Hispanic Gothic

[Lleu]

The idea for a conlang derived from Gothic has been in my mind since I first started studying Gothic. Inspired by Ill Bethisad's ill-detailed Vissi and my class on the history and culture of medieval Spain this semester, I went with Spain as a setting. Its existence is predicated on the Visigoths' doing more to create/expand their own culture, as opposed to adopting wholesale the Roman culture of Spain. I am not yet sure whether they will still convert to Catholicism, but either way, Gothic is more than a liturgical language at the time of the Umayyad invasion. Subsequently, one of the Christian polities that arises in the north is Arian and Gothic-speaking; there are also possibly arabized Gothic-speakers in the south, comparable to the Mozarabs.

Long story short, a descendant of Gothic survives at least into the late medieval period. It is in some ways a bogolang, in that I started by applying many of the developments from classical Latin characteristic of vulgar Latin to Gothic, but I expanded on things some from there. Much though I love the Gothic alphabet, I adopted the Latin alphabet with spelling conventions that are a mix of the conventions of several of the Iberian languages.

"Phonology" and Orthography
This is basically just going to be a phoneme inventory — thus the scare quotes.

Plosives: /p b t d k g/ <p b t d c/q g/gu>*
Fricatives: /B f T D s z S Z h/ <v f th dh s z x j/lh** h>
Nasals: /m n J/ <m n nh>
Affricates: /tS dZ/ <c/tx g/dj>º
Other consonants: /l r j/ <l r y>
Vowels: /a e i o O u/ <a e i o u>

Two diphthongs merit attention: /je/ and /we/ are spelled <ie/yeºº> and <ue> respectively.

/g/ is realized as [G] intervocalically

* <q> is used where /k/ descends from Gothic /k_w/; likewise <gu> is used when /g/ descends from Gothic /g_w/
** <lh> is used where /Z/ descends from Gothic /l/; <j> is used otherwise
º <c g> are used for /tS dZ/ when they descend from Gothic /k g/ palatalized before /e i/; <tx dj> are used otherwise
ºº <ye> word-initially, <ie> otherwise

Stress falls on the first syllable, although prepositional verbs (e.g. aflitha "leave", conjugated litha af, from Gothic af-leiþan) are stressed on the first syllable of the root rather than the preposition.

I'm probably missing or overlooking some things — it is sometimes difficult to keep track of things in my notes, especially since I seem not to have removed some sound changes from the Grand Master Plan despite having ignored them later. At any rate. Some words:

mari "ocean" /"mari/
volf "wolf" /"Bolf/
hierdas "shepherds" /"hjerdas/ (probably [Cerdas])
gevos "gifts" /"dZeBos/
griba "grasp" /"griBa/
aflitha "leave" /af"liTa/

I realize this isn't much to go on, but I need to figure out how to present the rest of the information I have.

[Nortaneous]

hitler

[Lleu]

Oh god this is badass.

Why <y>? Does, for example, /J/ contrast with /nj/? And why just <q> instead of <qu>?

<q> is a holdover from Gothic — qoppa is used for /k_w/. At present I don't think /J/ contrasts with /nj/ except across morpheme boundaries; I can't think of a contrastive example offhand, but there might be one — probably a verb plus clitic pronoun contrasting with a noun form. As to why <y> — I'm not really sure. Why not <y>, I guess would be my answer. It fits the Spanish orthographic aesthetic I was going for.

[alice]

Northern Dekavurian is also a bogolang form Gothic with Spanish-like sound changes.

[Lleu]

Time for some morphology. Specifically: nominal morphology, which is fairly easy — just those pesky jo-stems.

Nouns! They're great. They're also a lot less complex than Gothic nouns were. As in proto-Romance, the genitive and dative were subsumed by the accusative as a prepositional object case and in their generic uses (i.e. possession, recipient) by the accusative with af "of" (for possession) and a "to" or fuer "for" (for recipient and beneficiary). In older texts a distinction between the nominative and the accusative is still visible, but over time the accusative replaced the nominative as well*. Nouns thus retain only two forms, singular and plural.

Nouns can loosely be divided into two classes: those that form their plurals by adding -s alone, and those that do not. The s-plurals are masculine u- (sono, sonos "son") and n-stems (goma, gomas "man"), feminine n- (tongo, tongos "tongue") and in-stems (mari, maris "ocean"), and root nouns (ric, rics "ruler").

The non-s-plural forms are as follows.

Code: Select all

          S     P
masc o-   -Ø    -as
masc jo-  -i    †
masc i-   -Ø    -is
neut o-   -Ø    -a
neut n-   -o    -a
fem  a-   -a    -os
fem  i-   -Ø    -es
all  r-   -ra   -ros

Examples: volf, volfas "wolf"; vuerd, vuerda "word"; qen, qenes "woman"; brothra, brothros "brother".

There is a definite article, which declines as follows:

Code: Select all

     S/_C  S/_V  P
masc tha   th'   thas
neut tha   th'   tho
fem  tho   th'   thos

Which is to say, before a vowel, the vowel of the singular articles elides. Examples: tha yeth "the oath", thas brothros, tha vuerd, tho hierta "the hearts", th'arca "the box", thos sfestros "the sisters".

* In response to Nortaneous's question about /J/ and /nj/ being contrastive, a hypothetical word *sonha /soJa/ (a-stem, probably) would have plural *sonhos /soJos/, contrasting with the old nominative plural of sono "son", sonyos /sonjos/.
† Masculine jo-stem plurals are irregular and complicated, and I'm not 100% sure how they work yet, so more on them later.

[Lleu]

Masculine and neuter jo-stems. They're not actually all that complicated. Their singular ending (both masculine and neuter) is -i; the masculine plural is -as, the neuter plural -a. However, the plural forms will diphthongize the vowel in the previous syllable, adding -/i/, if they can. Examples: hari, hayras "host, army"; nethi, neythas "kinsman"; gascohi, gascoyha "pair of sandals". The diphthongization is blocked in three circumstances: if the vowel of the previous syllable is already a diphthong (e.g. ie, ue), if there are two or more consonants between the ending and the preceding vowel (e.g. hierdi, hierdas "shepherd"), and if the vowel of the previous syllable is /i/.

In some nouns (e.g. andbati, andbata "service"), the diphthongization is blocked for etymological reasons — andbati descends from Gothic andbahti.

[Lleu]

Adjectival morphology is pretty straightforward. A very few adjectives follow nominal inflection patterns (mambo "ready", e.g., is u-stem), but most adjectives follow a separate pattern, given below. There are two sets of adjectival endings: "weak" and "strong". All adjectives in predicates (e.g. "blue" in "the car is blue") decline strong. In attributive position, weak forms are used when the modified noun is definite, or when the adjective is comparative or superlative*; strong forms are used when the modified noun is indefinite.

A noun is definite when it meets one of the following criteria: it is a proper noun; it is modified by the definite article; the noun is possessed. Otherwise, a noun is indefinite.

The declension pattern for adjectives is as follows:

Code: Select all

       Strong     Weak
m. sg.  -a         -a
m. pl.  -e         -as
f. sg.  -a         -o
f. pl.  -os        -os
n. sg.  -Ø         -o
n. pl.  -a         -a

Comparatives and superlatives are formed by suffixes. There are a few irregularities in the inflection pattern, but by and large these have been ironed out. The comparative suffix is -ez-, and the superlative -est-. For example: frotha "wise", frotheza "wiser", frothesta "wisest"; managa "many", manageza "more", managesta "most". There are only a few irregular comparative forms, the most common of which are as follows:

gotha "good", comparative badeza, superlative badesta
lidela "little", comparative meneza, superlative menesta
mecela "great", comparative mieza, superlative miesta
ovela "bad", comparative vierseza, superlative viersesta

*There are also a few so-called "intensive" adjectives in -oma that always decline weak, but there are only six of these: aftoma "latter", uehoma "high", froma "former", lidoma "left", eftoma "next", enoma "inner".

[Lleu]

Verbal Morphology: Introduction
I'm going to start with an overview of the Gothic verb, then talk about how the Hispanic Gothic verb differs from the Gothic verb.

The Gothic verb inflects for three finite moods (indicative, optative, and imperative), two non-finite moods (infinitive, participle), two voices (active, passive), two tenses (present, preterite), three persons, and three numbers (singular, dual, plural). Verbs fall into one of five categories: strong verbs (characterized by ablaut, further subdivided into seven classes by ablaut type), weak verbs with -d- preterites (non-ablaut verbs with preterite stems formed by affixing -d-, further subdivided into four classes by present conjugation), weak verbs with -t- preterites (non-ablaut verbs with preterite stems formed by affixing -t-), preterite-present verbs (verbs whose presents conjugate as strong preterites and preterites as weak preterites), and irregular verbs (wisan "be" and wiljan "wish, want").

This Hispanic Gothic verb has made significant simplifications to this system. The preterite optative has been lost, except fossilized and vestigial forms. The passive voice survives only as a fossilized impersonal form (e.g. her lithada af, loosely "exit here"; Hispanic Gothic exit signs say H.L.A.). Some of the weak -t- preterites have regularized as -d- preterites (e.g. vuerceda "I worked" vs. Gothic waúrhta). The dual has dropped out entirely.

Each verb has several principle parts, which show its various stems.

Strong verbs have four: infinitive (present stem), first person singular preterite indicative, first person plural preterite indicative, and past participle (e.g. a aflitha "leave": a aflitha, leth af, letho af, aflethana)
Weak -d- verbs have three: infinitive, first person singular present indicative, first person singular preterite indicative (e.g. a haba "have": a haba, haba, habieda)
Weak -t- verbs have three: infinitive, first person singular preterite indicative, past participle (e.g. a thonqya "seem": a thonqya, thota, thota)
Preterite-present verbs have five: infinitive, first person singular present indicative, first person plural present indicative, first person singular preterite indicative, and past participle (e.g. a cona "know (person)": a cona, can, cono, contha, contha)

Prepositional verbs, e.g. a afletha (< Gothic af-leiþan), which in Gothic behaved as single units (except for stress), now operate similarly to German separable-prefix verbs; once I have worked out more of the syntax I will tell you more specifically how they work.

More to follow when I get home and have time/motivation to put together conjugation tables.

[Shrdlu]

It is funny because a great part of the words are so similar to Swedish that I have no problem understanding them.

Great work, btw!

[Herra Ratatoskr]

More to follow when I get home and have time/motivation to put together conjugation tables.

Well, get crackin! This language is looking quite cool.

[Lleu]

I'm going to throw out a bunch of tables and go from there.

Strong Verb Ablaut

Code: Select all

          inf.  prt.sg. prt.pl. ps.prt. ex.
class I   -i-   -ie-    -e-     -e-     a bita "bite": a bita, biet, beto, betana
class II  -o-   -ue-    -o-     -o-     a txoha "lead": a txoha, a txueh, txoho, txohana
class III -e-   -a-     -o-     -o-     a vertha "become": a vertha, varth, vortho, vorthana
class IV  -e-   -a-     -e-     -o-     a nema "take": a nema, nam, nemo, nomana
class V   -e-   -a-     -e-     -e-     a qetha "say": a qetha, qath, qetho, qethana
class VI  -a-   -o-     -o-     -a-     a fratha "understand": a fratha, froth, frotho, frathana
class VII       reduplicating           a garédha "reflect [on]": a garédha, a garieroth, garierodho, garedhana

The class VII verbs are basically irregular at this point; with sound changes in the mix, few of them follow a clear pattern anymore. Likewise the weak -t- preterites. More info on these two groups when I have it.

Weak -d- Verb Preterite Suffixes
class 1: -ed- (a naxa "save")
class 2: -od- (a salbo "anoint")
class 3: -ied- (a haba "have")
class 4: -od- (a fullna "become full")

Verb Endings

Code: Select all

pres. ind.                                        pret. ind.                        imp.
st.; wk. 3, 4    wk. 1          wk. 2             st.            wk.                —
  sg.   pl.      sg.   pl.      sg.   pl.         sg.   pl.      sg.   pl.          sg.   pl.
1 -a    -a       *-a   *-a      -o    -o          -Ø    -o       -a    -edo         —     -iema
2 -es   -eth     -is   -ith     -os   -oth        -t    -oth     -es   -edoth       -Ø    -eth
3 -eth  -an      -ith  *-an     -oth  -on         -Ø    -on      -a    -edon        -e    -iena

pres. opt.                pret. opt.
  sg.   pl.               sg.   pl.
1 *-o   -iema             *-o   -ima
2 -ies  -ieth             -is   -ith
3 -e    -iena             -e    -ina

Where the asterisks (*) indicate diphthongization of the previous vowel as in masculine and neuter jo-stems.

The weak preterite optative plural forms are technically -edima, -edith, -edina (like the preterite indicative), but I didn't remember this until I was done with the table, and I was too lazy to change it. There are also some notes to give about consonant assimilation with the singular preterite indicative strong, but I'll do that later. I'm exhausted at the moment.

The past and present participle suffixes are -an- and -and-, both of which inflect as adjectives.

[GreenBowTie]

I think the name "Iberian Gothic" sounds cooler.

[Eyowa]

I think the name "Iberian Gothic" sounds cooler.

But that could also be Portuguese, no? Or Catalan, or Basque.

What are you thinking of for a writing system? Roman/Gothic hybrid? Not sure how that would work with the diachronics...

Basically, this looks like an awesome project and I want to see more.

[TaylorS]

This is EPIC! Keep it up!

[Grunnen]

Looks great! It's funny how much of it seems fairly understandable.

[Mundi.Tristissimis]

The idea for a conlang derived from Gothic has been in my mind since I first started studying Gothic. Inspired by Ill Bethisad's ill-detailed Vissi and my class on the history and culture of medieval Spain this semester, I went with Spain as a setting. Its existence is predicated on the Visigoths' doing more to create/expand their own culture, as opposed to adopting wholesale the Roman culture of Spain. I am not yet sure whether they will still convert to Catholicism, but either way, Gothic is more than a liturgical language at the time of the Umayyad invasion. Subsequently, one of the Christian polities that arises in the north is Arian and Gothic-speaking; there are also possibly arabized Gothic-speakers in the south, comparable to the Mozarabs.

Long story short, a descendant of Gothic survives at least into the late medieval period. It is in some ways a bogolang, in that I started by applying many of the developments from classical Latin characteristic of vulgar Latin to Gothic, but I expanded on things some from there. Much though I love the Gothic alphabet, I adopted the Latin alphabet with spelling conventions that are a mix of the conventions of several of the Iberian languages.

"Phonology" and Orthography
This is basically just going to be a phoneme inventory — thus the scare quotes.

Plosives: /p b t d k g/ <p b t d c/q g/gu>*
Fricatives: /B f T D s z S Z h/ <v f th dh s z x j/lh** h>
Nasals: /m n J/ <m n nh>
Affricates: /tS dZ/ <c/tx g/dj>º
Other consonants: /l r j/ <l r y>
Vowels: /a e i o O u/ <a e i o u>

Two diphthongs merit attention: /je/ and /we/ are spelled <ie/yeºº> and <ue> respectively.

/g/ is realized as [G] intervocalically

* <q> is used where /k/ descends from Gothic /k_w/; likewise <gu> is used when /g/ descends from Gothic /g_w/
** <lh> is used where /Z/ descends from Gothic /l/; <j> is used otherwise
º <c g> are used for /tS dZ/ when they descend from Gothic /k g/ palatalized before /e i/; <tx dj> are used otherwise
ºº <ye> word-initially, <ie> otherwise

Stress falls on the first syllable, although prepositional verbs (e.g. aflitha "leave", conjugated litha af, from Gothic af-leiþan) are stressed on the first syllable of the root rather than the preposition.

I'm probably missing or overlooking some things — it is sometimes difficult to keep track of things in my notes, especially since I seem not to have removed some sound changes from the Grand Master Plan despite having ignored them later. At any rate. Some words:

mari "ocean" /"mari/
volf "wolf" /"Bolf/
hierdas "shepherds" /"hjerdas/ (probably [Cerdas])
gevos "gifts" /"dZeBos/
griba "grasp" /"griBa/
aflitha "leave" /af"liTa/

I realize this isn't much to go on, but I need to figure out how to present the rest of the information I have.

Me likee a lot. You should really go forward with this. Although I'd encourage you to make it less of a bololang: if you try, you could really make a good GMP a la Brithoneg. Another project you might like is to develop a Celtic-Romance language in Britain or Ireland. I'm not sure where the word Britain comes from, probably Briton. Tolkien had a early root for Qenya (very early Quenya) that was #Birit, which evolved into his more celtic language as brith, which meant 'stone'. I always like that. But anyway, good job! And I'd be interested in seeing what more you come up with.

[WeepingElf]

This rocks. An East Germanic diachronic conlang, and a well-crafted one. I like this. There are so many possibilities where an East Germanic language could have survived, alas, none did in the real world. I also have an East Germanic conlang on the back burner.

[Lleu]

Woah, I'm popular all of a sudden!

I think I said the consonant assimilation thing without having actually come up with its rules, but I'm doing that now. Fortunately, they're all the same as Liturgical Gothic:

- final -b, -v and -d devoice to -f, -f, and -th, respectively, in the preterite singular
- before final -t in the second person singular, -t and -th (including from stem-final -d) become -s-

So, some paradeigmata:

a beya (stem bed-, "ask", strong V)
beth, best, beth, bedo, bedoth, bedon

a geva ("give", strong IV)
gaf, gaft, gaf, gevo, gevoth, gevon

a fratha ("understand", strong VI)
froth, frost, froth, frotho, frothoth, frothon

That said, I've let the project go for the time being, though I may come back to it eventually.

[Shrdlu]

Keep up the good work!

[SlayerXX33398]

Where did this go? It's like it just died all of a sudden. Which is a shame, since this sounded, and looked, really kickass! Is Arunaza even here anymore?

[Herr Dunkel]

Where did this go? It's like it just died all of a sudden. Which is a shame, since this sounded, and looked, really kickass! Is Arunaza even here anymore?

Check his profile; it says he dissapeared on November 20th.
Now, don't do too much of necroposting