Norman Conlang

[MiscellaneousJax]

This conlang, completely unrelated to the actual Norman language that (apparently) exists, is a combination of French and Danish spoken in the Second Workers' Republic of Normandy (Dal Annzem Noermans Sajjus). It was created in 1797 by a group of wealthy Normans who took an interest in their region's Norse heritage; to distance themselves from France (at the time under the rule of the corrupt Directory) they decided that the best course of action would be to create a new Nordic-French language, and though it is generally agreed that Rollo, the first ruler of Normandy, was from Norway, Danish was used due to the fact that Norwegian was not a written language at the time. The wealthy Normans crafted the language somewhat arbitrarily, but the result was made more natural when it eventually spread to the common citizenry of Normandy, where it resisted French efforts at integration until the Duchy of Normandy's independence following the Franco-Prussian War. I do not claim any hyper-realism in any of this, or even realism in some areas.

Phonology:
/m n ŋ/ m n
/p b t d k g/ p b t d k g
/ts dz tʃ dʒ/ tj dj
/f v s z ʃ ʒ h/ f v s z sj zj h
/l j ʁ/ l j r

/i y ø ɛ œ æ/ ie~ij~ig y ø e ø a
/ɪ ʏ ʊ ə a ɐ/ i y u e a r
/u o ɔ/ ue oe o

/aɪ eɪ aʊ ɔʏ/ ej~eg aj~ag au~av oy~oi~oj

Allophony:
- [ŋ] is an allophone of [n].
- [ts dz] are allophones of [t d] before [i ɪ y ʏ].
- [j w] are allophones of [g] in syllable coda.
- [w] is an allophone of [v] in syllable coda.
- [z] is an allophone of [s] when marking possessive and following a voiced or nasal consonant.
- [ɐ] is an allophone of [ʁ] in syllable coda.
- [æ a] [ɛ ə] [ø œ] [i ɪ] [y ʏ] [u ʊ] [o ɔ] are allophone pairs (informally long-short or stressed-unstressed).
- Vowels at the end of a word are assumed to be long/stressed except "a e" which are assumed to be short.
- Short/Unstressed is usually indicated by multiple consonants in the syllable coda. "H" may be added after the vowel in this case to indicate the vowel is long/stressed.
- To reflect the arbitrary nature in which this language was canonically created, these rules may be broken.

Morphology:
- Nouns:
Aside from marking the possessive, which is done with the suffix "-s", there is no nominal morphology. Case and number are determined by the noun's position in the sentence and function words used to describe it (though in some cases context may be necessary as well).

Indefinite Singular: enn vlie /ən vli/ "a life"
Indefinite Plural: deg vlie /daɪ vlie/ "lives"
Definite Singular: dal vlie, vlijal /dæl vli vli.æl/ "the life"
Definite Plural: dag vlie, vlijag /deɪ vli vli.eɪ/ "the lives"

Where pronouns are used, the article is usually omitted, but that leaves the number ambiguous without further context.

- Verbs:
Some verbs (such as "to be") are irregular, but most conjugate based off of a simple pattern or some variant of it.

Spamme - Eat
Infinitive: a spamm-e /a spam-ə/
Imperitive: spamm /spam/
Present: spamm-e /spam-ə/
Past*: spamm-pe /spam-pə/
Future: spamm-igl /spam-il/
Past Participle: spamm-ag /spam-eɪ/
Present Participle: spamm-enne /spam-ənə/
Gerund: spamm-en /spam-ɛn/
Gerundive: spamm-enlig /spam-ɛnli/

*The past tense is typically formed with "-te", but the ending typically assimilates to preceding consonants.

- Adjectives:
Adjectives can be formed from nouns with the suffix "-lig".

lyk "happiness" - lyklig "happy"
son "sanity" - sonlig "sane"

Regarding places, the suffix "-sk" is added; this may change the base word slightly. This is not typically used to describe people, and is often related to unity (as it is mostly used for countries).

Kegbek "Quebec" - Kegbesk "Quebecois"
Danmark "Denmark" - Dansk "Danish"

- Adverbs:
Adverbs are typically formed with the "-mann" suffix. Adverbs formed from adjectives formed from nouns usually don't include the adjectival suffix as part of their root.

voem "warm, hot" - voemann "warmly"
lyklig "happy" - lykmann "happily"

Some Example Sentences:

Zjeg vlige pyr Toral.
/ʒaɪ ɛɐ pyɐ tɔʁæl/
1.s live.pres on land.def.s
I live on the Earth.

Nie skolfrøjal nie pløboeval sjynge peg.
/ni skɔlfʁøjæl ni pløbo.æl ʃʏŋgə paɪ/
neither turtle.def.s nor map.def.s sing.past not
Neither the turtle nor the map have sung.

[mèþru]

Before the French Revolution, the lower classes (peasants and city workers, but not the bourgeoisie) of Normandy spoke Norman, not French. As the language spreads to these classes, it would probably change to a more Norman grammar. Since it is easier to learn new words than new grammar, the language would probably have a French/Norman grammar (with a few easy to memorise things from Danish, like "en" as an article, genitive words are marked with -s, definite suffixes). Complex grammatical structures, like verbal morphology, would not be borrowed. Another easy change is getting rid of liaison. The easiest thing to change, however, is the orthography, so you can have Danish inspired spelling or even runes! In fact, a different orthography would help new speakers differentiate it from Norman/French. I imagine that any sounds that are not found in French or Norman + h would not be in the Noerman language.
Problems with specific things mentioned:

/ʁ/ is never realised as a vowel in either French or Danish
Why does <g> appear at the coda of a syllable when there is no consonant? This may be common in Danish, but is an extremely annoying and unnecessary complication for a new language.
/e ø o/ and /ɛ œ ɔ/ are contrastive in the Danish of 1797 as well as in open monosyllablic words in French. [ə] is used differently in French and Danish: In French it is an allophone of /œ/ that merges with /ø/ in some contexts. In Danish, it is its own phoneme, which occurs both in stressed and unstressed syllables.
Stress would probably follow French rules, which are very simple and regular.
/z/ and /s/ contrast in French, so they probably would contrast in Noerman. In fact, Danish /ð/ would probably be borrowed as /z/.
I don't know any Danish, so I am not sure if this is right: The word spamme actually refers to Internet spam, and the word for eating is "spise". The French word is "manger".
Danish has the genders common and neuter, while French has masculine and feminine. There should be gender in Noerman as well. The gender would probably be masculine and feminine, with Danish words being assigned a gender according to French rules. Number would probably be marked as in French. For a method to distinguish between plural genitives and plural nominatives, read below.
Where does deg, dal and dag come from? The definite article is den (common), det (neuter) and de (plural) when the word has an attributive adjective or a genitive and -en (common), -e (neuter) or -(e)ne (plural) are the definite articles in other cases. There is no plural indefinite article in Danish. French has the plural indefinite article "des" and the definite articles le (masculine), la (feminine) and les (plural).
French conjugation may become more regularised, but Noermans are likely to use some variant of it.
Where do lyk, son, Kegbek, vlige, pyr and Toral come from? They do not reflect any Danish words that I could find on Wiktionary, and do not reflect any French words I know. The Norman name Tchubek would probably be used for Quebec.
Languages tend to retain their original pronouns. The Noermans probably use French pronouns, not Norman or Danish ones.

I did not mention Norman that much because I do not know anything about it and cannot any relevant Wikipedia articles. I did not criticise the adverbs and adjectives because I could not find anything on derivational suffixes in Danish on Wikipedia.

Ideas:
An interesting way to distinguish between plural genitives and plural nominatives is to use "de" from French before the noun.
The language uses a combination of native articles and Danish articles: en (singular indefinite), des (plural indefinite), den (singular definite) and les (plural definite). Danish de would invite confusion with the de borrowed from French, and des has no Danish equivalent. The articles lose gender entirely. Articles are suffixed when the noun is a singular nomiative. The suffixes are -en (indefinite) and -ene (definite). In words that end with a vowel, vowel+l, vowel+r, the first e of the suffix is elided.
Adjective decline for gender as they do in French.
French negative articles and article contractions before à and de are eliminated.

Using my ideas and taking into account the problems I have noticed, here is my "fix" of your conlang:
/m n~ŋ/ m n
/p b t~ts d~dz k g/ p b t d k g
/tʃ dʒ/ tch djh
/f v s z ʃ ʒ h/ f v s z ch jh h
/l j ʁ/ l j r
/i~ɪ y~ʏ u~ʊ ø e ə ɛ œ ɔ æ~a/ i y u e ø o ə è ø̀ ò a
/aɪ eɪ aʊ oɪ/ ai ei au oi
Jhə abite pò Jorden.
/ʒə a.bi.te pɔ jor.den/
1.s live.pres on land.def.s
I live on the Earth.

My French is not advanced enough to give a better version of the second example.

[mèþru]

Here are some more "fixes":
Dal Annzem Noermans Sajjus
Repyblikene də dən Normandəs Arbaidern

spiser - to eat
Present:
Jhə spis
Tu spis
Il (singular) spis
Nu spisòn
Vu spise
Il (plural) spis
Simple past:
Jhə spise
Tu spisa
Il (singular) spisa
Nu spisam
Vu spisez
Il (plural) spisèr
Imperfect:
Jhə spisè
Tu spisè
Il (singular) spisè
Nu spisjòn
Vu spisjez
Il (plural) spisè
Simple future
Jhə spisəre
Tu spisəra
Il (singular) spisəra
Nu spisəròn
Vu spisəre
Il (plural) spisəròn
Subjunctive present:
Jhə spis
Tu spis
Il (singular) spis
Nu spisjòn
Vu spisje
Il (plural) spis
Subjunctive imperfect:
Jhə spisas
Tu spisas
Il (singular) spisa
Nu spisasjòn
Vu spisasje
Il (plural) spisas
Conditional Present:
Jhə spisas
Tu spisas
Il (singular) spisa
Nu spisasjòn
Vu spisasje
Il (plural) spisas
Imperative:

vin - a life
vine - the life
dez viz - some lives
lez viz - the lives

løk - løki
sante - santeji
Tchubek - Tchubesk
Danmark - Dansk
vorm - vormman
løkli - løkman

I found out I was wrong about /ʁ/. It is realised in Danish as a vowel sometimes. However, I doubt that this would carry to Normandes. I also finally found lykke/lyk in Wiktionary.
Everything that I wrote about Danish might be incorrect, as I don't know the language.

[MiscellaneousJax]

@mèþru:

Thanks for the insights! I'll take them into account when working on Norman.

First, I haven't exactly done much research (which is a huge mistake on my part) into the history of Normandy, so this gives me a whole new opportunity to work with things I hadn't even considered. As for languages, I know some Danish, but I don't know much French. This has resulted in the phonology being largely similar to Danish phonology, but somewhat influenced by French.

Second, in regards to some of the words, one method I used, which in hindsight looks absolutely horrible, is just mashing two words from each language together to make a new one. Therefore, "spamme," though it does refer to internet spam in modern Danish, is actually a semi-random selection of sounds from both "spise" and "manger." This is also true with the articles.

Third, in regard to the adjectives and adverbs, "-lig" and "-sk" are directly taken from Danish, and the "-mann" suffix was taken from the French "-ment."