Angle-Saxish (Angelsaxisch, pronounced [aŋəl’zaksɪʃ]) is a constructed West Germanic language used officially in the Angle-Saxish Kingdom. Derived from Late West Saxon, it was originally conceived as a hypothetical modern English with reduced French influence and greater affinity with German, which has had a significant influence on its phonology, grammar, and vocabulary.
History
West Saxon was the language spoken by King Alfred the Great, who unified England. By the 10th century, it had become the “Winchester Standard” and was employed in a wealth of literary works, including partial translations of the Bible and transcriptions of classic poetry such as Beowulf. It is principally the language of the 11th century Wessex gospels and writings of Ælfric on which written Angle-Saxish language is based.
Phonology
The phonology of Angle-Saxish conforms very closely to modern German and Dutch. Diphthongs present in Late West Saxon have been smoothed, final obstruents devoiced, the R is guttural, unstressed vowels have been reduced to a schwa or deleted, and open syllables have been lengthened. The application of a chain shift has resulted in the diphthongization of some vowels. Fricatives are also voiced in onset position, a shift already apparently underway in Late West Saxon, as evidenced by orthographical variants such as uif for fíf.
Monophthongs
Front | Central | Back | ||||||
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Unrounded | Rounded | |||||||
Short | Long | Short | Long | Short | Long | Short | Long | |
Close | ɪ | iː | ʏ | yː | ʊ | uː | ||
Close-mid | eː | øː | ə | oː | ||||
Open-mid | ɛ | ɛː | ɐ | ɔ | ||||
Open | a | aː |
Diphthongs
Ending point | ||
---|---|---|
Front | Back | |
Open-mid | ɔʏ | |
Open | aɪ | aʊ |
Consonants
Labial | Dental | Alveolar | Palatal | Velar/Uvular | Glottal | |||
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Nasal | m | n | ŋ | |||||
Plosive | Fortis | p | t | k | ||||
Lenis | b | d | ɡ | |||||
Affricate | Fortis | ts | tʃ | |||||
Lenis | dʒ | |||||||
Fricative | Sibilant | Fortis | s | ʃ | ||||
Lenis | z | |||||||
Non-sibilant | Fortis | f | θ | ç | x | h | ||
Lenis | v | ð | ʁ | |||||
Approximant | l | j | w |
Grammar
Angle-Saxish is a fusional language with three genders (masculine, feminine, and neuter), four cases (nominative, accusative, dative, and genitive), and two numbers (shedding the Old English dual number). Compared to Late West Saxon, which had more variation in word order, for example, Angle-Saxish has been made to fit the constraints of modern German grammar. Like German, it uses a V2-SOV word order and has the potential to form long left-branching noun compounds; moreover, it has adopted the German T-V distinction, using the plural second person pronoun Jie in formal singular contexts.
Vocabulary
The vast majority of words in the Angle-Saxish lexicon are of Germanic origin, with many coming directly from Late West Saxon. A puristic language policy means that borrowing of foreign words is avoided, but its vocabulary has been enriched with many loan translations of compounds from other Germanic languages, especially German and Icelandic. A minority of words are reconstructed Old English from Proto-Germanic. Borrowings from French, Latin, Greek, and other non-Germanic languages have also usually come via Germanic languages.
Angle-Saxish | English | German |
---|---|---|
içh | I | ich |
ðau, Jie (polite) | you (singular) | du, Sie (polite) |
ðes, ðies, ðes | this | dies(es) |
ho | who | wer |
wat | what | was |
oon | one | eins |
two, twein | two | zwei |
Visch | fish | Fisch |
Hund | dog | Hund |
Laus | louse | Laus |
Bluud | blood | Blut |
Boon | bone | Knochen |
Ai | egg | Ei |
Horn | horn | Horn |
Tail | tail | Schwanz |
Äre | ear | Ohr |
Äge | eye | Auge |
Nose | nose | Nase |
Tuuð | tooth | Zahn |
Tunge | tongue | Zunge |
Hand | hand | Hand |
wieten, kunnen | to know | wissen, kennen |
sterven | to die | sterben |
jieven | to give | geben |
Sunne | sun | Sonne |
Mune | moon | Mond |
Water | water | Wasser |
Salt | salt | Salz |
Stoon | stone | Stein |
Wind | wind | Wind |
Voyer | fire | Feuer |
Jäär | year | Jahr |
vull | full | voll |
niuw | new | neu |
Name | name | Name |
Orthography
Angle-Saxish is written in the Latin alphabet (but may also be written in futhorc runes for artistic purposes). In formal use, it is printed in a blackletter typeface (the government endorses Pfeffer Simpelgotisch) and handwritten in Kurrent or Sütterlin script. The orthography has mostly been inherited from Late West Saxon, notably including (as do Icelandic and Faroese) the additional letters eth (Ðð) and thorn (Þþ) for the voiced and voiceless dental fricatives respectively. There are also some German features, such as the replacement of æ with ä and the universal capitalization of nouns.