Twiskengermanisk

[Travis B.]

I created an auxlang ages ago, which is probably long lost, by this name, which as you can probably tell is a Germanic auxlang. For some reason right now I have gotten the urge to recreate it, as you can see here.

Ik makede en helpsspraak lang befoor, de is waarskeenlik lang forloren, med det naam, de is, als du kan waarskeenlik seen, en germaniske helpsspraak. Wiil enige grund, ik heb bekommen de forlangen to buen het naah, als du kan heer seen.

Kan sprekeren fan andere germaniske spraken forstee det?

[WeepingElf]

I created an auxlang ages ago, which is probably long lost, by this name, which as you can probably tell is a Germanic auxlang. For some reason right now I have gotten the urge to recreate it, as you can see here.

Ik makede en helpsspraak lang befoor, de is waarskeenlik lang forloren, med det naam, de is, als du kan waarskeenlik seen, en germaniske helpsspraak. Wiil enige grund, ik heb bekommen de forlangen to buen het naah, als du kan heer seen.

Kan sprekeren fan andere germaniske spraken forstee det?

Ja. Is fast wie Plattdüütsch. 'Yes. Is almost like Low German.''

[Travis B.]

Ja. Is fast wie Plattdüütsch. 'Yes. Is almost like Low German.''

Nederdütisk is en etwat middelere germaniske spraak.

[Lērisama]

I created an auxlang ages ago, which is probably long lost, by this name, which as you can probably tell is a Germanic auxlang. For some reason right now I have gotten the urge to recreate it, as you can see here.

Ik makede en helpsspraak lang befoor, de is waarskeenlik lang forloren, med det naam, de is, als du kan waarskeenlik seen, en germaniske helpsspraak. Wiil enige grund, ik heb bekommen de forlangen to buen het naah, als du kan heer seen.

Kan sprekeren fan andere germaniske spraken forstee det?

Ja. Is fast wie Plattdüütsch. 'Yes. Is almost like Low German.''

Das habe ich auch gedacht.

[Travis B.]

I have a few questions

<ee>/<eCV>, <oo>/<oCV>, and <öö>/<öCV> encode /eː/, /oː/, and /øː/, which may be pronounced [eː]~[eɪ̯], [oː]~[oʊ̯], and [øː]~[øʏ̯] (modeled on Low German and Dutch pronunciations of long mid vowels), when reflecting PGmc long vowels pattern with Low German, where StG has /iː/, /uː/, and /yː/, Alemannic has /iə/, /uə/, and /yə/, IIRC Austro-Bavarian has /ia/, /ua/, /ya/, Dutch, ignoring rounded front vowels, has /i/ and /u/, and in many cases English, also ignoring rounded front vowels, has /iː/ (as well as /eɪ/ and /ɛ/) and /uː/ (as well as /ʊ/). Raising of back rounded mid vowels is also present in Swedish and Norwegian, and dipthongization is present in Icelandic.

Even though for these Twiskengermanisk in its current form reflects conservatism, it may make sense to raise these to /iː/, /uː/, and /yː/ on the StG model to pattern more with most modern Germanic languages.

If I were to do that, though, it would probably make sense to dipthongize <ii>/<iCV>, <uu>/<uCV>, and <üü>/<üCV>, which encode /iː/, /uː/, and /yː/, on the StG and English models to prevent vowel mergers. However, dipthongization of these vowels is not found in quite as many Germanic languages, as it is primarily found in StG, English, Austro-Bavarian, Low Franconian, and (weirdly enough) Elfdalian (but these still constitute a large portion of present-day Germanic-speakers).

So what are your thoughts here?

[Raphael]

Kan sprekeren fan andere germaniske spraken forstee det?

Yup.

[/ˌnɐˈɾɛndɚduːd/]

Kan sprekeren fan andere germaniske spraken forstee det?

oddly enough, when I plugged this into google translate, it auto detected it as Norwegian. I couldn't perfectly understand it at first, though now having looked at a translation I do quite easily, so it's probably due to my lack of knowledge on other Germanic languages.

I have a few questions

<ee>/<eCV>, <oo>/<oCV>, and <öö>/<öCV> encode /eː/, /oː/, and /øː/, which may be pronounced [eː]~[eɪ̯], [oː]~[oʊ̯], and [øː]~[øʏ̯] (modeled on Low German and Dutch pronunciations of long mid vowels), when reflecting PGmc long vowels pattern with Low German, where StG has /iː/, /uː/, and /yː/, Alemannic has /iə/, /uə/, and /yə/, IIRC Austro-Bavarian has /ia/, /ua/, /ya/, Dutch, ignoring rounded front vowels, has /i/ and /u/, and in many cases English, also ignoring rounded front vowels, has /iː/ (as well as /eɪ/ and /ɛ/) and /uː/ (as well as /ʊ/). Raising of back rounded mid vowels is also present in Swedish and Norwegian, and dipthongization is present in Icelandic.

Even though for these Twiskengermanisk in its current form reflects conservatism, it may make sense to raise these to /iː/, /uː/, and /yː/ on the StG model to pattern more with most modern Germanic languages.

If I were to do that, though, it would probably make sense to dipthongize <ii>/<iCV>, <uu>/<uCV>, and <üü>/<üCV>, which encode /iː/, /uː/, and /yː/, on the StG and English models to prevent vowel mergers. However, dipthongization of these vowels is not found in quite as many Germanic languages, as it is primarily found in StG, English, Austro-Bavarian, Low Franconian, and (weirdly enough) Elfdalian (but these still constitute a large portion of present-day Germanic-speakers).

So what are your thoughts here?

I think that for any auxlang that tries to cover a set of closely related languages, it's best to look at what is most common amongst the sum of them and to make those changes, while disregarding the less common ones. so I would raise long /e o ø/ but keep long /i u y/, merging them. the problem with that is, well, merging distinct phonemes, so perhaps look for the most common way to differentiate them again, be that dipthonizing /i u y/ or something else.

[Travis B.]

Kan sprekeren fan andere germaniske spraken forstee det?

oddly enough, when I plugged this into google translate, it auto detected it as Norwegian. I couldn't perfectly understand it at first, though now having looked at a translation I do quite easily, so it's probably due to my lack of knowledge on other Germanic languages.

I have a few questions

<ee>/<eCV>, <oo>/<oCV>, and <öö>/<öCV> encode /eː/, /oː/, and /øː/, which may be pronounced [eː]~[eɪ̯], [oː]~[oʊ̯], and [øː]~[øʏ̯] (modeled on Low German and Dutch pronunciations of long mid vowels), when reflecting PGmc long vowels pattern with Low German, where StG has /iː/, /uː/, and /yː/, Alemannic has /iə/, /uə/, and /yə/, IIRC Austro-Bavarian has /ia/, /ua/, /ya/, Dutch, ignoring rounded front vowels, has /i/ and /u/, and in many cases English, also ignoring rounded front vowels, has /iː/ (as well as /eɪ/ and /ɛ/) and /uː/ (as well as /ʊ/). Raising of back rounded mid vowels is also present in Swedish and Norwegian, and dipthongization is present in Icelandic.

Even though for these Twiskengermanisk in its current form reflects conservatism, it may make sense to raise these to /iː/, /uː/, and /yː/ on the StG model to pattern more with most modern Germanic languages.

If I were to do that, though, it would probably make sense to dipthongize <ii>/<iCV>, <uu>/<uCV>, and <üü>/<üCV>, which encode /iː/, /uː/, and /yː/, on the StG and English models to prevent vowel mergers. However, dipthongization of these vowels is not found in quite as many Germanic languages, as it is primarily found in StG, English, Austro-Bavarian, Low Franconian, and (weirdly enough) Elfdalian (but these still constitute a large portion of present-day Germanic-speakers).

So what are your thoughts here?

I think that for any auxlang that tries to cover a set of closely related languages, it's best to look at what is most common amongst the sum of them and to make those changes, while disregarding the less common ones. so I would raise long /e o ø/ but keep long /i u y/, merging them. the problem with that is, well, merging distinct phonemes, so perhaps look for the most common way to differentiate them again, be that dipthonizing /i u y/ or something else.

As this will be predominately WGmc, with some bones thrown to NGmc, and the three big WGmc standard languages all raise /eː oː/ and dipthongize /iː uː/, what I will do is raise PGmc /eː oː/ to /iː uː/ (and /øː/ from i-umlaut of /oː/ to /yː/) and dipthongize PGmc /iː uː/ to /aɪ aʊ/ (and /yː/ from i-umlaut of /uː/ to /aʏ/, as a compromise between StG [ɔʏ̯], StD [œʏ̯], colloquial Dutch [aʏ̯], and frequent dialectal German [aɪ̯]).

As for PGmc /ai/ and /au/, I will uniformly shift those to /eː oː/ (with a few exceptions such as en /ən/ 'a', to contrast with een /eːn/ 'one'), except when i-umlaut applies to PGmc /au/, where then it will be /øː/.

As for /oː/ from a-umlaut of /uː/ I will preserve that as is.

And as for long vowels through open syllable lengthening, I will preserve those as is, as raising and dipthongization will precede open syllable lengthening (as in StG and StD) not follow it (as in Anglic).

Big other questions I have is what degree of analysis should I have. I have already decided that there will be no gender, except for natural gender of 3rd person pronouns and that verbs other than the copula in the present will not have agreement for person or number. I have not decided whether I will remove inflection from the copula too; I am thinking of having an inflected copula with the forms bin bist is sain sain sain in the present (or maybe bin bint is sain sain sain, but I could follow the model of NGmc and Afrikaans and reduce it to is (or is that a step too far, I don't know). Another question is whether verbs other than sain and hebben will have a preterite; because of the significance of southern High German (and following the model of Afrikaans) I am thinking of potentially limiting the preterite to sain (i.e. war) and hebben (i.e. hadde), willen (i.e. wulde), skullen (i.e. skulde)*, kunnen (i.e. kunde), etc. Also, following the model of Northern Low Saxon, Anglic, and North Germanic I am thinking of dispensing with the ge- prefix on past participles.

* I am thinking of constructing the future with skullen rather than using a cognate of StG werden.

[Travis B.]

There are a few other things I am not sure about. For instance, if I were to choose the most 'average' word for 'south' I would choose süüd, as that covers StG, Standard Dutch (but saüd would directly fit this better), central Swedish, Icelandic, and like, and is not too far from Anglic. However, this is actually an innovative form, and I would prefer sund, reflected by dialectal Upper German Sund, Standard Danish sønder, and dialectal Danish synne, for the sake of consistency with forms like uns 'us', gans 'goose', ander 'other', and so on.

[Travis B.]

In general, my overall guidelines are to be conservative phonologically except with regard to vowel reduction but progressive morphosyntatically, all within reason though, and following this roughly ends me up with the language in the OP, i.e. a koineized Low German shorn of its inflection beyond the level of inflection typical of more progressive Germanic varieties. But as mentioned later in the thread, this is not really the most synchronically average Germanic variety.

[Travis B.]

Another question is: what about /g/? If I had my way, /g/ would be [g] initially and [ɣ] elsewhere, except in devoicing environments where it would become [x] or [ç], along the lines of many Central German, Low German, and some NGmc varieties. However, this is no fun for speakers of Anglic, StG, and Upper German varieties for whom [ɣ] just is not a thing.

[Travis B.]

As you have probably noticed, I have chosen to preserve PGmc /sk/ as is across the board, because of the diversity of its outcomes throughout Germanic (e.g. it is [sk] in Frisian, parts of Low Franconian, and parts of Low German, [sk] or [ʃ] in Anglic, [sk] or [ʃ]~[ɕ] in much of NGmc, [sk] or the notorious "[ɧ]" in Central Swedish, [ʃ] in High German and much of Low German, [sx] or [s] in most of Low Franconian, and [sk] or [sc] in Icelandic).

[Travis B.]

As I have mentioned elsewhere, I have decided to make this less Low German-like and more Standard German and Low Franconian-like (and to a lesser extent more English-like) by having the following shift /eː oː øː iː uː yː/ > /iː uː yː aɪ aʊ aʏ/ <ii uu üü ai au aü>; note that this is applied prior to open syllable lengthening and does not affect PGmc /ai au/, which become /eː oː/ <ee oo>.

[Ekke]

I also have a West Germanic conlang (or rather, two or three versions of it) that I've recently gone back to working on, and in fact, that’s one of the reasons I’ve recently joined the ZBB again, so your Twiskengermanisk immediately caught my attention.

First of all, as a non-native German speaker, I can understand what you’ve written in Twiskengermanisk. There was only one sentence that took me a few seconds to understand because of the lack of a verbal suffix in “sii du” and your use of “naachfulltogen” for “reconstructed” (“nachvollzogen” means something different in German).

Since it’s a Germanic auxlang, I assume you want it to be understandable to speakers of different Germanic languages. I believe that both the “Low German-like” version and the “Standard German and Low Franconian-like” version will be quite understandable to speakers of German and Dutch, as well as to speakers of Low German, Frisian, Central Franconian, etc. dialects (most of whom, of course, are also speakers of Standard German or Dutch). I’m not sure if it will be sufficiently understandable for English speakers who don’t also have some knowledge of another Germanic language. I’m curious about how understandable it is for speakers of North Germanic languages (I’d say that a speaker of, say, Danish would more or less understand written Low German or Dutch, but I have no proof of that).

In my own conlang, I keep the monophthongs /iː/, /uː/, /yː/ from PGm */iː/, */uː/ but in your case, I think turning them into diphthongs is the right choice, since that’s what they are for most speakers of WGm languages.

Standard German replaced its form with -nd- by “Süden” from Low German or Dutch; I suppose this happened so late that it did not undergo diphthongization. You can be consistent with preserving the n + fricative in general, but still have a form like “süüd” or “saüd” as a loanword.

I have a preference for naturalistic conlangs, so I would say keep all the realizations of <g> that you mentioned earlier. In my conlang, <g> is [g] in “gast”, [ɣ] in “folge”, [x] in “dag”, [ç] in “weg”, [j] in “regn” and [w] in “fogl”.

[Travis B.]

'Naachfulltogen' was my attempt at coming up with something that wasn't a Latinate or Romance loan; yeah, it definitely means something different than what I intended on second thought.

About making Twiskengermanisk comprehensible to English-speakers, my thought is I will tend to favor what forms StD, StG, Northern Low Saxon, or NGmc have which generally agree with English (within reason and with some exceptions, like I will use du/di instead of je/ju for the 2nd singular even though StD uses jij/je/jou and StD do is archaic), and whatever forms are 'easiest' (it's an auxlang after all) amongst the forms of StD, StG, and NLS when none of them really agree with English (e.g. obsoleting the preterite except for a small set of verbs, only preserving the genitive for personal names) aside from things that are definitely going to be the case due to auxlangness even when they don't agree with any of StD, StG, or NLS (natural gender only, no person or number marking on verbs outside of the copula). Even then, though, it is obviously 'biased against' English simply due to the relative distance of English as a whole from the rest of Gmc.

[Travis B.]

One thing to note is that I am intentionally being ambiguous about final devoicing, because Dutch, Low German, and StG have final devoicing, many English varieties have a different kind of final devoicing that in most cases does not neutralize contrasts, and NGmc as a whole lacks final devoicing. As a result I am specifying final consonants as if they were voiced, and leaving it up to the individual to devoice them as they see fit.