New Mercian Take One

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Zontas
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New Mercian Take One

Post by Zontas »

Mercian

Introduction

Image

Anglian is the term normally used for the dialects of Old English (or Anglo-Jutic-Saxon) that represent the speech of the descendants of the Angles. Within said classification are two subdialects, that probably would evolve into languages with a Danish-Norwegian type scenario of mutual intelligeability. The first is known as Mercian and takes up the Modern English Midlands and is somewhat the modern standard, while Northumbrian was spoken in Northern England and Scots- speaking zones of Scotland before devolving into Northern English and Modern Scots; this particular form also has a significant Norse influence (as does Mercian, but it's downplayed).

However, sometime around the 800s-900s-1000s, England that spoke Mercian (the focus) was almost entirely either a) captured by the Vikings, or b) culturally subsumed by the West Saxons (see Herr Ratatoskr's West Saxon). This, among tremendous loans, phonological morphing, grammatical simplification, and syntaxial adjustment left the possible impression of the beginning stages of a Norse-Anglian Creole that became subsumed into modern English alongside mergers with West Saxon and Kentish, which were conquered by the later Norman-ruled England.

This project is intended for viewing what would happen if England, alongside Mercian lacked Norman and scaled maybe back Norse influences upon themselves.

Yes, I'm aware this seems a lot like I'm hopping on the anglang baindwain, but it's somewhat more of an attempt to find an easier extension to Inkhorn English/ Anglish done with info attempted to be formatted in the style of a cross between Sevly's Deevie, Hakaku's Okinawan Tutorial on the CBB, and Herr Ratatoskr's West Saxon Rebooted thread.

I've got a schedule of articles below. May take a long time before completion, it's called take one because I might be able to do this well on my first try.

Scratchpad here.

Enjoy.

Contents

0. Introduction

1. (Constructed) History of Mercia and Northumbria

400-850
850-1150
1150-1450
1450-1850
1850-Present

2. Old Anglian

Sound Changes and Orthography
Inventory and Sandhi
Nominals 1
Pronouns 1
Particles 1
Verbs 1
Nominals 2
Pronouns 2
Particles 2
Verbs 2
Syntax
Mercian and Northumbrian Split

3. Mercian- Northumbrian Split

Orthography Changes and Phonologies
Sandhi and Nominal Morphologies 1
Nominal Morphologies 2 and Particles
Verbs 1 and Syntax
Pronominals
Verbs 2
Dialects

4. Middle Mercian

Orthography
Phonology
Nominal Declension and Particles 1
Verbs and Particles 2
Pronominals
Dialects
Expansion

5. Late (Modern) Mercian

Orthography
Phonology
Nominal Declension and Particles 1
Verbs and Particles 2
Pronominals
Dialects
Current Status
Last edited by Zontas on Sat Mar 22, 2014 10:24 am, edited 10 times in total.
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Re: Anglian (Mercian-Northumbrian) Take One

Post by Herra Ratatoskr »

Cool! Looking forward to seeing more.
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Re: Anglian (Mercian-Northumbrian) Take One

Post by Zontas »

Thanks man! A taste of it can be found in my Anthologica stuff.

Hey, you mind sharing sources with me?
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Re: Anglian (Mercian-Northumbrian) Take One

Post by Herra Ratatoskr »

Zontas wrote:Hey, you mind sharing sources with me?
Sure. What sort of thing are you looking for?
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Re: Anglian (Mercian-Northumbrian) Take One

Post by Zontas »

Herra Ratatoskr wrote:
Zontas wrote:Hey, you mind sharing sources with me?
Sure. What sort of thing are you looking for?
Pretty much all ya got. I do have a particular lack of understanding in the history department, tho, as most of my info comes from homebrewed websites and Wikipedia.
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Re: Anglian (Mercian-Northumbrian) Take One

Post by Nortaneous »

seconding source request -- and how did you sort out the verbs in WS? i've got to get around to that for pembrish someday, and i am not looking forward to it

(noun declension levels just about entirely, i think)
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Re: Anglian (Mercian-Northumbrian) Take One

Post by Herra Ratatoskr »

Zontas wrote:
Herra Ratatoskr wrote:
Zontas wrote:Hey, you mind sharing sources with me?
Sure. What sort of thing are you looking for?
Pretty much all ya got. I do have a particular lack of understanding in the history department, tho, as most of my info comes from homebrewed websites and Wikipedia.
Between Old and Middle English, I've got about a 1 GB of pdfs, ranging from old public domain books (some quite interesting) to some academic papers and theses. A lot of the public domain stuff I got off of google books or archive.org, so you might want to start looking there. What kind of info would be most helpful to you right now?

@Nortaneous Verbs? Brute force, mainly. I used Joseph Wright's Old English Grammar to get a list off all the strong and irregular verbs, made a list of each one's principal parts (checked with the online version of Bosworth and Toller), and then ran them through my sound changes. I then looked for any irregularities that had been created, will go from there.

One thing I will say though is that it's a heck of a lot easier to find info on West Saxon, rather than the other dialects like Anglian or Northumbrian. That's actually one of the reasons why West Saxon is based on West Saxon (it was originally a Northumbrian derived language called "Tecg"). The lack of info on Northumbrian Old English helped encourage me to move my language in a more southerly direction.
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Re: Anglian (Mercian-Northumbrian) Take One

Post by CatDoom »

That's truly a shame; ever since playing the computer game Crusader Kings I've been quite enamored with alt-histories where Mōrcǣr of Northumbria and Ēadwine of Mercia make out better than they did historically.

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Re: Anglian (Mercian-Northumbrian) Take One

Post by Zontas »

CatDoom wrote:That's truly a shame; ever since playing the computer game Crusader Kings I've been quite enamored with alt-histories where Mōrcǣr of Northumbria and Ēadwine of Mercia make out better than they did historically.
Hey, howabout we synegize on this project with me taking Mercia and you taking Northumbria?

@Nortaneous, who speaks Pembrish again? Is that a Welsh-English creole?
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Re: Anglian (Mercian-Northumbrian) Take One

Post by Nortaneous »

Herra Ratatoskr wrote:One thing I will say though is that it's a heck of a lot easier to find info on West Saxon, rather than the other dialects like Anglian or Northumbrian. That's actually one of the reasons why West Saxon is based on West Saxon (it was originally a Northumbrian derived language called "Tecg"). The lack of info on Northumbrian Old English helped encourage me to move my language in a more southerly direction.
The Ormulum was written in a descendant of Mercian, wasn't it? And there's apparently very little French influence in that, so that'd be a good starting point.

I'd use it myself, except Pembrish preserves ie io so it has to start earlier. (Retention of io is a pain in the ass in practice, so I probably haven't been consistent about it.)
Siöö jandeng raiglin zåbei tandiüłåd;
nää džunnfin kukuch vklaivei sivei tåd.
Chei. Chei. Chei. Chei. Chei. Chei. Chei.

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Re: Anglian (Mercian-Northumbrian) Take One

Post by CatDoom »

Zontas wrote:Hey, howabout we synegize on this project with me taking Mercia and you taking Northumbria?

@Nortaneous, who speaks Pembrish again? Is that a Welsh-English creole?
That is tempting, but I actually have kind of a lot on my plate right now, since I'm participating in the collaborative world thing here and the ongoing reconstruction game. I'd be happy to contribute some time down the line, but for now I think I better not.

Edit: Finding sources for Northumbrian may not be as difficult as for Mercian. At least according to Wikipedia, Caedmon's Hymn and Bede's Death Song from the 7th and 8th centuries and the Leiden Riddle and the glosses in the Lindisfarne Gospels from the 10th century are in Northumbrian. Plus there's supposedly some degree of influence from the Northumbrian dialect in Scots and far northeastern dialects of English.

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Re: Anglian (Mercian-Northumbrian) Take One

Post by Zontas »

CatDoom wrote:
Zontas wrote:Hey, howabout we synegize on this project with me taking Mercia and you taking Northumbria?

@Nortaneous, who speaks Pembrish again? Is that a Welsh-English creole?
That is tempting, but I actually have kind of a lot on my plate right now, since I'm participating in the collaborative world thing here and the ongoing reconstruction game. I'd be happy to contribute some time down the line, but for now I think I better not.

Edit: Finding sources for Northumbrian may not be as difficult as for Mercian. At least according to Wikipedia, Caedmon's Hymn and Bede's Death Song from the 7th and 8th centuries and the Leiden Riddle and the glosses in the Lindisfarne Gospels from the 10th century are in Northumbrian. Plus there's supposedly some degree of influence from the Northumbrian dialect in Scots and far northeastern dialects of English.
Come to think of it, why don't you take Northumbrian and I'll rename my project?
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Re: New Mercian Take One

Post by CatDoom »

Alright, you got me, I can't resist. Progress is gonna be sloooow, though, at least at first.

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Re: New Mercian Take One

Post by spidermilk »

Merca!
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