			l		j6
Rhotic			r7

Notes:

¹ /n/ assimilates to the same point of articulation as the following consonant, yielding values of [m] [n̪] [n̺] [n̠] [ŋ]
² /ŋ/ is found only before the velar stops
³ Voiceless fricatives are voiced between vowels, yielding [v] [ð] [z] [ʒ]
⁴ /z/ is only found between vowels
⁵ /h/ is a glottal fricative with variable voicing, frequently becoming [ɦ]
⁶ /j/ is a voiced palatal approximant
⁷ /r/ is traditionally a trill, but both an approximant [ɹ] and a tap [ɾ] are not unheard.

Vowels

	Front		Central	Back
	Unrounded	Rounded		Unrounded	Rounded
Close	i	y1		ɯ2	u
Mid	e	ø3	ə	ɤ	o
Open			a

Notes:

¹ /y/ is a close front vowel with compressed rounding, \[iᵝ]
² /ɯ/ is in the process of merging with /ɤ/
³ /ø/ is a mid front vowel with compressed rounding, \[eᵝ], although it is frequently unrounded merging it with /e/

Orthography

Traditional

Vowels

	Front		Central	Back
	Unrounded	Rounded		Unrounded	Rounded
Close	i, ey, ie	ew, i		ui, u	ou, u
Mid	e, a(C)e, ei, ai	eu, u	a	oi	o, oa, ow
Open			a, aw

Modern

Vowels

	Front		Central	Back
	Unrounded	Rounded		Unrounded	Rounded
Close	i	u		ui	ou
Mid	e, è	eu	e	oi	o
Open			a

Syntax

Nouns

Nouns have two genders, masculine and feminine, and two numbers, singular and plural.

Articles

Articles agree with the object they modify in gender, number, and case. The Genitive form of the definite article is also used as a partitive article.

yee	chat	chave	jae	mewrs
li	chat	ceve	diès	murs
ji	tʃat	tʃev	dʒes	myrs
DEF.NOM.M.SG	cat.M.SG	catch.PRS.SG	DEF.GEN.F.PL	mouse.F-PL
The	cat	catches	(some)	mice

Morphology

Articles

Indefinite

	Singular		Plural
	Masculine	Feminine / Neuter	Masculine	Feminine / Neuter
Nominative	ewns / ins	ewn / in
Accusative	ewn / in		ewns / ins	ewn / in
Dative	eyn / en		eyns / ens	eyn / en
Genitive	juin / jeun		juins / jeuns	juin / jeun

Definite

	Singular		Plural
	Masculine	Feminine / Neuter	Masculine	Feminine / Neuter
Nominative	yee / li	ya / lie	yee / li
Accusative	you / liou	ya / lie	yous / lious	yoss / lios
Dative	eel / il		eels / ils
Genitive	jay / diè		jays / diès

The Genitive case is used as a partitive article