Macambese

Macambese
lang Macambe
Pronunciation	[laŋ maˈkamə]
Created by	Jukethatbox
Date	2026
Native to	Macamby
Native speakers	~1,200 (2025)
Language family	Indo-European Italic Latino-Faliscan Latinic Romance Italo-Western Western Gallo-Iberian Gallo-Romance Gallo-Rhaetian Arpitan-Oïl Oïl Macambese
Early forms	Old Latin Vulgar Latin Proto-Romance Old Gallo-Romance Old French Old Macambese
Writing system	Latin
Official status
Regulated by	Cirquel Solei

Macambese (lang Macambe [laŋ maˈkamə]) is an Oïl language spoken natively in the English town of Macamby. It was historically natively spoken by about 50,000 residents of Macamby and its surrounding countryside (peissaîde), but is now designated as a definitely endangered language by the UNESCO Atlas of the World's Languages in Danger, with only an estimated 1,200 truly native speakers remaining, though estimates of L2 speakers are much higher at around 20,000 L2 speakers. It is unofficially regulated by the Cirquel Solei (pronounced [ˈsirkəl soˈlei̯], lit. "Circle of the Sun").

As an Oïl language, Macambese is most closely related to the Northern Oïl languages such as Norman and Picard, as well as Standard French. However, its isolation from France has led it to develop unique and sometimes English-influenced features that are rare in other Oïl languages; for example, many Macambese words are calques of English words, such as amei-fillia "girlfriend" being a calque of English girlfriend as opposed to the equivalent French term, petite amie (lit. "little friend (f.)"). Other features borrowed from English include the vowel /ʌ/ (usually written u, often cognate with French /y/) and phonemic affricates /tʃ dʒ/ and dental fricatives /θ ð/.

Phonology

Consonants

	Bilabial	Labiodental	Dental	Alveolar	Postalveolar	Palatal	Velar
Nasal	m	(ɱ)		n		ɲ	(ŋ)
Stop/Affricate	p b			t d	tʃ dʒ		k g
Fricative		f v	θ ð	s z	ʃ ʒ
Approximant	w			r		j
Lateral				l

/ɱ/ is an allophone of /m/ before /f v/ (as in semfogne "symphony, song") while /ŋ/ is an allophone of /n/ before /k g/ (as in ouncle "uncle, bro (to an older person)").

Macambese only has one phonemic rhotic, /r/, but the realisation of this phoneme varies greatly depending on dialect and sometimes even at the idiolect level. In Northern dialects, /r/ is pronounced as uvular /ʁ/ in word-medial coda syllable positions, as in pardoun [ˈpaʁdõw̃], and is pronounced as tap /ɾ/ everywhere else. However, in the Foidegrin dialect, word-medial coda /r/ is only uvular before sonorants, as in parlé [paʁˈlei̯] and is trill /r/ everywhere else. In Southern dialects it is traditionally trill /r/ everywhere, though with the more recent influence of English the /r/ has been gradually replaced by alveolar /ɹ/, which is also the most common realisation in all positions by L2 speakers of the language (called anglen or bushrons).

Vowels

	Front	Central	Back
Close	i		u
Close-mid	e		o
Open-mid	ɛ	ə	ʌ ɔ
Open	a

Word-final /e/, generally written é, is usually diphthongised to [ei̯].

Macambese has 6 valid diphthongs: /ei̯ oi̯ ou̯ eu̯ au̯ ai̯/. /ai̯ au̯/ primarily only occur in English loanwords and are written ⟨aî⟩ and ⟨aou⟩ respectively (historically /au̯/ was also written ⟨aû⟩ but this is now obsolete), like traîve "tribe", éspaîque "a type of long, thin sword", claoune "clown" and plaouv'néje "snowplough". Importantly, the use of the circumflex in /ai̯/ ⟨aî⟩ is not to show a silent /s/ as it is generally used in French, but instead originally was a variant of the diaeresis that replaced it. Thus, the circumflex in Macambese operates almost equivalently to the diaeresis in French; indeed, éspaîque alone was often spelt éspaïque or espaïque as late as the mid-19th century.

Nasal vowels

	Front	Central	Back
Close	ĩ		ũ
Mid	ɛ̃	ʌ̃	ɔ̃
Open		ã

Macambese is generally agreed to have six phonemic nasal vowels, /ã ɛ̃ ĩ ɔ̃ ũ ʌ̃/. /ɛ̃/ is often realised as /ẽ/ in Southern dialects, while /ũ/ is very commonly realised as [õw̃], though many speakers in Chapsfield (Shampsfeile) still seem to retain the [ũ] pronunciation that today is otherwise considered archaic. /ʌ̃/ only occurs in some words such as un "singular masculine indefinite article" and pronuncé "to pronounce", and may be variably realised as [ɨ̃], [ə̃] or in the most divergent dialects as [ỹ]. /ĩ/ is even rarer, mostly occurring in verb conjugations like vin "he/she/it goes", and also has a tendency especially among younger speakers to morph into a combination of /i/ and a nasal homorganic to the consonant after it, as in is vinte [is ˈvĩtə] "he went" pronounced as [is ˈvintə]. /ã/ is pronounced firmly centrally.

Grammar

Macambese nouns inflect on two genders, masculine and feminine, and two numbers, singular and plural.

Articles

	Indefinite		Definite
	Singular	Plural	Singular	Plural
Masculine	un	sum	le	lé
Feminine	oune		la	las

sum is borrowed from English some and replaced native uns and ounes.

Pronouns

Demonstrative pronouns

Macambese demonstratives

		Proximal	Distal
Singular	masc.	cit	cel
	fem.	cita	cela
Plural	masc.	cites	cels
	fem.	citas	célas

The plural demonstratives are only used in the structure "[article] [plural noun] [demonstrative]", as in las pomes célas "those apples" (lit. "the apples those") or lé frères cites "these brothers". Singular demonstratives use the same structure as modern French and English, with the demonstrative before a noun, as in cit trei "this train" or cela cigareta "this cigarette".

Personal pronouns

Macambese pronouns

		Singular		Plural
		nom.	gen.	nom.	gen.
1	masc.	m(e)	me	nou	no(z)
	fem.		ma
2	masc.	tu	tu	vou	vo(z)
	fem.		ta
3	masc.	is	son	els	ise(s)
	fem.	â	sa	as	âse(s)

The genitives of nou and vou are no’ and vo’ respectively before consonants and noz / voz before vowels. The genitives of els and as are ise and âse before singular nouns and ises / âses before plural nouns, but the final /s/ is never pronounced, so ise / ises and âse / âses are both homophonic pairs.

Example texts

The Lord's Prayer

No' Per qu'eit iné cieu
Que tu noum eit santifi
Que tu reng vin
Que ta volonte eit fert sur la ter com in cieu.

Doun in nou hui nou pan de se jurne.
Pardoun in nou noz ofenses
Com nou pardenouns ousi îs que nou ofensa.

E ne nou souvemit in tentasion,
Mes delivré nou far male,
Amen.