Verse:Irta/Judeo-Mandarin/Proto-Ăn Yidiș

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In the Irta timeline, Middle Irish was once spoken across the entire British Isles, also gaining a foothold on what is Western France in our timeline by the 9th century (only after the Second Remonition in the 17th century were they beaten back by English speakers). Proto-Ăn Yidiș was the spoken 10th-century French Middle Irish dialect spoken by the local Jews and is the common ancestor of all present-day Ăn Yidiș dialects. Being a spoken language, the Pre-Proto-Ăn Yidiș variety of Middle Irish (the variety spoken by the local Gentiles) was already much grammatically simpler than the more Old-Irish-influenced Literary Middle Irish, particularly in the verbal system. Proto-Ăn Yidiș was phonologically close to Ăn Cayzăn (before vowel length was lost) and grammatically volatile; the nominative, genitive and vocative are still in use but the dative and the accusative have merged with the nominative. The auxiliary system has been stabilized but with some slightly different forms or prepositions depending on the Ăn Yidiș dialect.

Todo

rules for dissimilation of ř

Todo: Reconstruct Proto-Tsarfati Hebrew before and after filtering through Proto-Ăn Yidiș phonology. Before they used TibH but with an o /o(:)/ vs ů /u(:)/ distinction in cholam; TibH /u/ was /ü(:)/. TibH style allophonic vowel length should go through the filter, hence leading to QG o vs QQ ă (בתים is still botim since it was a qamatz gadol). Zayin and tsade were both pronounced /ts=/ at first but later "corrected" to /ts=/ and /tsh/ in later Tsarfati Hebrew. (Also lenited daleth = /v/?)

Proto-Ăn Yidiș still had unstressed /ɔː/ (/ɔː/ comes from Middle Irish á and Proto-Tsarfati Hebrew allophonically long qamatz [ɔː]): e.g. */'amətɔːn/ 'fool' and */'χanʊ̈kʰɔː/ 'Hanukkah'. Many later dialects including Ăn Căyzon reduce it to /ə/.

הדג החי שוחה במים [haddO:g ha:Ha:j su:χE: bammO:jim]

é > ej is blocked before ř hence Ireland is Eriņ in Modern Standard ĂnY

Hebrew geminates were at one point overlong (hence attraction of stress towards them in ĂnY loans)

cht > xθˠ > f

Background

Phonology

Proto-Ăn Yidiș was part of the larger Irtan Medieval Continental West Europe~North Africa sprachbund. It participated in a large number of vowel shifts like Galoyseg, Proto-Azalic, etc. did, and made changes to palatalized consonants like our West Slavic languages. Irish dialects in Britain, Ireland and Corsica were spared of the changes.

Consonants: p b t d ć dź ķ ģ k g f s š ç h v j ğ m n ň ł l r ř

Vowels: at least ə a e i u ü o å ea é í oa ů ű aj ej əj oj uj üj au ou ie uo /ə a ɛ ɪ ʊ ʊ̈ ʌ ɔː eə e: i: oə u: ü: aj ej əj oj uj üj aw ɔw iɛ uɔ/, unstressed short ə i ü /ə ɪ ʊ̈ yə/

ł > l before u and ů

Fully devoiced stop system (that's why tet and qoph are d and g)

Depalatalization of slender consonants in similar contexts as in Polish/Czech: k'r' > kř, t'r' > tř etc.

Slender labials depalatalize before front vowels, but become bj pj mj fj vj before non-front vowels

mh > nasal vowel + v

Slender c g = still palatal stops; slender t d = Mandarin q j (This explains why zayin/tsade were mapped to slender d/t); iotated t/d = čh č (merges with slender t d in Ăn Căyzon, but merges with slender c/g in some dialects)

Final slender ch > -h

Broad r/rr and slender r = /r/, slender rr = Czech ř (which sometimes dissimilates to r)

broad l/ll = dark L, slender l/ll = l like in Polish; ł dissimilates to l next to u

ň for slender nn but everything else becomes n

  • a = /a/, [æ] before slender
  • ann all arr = /auR/
  • à = /ɔː/
  • e = /ɛ/
  • è, eu = /ɛː/ > /eə/ (before broad C), /ɛː/ (before slender C)
  • é = /e:/ > /ej/ in some conditions/dialects
  • e before broad mh > /ja/
  • eaRR = /jɔː/, /eə/
  • eo = /jʌ/ when short, /jo:/ when long
  • i = /i/
  • ì = /i:/
  • ia, iRR = /iə/
  • iù = /y:/
  • o = /ʌ/
  • ò, oRR = /O:/ > /oə/
  • ó = /o:/ > /u:/
  • u = /u/
  • ù = /ü:/
  • ua = /uə/
  • ao = /əj/ (merges with é/tsere in most Ăn Yidiș dialects)

Diaphonology of our Ăn Yidiș

Grammar

Nouns

Proto-Ăn Yidiș lost the neuter gender and the dual number, and had at least the nominative and the genitive. It's unknown whether the vocative survived outside a few words. The accusative and dative were replaced by the nominative; the genitive now marked definite objects of verbal nouns much like Hebrew את. Possessives began to be marked with the *an X a t' ag/aģ Y 'the X that is at Y' construction, leading to the Modern Ăn Yidiș genitive preposition tăģ/tăg 'of'.

In present-day Ăn Yidiș dialects (not counting Standard/Secular Ăn Yidiș), declension is best preserved in Southeastern European (Bohemian Hasidic) Ăn Yidiș, but even that has simplified somewhat to a lenition-free, genderless paradigm. Standard Ăn Yidiș declension is now somewhat archaic, being based on the 19th century Hasidic dialects where declension was best preserved, presumably in an effort to imitate Irish declension.

Paradigms

sg gen/pl nom with palatalization and vowel change: mak 'son' // əm mak // ə viķ // miķ // nə miķ // nəm mak (בן // הבן // את הבן // בנים // הבנים // את הבנים)

sg gen with palatalization only: levər 'book' // əl levər // əl levəř // levəř // nə levəř // nən levər

Native 2nd declension: avəl 'apple tree' // ən avəl // nə h-avłə // avłənə/əxə // nə h-avłənə/əxə // nən avłənə/əxə

broad/slender neutralized native masculine paradigm: knauv 'bone' (cnov in Standard; cnowv or cnav in dialects) // ən knauv // nə xnaivə // knauvənə/-əxə // nə knauvənə/-əxə // nən knauvən/-əx (the -ə sg. gen. ending was carried over to endingless Hebrew loans and to other native nouns)

Endingless Hebrew paradigm: éd 'witness' // ənt éd (> אן ה-עד in dialectal Ăn Yidiș) // ən éd, ən édə // édím // nə hédím // nən édím

Native feminines: kalůg 'little bride' // ə xalůg // nə kalůģə // kalůgənə // nə kalůgənə // nən kalůgən

Hebrew feminines: miśpåxå 'family' // ə viśpåxå // nə miśpåxå // miśpåxůs // nə miśpåxůs // nəm miśpåxůs

Feminine s- words became t- words: saviň (samhain) became taviň

Adjectives

Verbs

*Tå mi nej ih (< *Tá mé i ndiaidh ith 'I am after eating') became the default construction for the past perfective (cf. German).

Vocabulary

  • Inherited vocab from Old Irish
  • Galoyseg [Pre-Proto-ĂnY stops here]
  • Romance pre-substrate (that's not found in Old Irish)
  • early Loshen Koydesh loans (esp. for religious terms, they should replace inherited Irish vocab)