Brittonica
Brittonica (Brittoníca) is a reconstructed form of late Common Brythonic dating to about the early 6th century, the time of King Arthur, shortly before the loss of final syllables led to the development of the earliest daughter languages (ancestors of Welsh, Breton and Cornish).
Phonology
Vowels
| Front | Near- front | Central | Near- back | Back | ||
| Close | 
| |||||
| Near-close | ||||||
| Close-mid | ||||||
| Mid | ||||||
| Open-mid | ||||||
| Near-open | ||||||
| Open | ||||||
Consonants
| Bilabial | Alveolar | Palatal | Velar | Glottal | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Nasal | m | n | ŋ | ||
| Plosive | p b | t d | k g | ||
| Fricative | ɸ (β, μ) | s (ð) | x (ɣ) | h | |
| Approximant | w | j | |||
| Trill | r | ||||
| Lateral app. | l |
Notes:
- All consonants except /w, j, ɸ, x, h/ may be geminate between vowels.
- The fricatives [β, ð, ɣ] and [μ] (representing a nasalised /β/) are allophones of /b, d, g/ and /m/ respectively, occuring between vowels or between /l, r/ and a vowel.
Stress
Primary stress is routinely placed on the penultimate syllable of polysyllabic words, with secondary stress on the pre-antepenult.
Prefixes and proclitics, such as pronouns and prepositions, do not take stress.
Orthography
The orthography of Brittonica is based on the Latin alphabet, which was adopted during the Roman occupation of Britain. As a result of long usage, the pronunciation of words is not entirely phonemic (though it is predictable) as spelling has remained relatively conservative as pronunciation has changed.
The alphabet consists of the following letters:
- Aa Áá Ææ Bb Cc Dd Ee Éé Ff Gg Hh Ii Íí Ll Mm Nn Oo Pp Rr Ss Tt Uu Úú Vv Xx
| Graph | IPA | Notes | Example |
|---|---|---|---|
| A a | /a/ | catta | |
| Á á | /ɔː/ | máro | |
| Æ æ | /ɛː/ | cæto | |
| B b | /b/ | initially | bena |
| [β] | between vowels, before or after r, l | abona | |
| C c | /k/ | initially | catta |
| [g] | between vowels | teca | |
| D d | /d/ | initially | druco |
| [ð] | between vowels, before or after r, l | monido | |
| E e | /ɛ/ | mercess | |
| É é | /eː/ | ecléssia | |
| F f | /ɸ/ | fonna | |
| G g | /g/ | initially | gabro |
| [ɣ] | between vowels, before or after r, l | dago | |
| H h | /h/ | henton | |
| I i | /ɪ/ | viro | |
| Í í | /iː/ | híro | |
| L l | /l/ | láma | |
| M m | /m/ | initially | merkess |
| [μ] | between vowels, before or after r, l | láma | |
| N n | /n/ | nanton | |
| O o | /ɔ/ | cotto | |
| P p | /p/ | initially | pempe |
| [b] | between vowels, before r, l | mapo | |
| R r | /r/ | ríma | |
| S s | /s/ | priston | |
| T t | /t/ | initially | teca |
| [d] | between vowels, before r, l | cenetlon | |
| U u | |||
| Ú ú | |||
| V v | |||
| X x |
Morphology
Nouns
Nouns are marked for three genders (masculine, feminine and neuter), three numbers (singular, dual and plural) and five cases (nominative, accusative, genitive, dative and vocative). As with other ancient Indo-European languages, nouns belonged to one of several stem classes.
O-Stems
All o-stem nouns are either masculine or neuter.
| Masculine mapoh "boy" |
Neuter dínon "fort" | |||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Sg. | Du. | Pl. | Sg. | Du. | Pl. | |
| Nom. | mapoh | mapú | mapí | dínon | dínú | díná |
| Voc. | mape | mapíh | ||||
| Acc. | mapon | |||||
| Gen. | mapí | mapíh | mapon | díní | díníh | dínon |
| Dat. | mapobon | mapobo | dínobon | dínobo |