Lowan: A Germanic conlang

[Jashan]

Lowan Personal Pronouns

Lowan personal pronouns have, perhaps not surprisingly, remained conservative and are still very recognizably Germanic. The language has, like other Germanic languages, lost the 'dual' number, but maintains singular and plural. Four cases (Nominative, Accusative, Genitive, and Dative) are still distinguished in personal pronouns:

āk, wēs - "I", "we"

Code: Select all

          Singular             Plural

Nom.       āk [æk]            wēs [ve:s]
Acc.       mig [mɪx]          es [ɛs]
Gen.       mei(n) [mɛi(n)]    sēre [se:r@]
Dat.       mei [mɛi]          es [ɛs]

In colloquial Lowan, it is common to hear a distinction between the simple 1st Person Plural wēs ('we') and the compound forms wēsei ([ve:ze] or [ve:se]) and wēsja ([ve:ʃa] or [ve:sxa]). This distinction is one of "inclusive" vs. "exclusive", as well as psychological 'distance'. Wēsei originates from earlier wēs geir ("we here"), and wēsja from earlier wēs ja ("we there") -- indicating, respectively, participants present but excluding the addressee, and participants not present and excluding the addressee. Thus:

• wēs - includes the speaker and the listener, and possibly more undefined people
• wēsei - includes the speaker and one or more present 'participants', but excludes the listener/addressee.
• wēsja - includes the speaker and one or more non-present 'participants', but excludes the listener/addressee.

However, in formal grammars and official materials, only wēs is typically introduced.


þī, gīs - "you (sg), you (pl)"

Code: Select all

          Singular             Plural

Nom.       þī [ði:]           gīs [xi:s]
Acc.       þig [ðɪx]          īv [i:f]
Gen.       þei(n) [ðɛi(n)]    irre [Ir@]
Dat.       þā [ðæ]            īv [i:f] 

The 3rd person pronouns depart from the norm. At some time in Lowan's history, the 'normal' third person pronouns were replaced by the Proto-Germanic demonstrative ("that" or "this"), and evolved unique forms:

þa, sco - "he/it, she"

Code: Select all

          M/N Sg.         M/N Pl.          Fem. Sg.            Fem. Pl.

Nom.      þa [θɑ]         þā [θæ]          sco [sxo]           þūs [θus]
Acc.      þa [θɑ]         þā [θæ]          sco [sxo]           þūs [θus]
Gen.      þis [θɪs]       þui [θœy]        þer [θɛr]           þere [θɛr@]
Dat.      þam [θɑm]       þam [θɑm]        scei(n) [sxɛi(n)]   þei(m) [θɛi(m)]

[[More on pronouns a bit later --- didn't sleep much last night and about to fall asleep at the computer]]

[roninbodhisattva]

In colloquial Lowan, it is common to hear a distinction between the simple 1st Person Plural wēs ('we') and the compound forms wēsei ([ve:ze] or [ve:se]) and wēsja ([ve:ʃa] or [ve:sxa]). This distinction is one of "inclusive" vs. "exclusive", as well as psychological 'distance'. Wēsei originates from earlier wēs geir ("we here"), and wēsja from earlier wēs ja ("we there") -- indicating, respectively, a group of listeners including the listener and a group of non-listeners whom the speaker identifies with, but does not include the listener in. Thus:

wēs - includes the speaker and the listener, and possibly more undefined people
wēsei - includes the speaker and a group of present speakers, but excludes the listener/addresseee.
wēsja - includes the speaker and a group of non-present 'participants', but includes the listener/addressee.

However, in formal grammars and official materials, only wēs is typically introduced.

This is awesome.

[Civil War Bugle]

I must concur. I reread that to make sure I was not making it more awesome than it was, and discovered it was that awesome.

[Jashan]

In colloquial Lowan, it is common to hear a distinction between the simple 1st Person Plural wēs ('we') and the compound forms wēsei ([ve:ze] or [ve:se]) and wēsja ([ve:ʃa] or [ve:sxa]). This distinction is one of "inclusive" vs. "exclusive", as well as psychological 'distance'. Wēsei originates from earlier wēs geir ("we here"), and wēsja from earlier wēs ja ("we there") -- indicating, respectively, a group of listeners including the listener and a group of non-listeners whom the speaker identifies with, but does not include the listener in. Thus:

wēs - includes the speaker and the listener, and possibly more undefined people
wēsei - includes the speaker and a group of present speakers participants, but excludes the listener/addresseee.
wēsja - includes the speaker and a group of non-present 'participants', but includes excludes the listener/addressee.

However, in formal grammars and official materials, only wēs is typically introduced.

This is awesome.

Thankee! But..... I made two mistakes (corrected just above). Is it still awesome after corrections?

[Civil War Bugle]

I didn't catch that, my mind inserted the correct words.

[roninbodhisattva]

Thankee! But..... I made two mistakes (corrected just above). Is it still awesome after corrections?

Yes. It's a great way to derive the inclusive/exclusive distinction, and I love that it's a three way distinction. I may just borrow this idea for a conlang I'm working on, if you don't mind.

[WechtleinUns]

Great language. I'll be back to look over the grammar in a while. It seems reading through all the history and first page of the thread kind of wore me out. But it looks very cool.

[TaylorS]

I love the Inc./Ex. distinction!

[Jashan]

And I'm back!

Phonological note: now that the language is developing more, I'm starting to dislike the /w/ -> /v/ in all environment sound change. I suspect I'll be changing that so that it's environmentally conditioned somehow.

In this post... more about pronouns, definite articles, and some verbs in the next!

Lowan Definite Articles

Lowan definite articles, following the rather odd lead of the pronouns, developed in a unique way early on in the language's history. The definite articles have both an independent form and a clitic form, the former being used for emphasis or clarity and the latter being 'normal' speech. These forms are ultimately derived not from demonstrative pronouns or adjectives (as in the other Germanic languages -- and which became the 3rd person personal pronouns in Lowan) but from the Proto-Germanic interrogative pronouns: xwas, xwat:

us, s' - "the"

Code: Select all

          
Nom.       us, s'
Acc.       sun, s'n
Gen.       us, s'
Dat.       sun, s'n

Note that the definite pronoun is inflected for case, but not for number or gender.

The clitic form of the pronoun attaches to the beginning of the nominal word or phrase:

s'wōgem ('the wolves', dative plural)
s'þrei vleiþ gūm ('the three blind men', nominative plural)


Interrogative and Relative Pronouns

The Proto-Germanic interrogative pronoun also developed into the Lowan relative pronoun, via a construction similar to English's the (one) who... (Old Lowan: us hwa). Over time, the forms merged, creating a distinct relative pronoun. Like the definite article, the relative pronoun inflects for case but not for gender or number:

s(w)a - "who, that, which"

Code: Select all

          
Nom.       s(w)a ('who, which, that')
Acc.       sen ('whom, which, that')
Gen.       sis ('whose')
Dat.       sen ('to/for whom, which)

The nominative form can be either swa or sa depending on dialect. Sen is often written as s'n informally. Orthography does not reflect the raising of /E/ to /I/ before nasals.

It is unknown exactly how Lowan originally formed the interrogative pronoun, considering the many functions it performed in the language and how it evolved away from its original use. However, a new paradigm was latter borrowed into the language from an unknown Germanic relative -- albeit it one with tell-tale rhotacism (thus: not Gothic). Lowan maintained this borrowed paradigm more or less intact into Modern Lowan:

(h)wer - "who? what?"

Code: Select all

          
Nom.       (h)wer
Acc.       (h)wem
Gen.       (h)wes
Dat.       (h)wem

The initial <h> may or may not be pronounced, depending on dialect. Note, however, that it is not the case that Proto-Germanic /xw/ regularly becomes /w/ in Lowan -- in fact, P.G. /xw/ is preserved, as a rule. Most likely, the paradigm was originally borrowed from a language that had transformed P.G. /xw/ -> /w/, and the later extended contact with Anglo-Saxon and Old Norse (both of which retained the initial /h/ in their interrogative pronouns) resulted in 'hypercorrection' of restoring a sound that was, in fact, never there.

Numerals 1-10

Lastly, for this post, a list of Modern Lowan numerals:

1 - aen [a:n]
2 - twa [twa]
3 - þrei [θrɛi]
4 - wōr [wor]
5 - weig [wɛix]
6 - seis [sɛis]
7 - sip [sIp]
8 - aed [a:d]
9 - nīn [ni:n]
10 - tui [tœy]

[Herra Ratatoskr]

Cool. It's neat to see how Anglo-Norse contact has messed with the language. I know my instinct with West Saxon has been to try to keep foreign influence out, by and large, so this language is a nice contrast. Keep it coming Jashan!

[Jashan]

One more post for now:

Lowan Verbs - Part 1 (Introduction and Present Tense)

Lowan maintains two major types of verbs, the so-called strong and weak verbs. Verbs inflect for person, number, tense (past or present), and mood (indicative or subjunctive). [Author's note: I'm not sure whether or not Lowan also preserves a distinct passive voice, a la Gothic.. haven't gotten that far yet]

Lowan person and number inflections are markedly different than those of other Germanic languages. Historically, Lowan word order became very strictly V2 very early on. One very common result of this was that the pronoun came after, rather than before, the verb (i.e. *nema āk). Over time, these post-positioned pronouns became cliticized to the verbs and later reinterpreted as actual inflections, giving the markers currently found today. This occured with both the indicative and subjunctive moods:

Code: Select all

          Indicative                                            Subjunctive

1   -ak [ak, ax]          -wes [w@s]                 1  -eik [ɛɪk, ɛɪx]    -ui [œy]
2   -sū [su], -rū [ru]    -ūs  [us]                  2  -eirū [ɛɪru]       -uis [œys]
3   -sa [sa], -ra [ra]    -so [so], -ro [ro]         3  -eir [ɛɪr]         -ui [œy]

The alternation between /s/ and /r/ in the 2s, 3s, and 3p forms of the indicative, are a historical legacy of Lowan's rare instances of rhotacism. While it never turned Proto-Germanic /z/ -> /r/, as did many Germanic languages, at a much later stage it did turn intervocalic /s/ -> (/z/) - /r/. Thus, when the verb stem ends with a vowel, it takes the /r/-based endings; when the verb stem ends in a consonant, it takes the /s/-based endings.

Additionally, if the verb stem ends in /s/, the /ss/ combination that results in the 2s, 3s, and 3p forms becomes /ts/. If the verb stem ends in a voiced consonant which has an unvoiced counterpart (/d/ -> /t/, /v/ -> /f/), then it devoices in this same situation.


Past Tense (Weak Verbs)

Lowan weak verbs form the past tense with a dental suffix inserted between the verb stem and the personal endings. If the verb stem ends on a voiceless consonant, this dental suffix is /t/. Otherwise, it is /d/. The paradigm below gives the standard /d/ instance:

Code: Select all

          Indicative                        Subjunctive

1   -dak [dax]  -des [d@s]          1  -deik [dɛɪx]    -dui [dœy]
2   -dū [du]    -dus  [dʊs]         2  -derū [dɛru]    -dis [dɪs]
3   -da [da]    -do [do]            3  -der [dɛr]      -dui [dœy]

If the verb stem ends in /t/, then the /tt/ combination the results becomes /st/.
If the verb stem ends in /m/, then the /mt/ combination, although written <mt> is pronounced with an epenthetic /p/: [mpt]

[TaylorS]

Love the new personal inflections!

[Jashan]

Just FYI, if anyone's interested in this, I'm still working on it, albeit is slowly due to another competing project which has priority.

Right now I'm re-vamping the sound changes a bit more carefully to get a better aesthetic, and then I'll be returning my thoughts to grammar and, eventually, Lowan paganism and Christianity.

[Drydic]

Just FYI, if anyone's interested in this, I'm still working on it, albeit is slowly due to another competing project which has priority.

Right now I'm re-vamping the sound changes a bit more carefully to get a better aesthetic, and then I'll be returning my thoughts to grammar and, eventually, Lowan paganism and Christianity.

UNDEAD SOUND CHANGES

SUMMON THE PEASANT MOB

:begins lighting torches:


(seriously, when I can force myself into doing one thing for more than 20 seconds I'm gonna look it over, I love germaniclangs.)

[Herra Ratatoskr]

Good to see this is still alive. You had earlier expressed interest in a sort of shared milieu for Lowan and West Saxon. Were you still interested in that?

[Jashan]

Good to see this is still alive. You had earlier expressed interest in a sort of shared milieu for Lowan and West Saxon. Were you still interested in that?

Yup, but I'd understood that you'd shelved West Saxon for a bit. Is it back alive and kicking?

[Herra Ratatoskr]

It is currently undergoing deshelvification. I'm actually writing up a new version of the determiners page right now for soon-forthcoming publication.

[Jashan]

Lowan, v.0.2 [Early Modern Lowan]

I've been messing with the phonology and historical linguistics of the language, and tweaked things a bit. Here's a bit of the new things:


Nouns

Early Modern Lowan has (strictly speaking) lost all grammatical case distinction on nouns and adjectives, although it is retained in the definite article (which distinguishes nom/acc, genitive, and dative cases). However, in instances where the definite article is not present, Lowan has 're-developed' case endings by post-fixing the definite article and reducing it. Thus:

Code: Select all

þes sin      the son's (genitive - case shown by definite article)
sines        son's  (genitive - no definite article)

The noun never inflects when accompanied by an inflected article; likewise, it always inflects with the definite article is not present. Thus a 'doubly-inflected' form such as *þes sines is grammatical incorrect.

Old/Middle Lowan masculine and neuter grammatical gender have merged, and in Middle Lowan, the distinction between 'generic' and 'feminine' grammatical gender has instead become a distinction between 'strong' and 'weak' nouns. However, in Early Middle Lowan, there is a marked tendency for the 'generic' gender articles/demonstratives to be used with both strong and weak nouns.

'Strong' and 'weak' nouns are so called because of their manner of pluralization. Because of various umlauting and vowels shifts in the language, many nouns developed a singular/plural distinction based upon vowel alternation (and occasional consonant alternation, although the tendency is to regularly the consonant alternations if the vowel alternation is in place). 'Weak' nouns, on the other hand, pluralize by the addition of a syllabic -n with no consonant or vowel alternation.

Examples:

sin - son (str.)

Code: Select all

þa sin       the son  (nom/acc)           þa sēn       the sons  (nom/acc)       
þes sin      the son's (gen)              þes sēn      the sons' (gen)
þem sin      the son (dat)                þem sēn      the sons (dat)

gēn - worker, servant, employee (str.)

Code: Select all

þa gēn       the worker  (nom/acc)         þa gun       the workers  (nom/acc)       
þes gēn      the worker's (gen)            þes gun      the workers' (gen)
þem gēn      the worker (dat)              þem gun      the workers (dat)

wolh - wolf (str.)

*The original singular form wolh [wolx] is being slowly replaced by the 'regularized' singular wolf, an example of reduction of consonant alternation

Code: Select all

þa wolh       the wolf  (nom/acc)         þa welf       the wolves  (nom/acc)       
þes wolh      the wolf's (gen)            þes welf      the wolves' (gen)
þem wolh      the wolf (dat)              þem welf      the wolves (dat)

And, as examples of weak nouns:

gast - stranger, foreigner (wk.)

Code: Select all

þa gast       the stranger  (nom/acc)         þa gastn       the strangers  (nom/acc)       
þes gast      the stranger's (gen)            þes gastn      the strangers' (gen)
þem gast      the stranger (dat)              þem gastn      the strangers (dat)

tīng - tongue (wk.)

Code: Select all

þa tīng       the tongue  (nom/acc)         þa tīngn       the tongues  (nom/acc)       
þes tīng      the tongue's (gen)            þes tīngn      the tongues' (gen)
þem tīng      the tongue (dat)              þem tīngn      the tongues (dat)

[Herra Ratatoskr]

Whoa. I've been thinking of something very similar to your "case endings only when not following an article" system for West Saxon, albeit with a different etymology. Freaky.

By the way, how did the definite article come to be post-posed to the noun when indefinite?

[Civil War Bugle]

Yeah, that's kind of nifty. And the plurals are of the sort I like (i.e. seemingly irregular).

[Jashan]

Whoa. I've been thinking of something very similar to your "case endings only when not following an article" system for West Saxon, albeit with a different etymology. Freaky.

By the way, how did the definite article come to be post-posed to the noun when indefinite?

I don't have that ironed out, but I'm thinking that it would have started as a construction along the lines of "(þes) sin þes" --- "(the) son whose...", with an overlap / conflation of "þa" in the original Proto-Germanic sense of a demonstrative and the later sense of a definite pronoun. Over time, the duplicated demonstratives/articles were eliminated by using the pre- or post-positioning in different grammatical functions, so the pre-positioned article became the 'normal' article/demonstrative and the post-positioned became primarily a "case-carrier" in indefinite contexts, and later reduced to an inflection (or maybe clitic -- I haven't decided if indefinite case markings are word-level or phrase-level in Lowan yet).

[Jashan]

I posted a few sentences over at the "Short pithy phrases" thread, which I'll repost here:

"All visitors bring joy: some when they arrive, and some when they leave."
Al seþer þringn win - sen hwaþa' hwanen, sen hwaþa' gangn

Phonetic: [al tsɛθɛr θrɪŋn̩ wɪn tsɛn ʍaθaʔ ʍann̩ tsɛn ʍaθaʔ xaŋn̩]
Gloss: All traveler.PL-AGT.PL bring-3PL joy some.PL when.REL come-3PL, some.PL when.REL leave-3PL

Nothing really of note here except some strong noun plurals (sen [some, plural] is the plural off son [someone, something]), and the unusual pluralization of seþar. It's based off the verb soþa (to travel, journey, visit), and the nominal agent suffix -ar. However, Lowan not only pluralizes the agent suffix, but also mutates the vowel of the verb as well, if it falls into a strong-plural paradigm.

Speaking of strong-plural paradigms.... here they are!

Strong noun/adjectives (those with plurals marked by vowel mutation):

Code: Select all

Singular Vowel               Plural Vowel

     a                            ē
     ā                            e
     e                            i
     i                            ē
     o                            e
     u                            ē

Anything which doesn't have one of the above core vowels in the singular, simply pluralizes as a weak noun. There are very few words which have 'strong vowels' but pluralize as weak nouns (or vice versa) -- the Lowan language has strengthened its strong paradigms and made almost all 'possibly strong' words into 'actually strong'.


-----------------------------------------


"Speak your mind -- even if your voice shakes."
Sagi þēn þog(þ) -- sam hwaþa' sgo' þn stēn

Phonetic: [tsaɣi θeːn θox(θ) tsam ʍaθaʔ sxoʔ θn̩ sten]
Gloss: Say-IMP your.SG belief even when.REL shake.3SG your.SG voice

Again, nothing really fancy here. You have an example of both the 'stressed' (unreduced) possessive pronoun þēn and its unstressed (reduced) counterpart, þn, as well as the V2 order in the subordinate clause (hwaþa' sgo' þn stēn instead of hwaþa' þn stēn sgo'). The optional þ on þogþ is supposed to be present (it's a marker of an abstract noun, from Proto-Germanic -iþo), but sometimes it is dropped when occurring after another fricative.

Also perhaps worth mentioning here is Lowan's three-way vowel length contrast: long (ē), short (e), and super-short (e'). The difference between long vowels and short vowels is actually qualitative rather than quantitative: <ē> [e] vs. <e> [ɛ]. The 'super-short' vowel is a shorter version of the short vowel, cut short by a glottal stop: <e'> [ɛ?] The glottal stop is not recognized as an actual phoneme in the language, and super-short vowels only occur at the end of words.

(Note: I suspect the 'proper' words for these are actually 'long', 'half-long', and 'short'. Anyone confirm?)

----------------------------------------------

"Beware of half-truths: you may have the wrong half."
Wari þē hēlh-sēþem: hafþ wēlig þa ung halh

Phonetic: [wari θe helx tseðm̩ hafθ welɪx θa uŋ halx]
Gloss: beware-IMP you.ACC/DAT half.PL-truth.PL-DAT have.2SG possible the wrong half

And... nothing special! The only thing of note here is that wēlig, although morphologically an adjective, is used as an adverb. Like many other modern Germanic languages, Lowan does not, as a general rule, distinguish between adverbs and adjectives.

[Jashan]

A Bit on Lowan Verbs

Lowan is a pro-drop language and primarily uses personal pronouns for emphasis. The former nominative personal pronouns have, in modern Lowan, become person markers on the actual verbs themselves.

Lowan, like all Germanic languages, maintains a division between the present tense and the past tense. Like all other Germanic languages (other than its far-distant relative, Gothic), it has also lost the synthetic passive voice. The passive is now formed in a more 'familiar' way: the use of wera ("to be") + the past participle of the verb in question.

Unlike other living Germanic languages, however, Lowan has developed a synthetic future tense -- descended from the present-tense optative of Proto-Germanic. (The optative itself has been lost in its original sense.)

Here are some examples of verb conjugations, with the irregular verb wera (to be) and the regular verb draga ('to drink')

(As a note: <g> and <h> are both pronounced [x], or [ɣ] between vowels, and initial <s> is pronounced [ts] when it's not followed by another consonant. Thus <sgag> is pronounced [sxax])

Code: Select all

wera   - 'to be'

Present:

1SG    ē        1PL  sgē
2SG    ist      2PL  sgeþ
3SG    is       3PL  sin

Past:

1SG    wasg     1PL  wēr
2SG    wasþ     2PL  wērþ
3SG    was      3PL  wērn

Future:

1SG    sgag     1PL  sgas
2SG    sgeis    2PL  sgei(þ)
3SG    sga      3PL  sgan

Code: Select all

draga   - 'to drink'

Present:

1SG    dragig     1PL  dragē(s)
2SG    dragþ      2PL  dragje [draɣɛ]
3SG    drag       3PL  dragn [draɣn̩]

Past:

1SG    dragdig     1PL  dragdē(s)
2SG    dragdiþ     2PL  dragdje [draɣdɛ]
3SG    dragd       3PL  dragdn [draɣdn̩]

Future:

1SG    dragag     1PL  dragnē
2SG    drageis    2PL  dragei [draɣɛ:]
3SG    draga      3PL  dragan [draɣan]

The similarity between the 1SG and 2PL present and future tenses should be noted:

dragig (1SG.PRES) / dragag (1SG.FUT) == [draɣix] vs. [draɣax]
dragje (2PL.PRES) / dragei (2PL.PRES) == [draɣ(j)ɛ] vs. [draɣɛ:]

And the slightly less-similar 3PL.PRES and 3PL.FUT:

dragn (3PL.PRES) / dragan (3PL.FUT) == [draɣn̩] vs. [draɣan]

As a general rule, the present tense is most likely to be reduced (e.g. [draɣix] -> [drax:]), whereas the future is never reduced. In any case, Lowan does not reduce non-stressed vowels to schwa, as does modern English; this should be carefully avoided when speaking Lowan to avoid 1) a heavy accent and 2) general incomprehensibility.

[Herra Ratatoskr]

Cool! Has the old past optative survived at all? Maybe as a conditional?

I think it cool that Lowan and West Saxon have inflected futures (albeit with WS, it's only on the copula), even if they are total different in etymology. Keep it coming!

[BettyCross]

Looks intriguing. Keep up the good work. I'd like to know what the names of the major gods and goddesses of Lowan paganism were.

Germanic historic linguistics is a lifelong passion of mine, as you can guess from my signature.

Betty Cross