Voigari: an alternate history Romance language. (NP: irregular verbs)

[Ares Land]

As a rule, alternate histories where the Roman empire never falls are poorly done.
Recently, I read one that was particularly awful. It was one of these ones: you know the type. The Romans invent racism just in time to kick out the barbarian auxiliary and then proceed to conquer the world, then the Solar System before sending legions to kick some Centauri ass. Excruciating. And in a published novel, no less!

And, you know, culture never changes. You're in 2019 and your good friend the consul Marcus Domitius Elonmuscus invites you into his atrium, so you don your toga and go watch the launch of his latest starship, the Phallus Giganticus.

So I thought, hey, I could do a lot better! And, to be honest, I had these Romlang ideas from a few years back that I wanted to try out again...

Alt-Historian usually try to find some reason why the empire could have endured. But I think the problem is not so much that the empire fell, but that no one manage to put it together again!

So in the ATL (Alternate TimeLine as opposed to OTL Our TimeLine), tbe fall of Rome occured on schedule, Ricimer, Romulus Augustulus and so on... But as they say in la Romance di Trei Regni, "l'empere aloggo dibbise dei s'unire, aloggo unite dei se dividere. "

There was once a general of Justinian, called Germanos/Germanus, a cousin of Emperor Justinian, married to a Wisigothic princess, and a possible successor to Belisarius at the head of the Italian campaign. He was heir apparent, so to speak, to both the Eastern Roman Empire, and the Ostrogothic kingdoms. In OTL, Germanus died in 550.
..
In the ATL, Germanus led the rest of the Gothic wars, which were, well, still an awful bloodbath, but less so than in OTL. Germanus became Roman Emperor at the death of Justinian. Justin II, successor of Justinian died shortly thereafter in a bizarre gardening accident.
And, by the way, the Lombards never conquerred Italy.

EDIT:
The rest of that story is here.

EDIT: Below are a few initial ideas, some of which I ended up using. It's all obsolete now, but I'm keeping it, or some of the questions and comments won't make sense.
As Raphael predicted, Charlemagne ended up, well not existing. The rei Frangoro
in 800 is actually Pippin Caesar, of the Nibelungian dynasty (No connection with the other Nibelungen.)


Germanus II, Germanus' son had trouble both at home and at work, as his half-brothers resented his accession and the Pope resented the Arian noblemen in Italy. He moved the capital to Rome from Ravenna, and found that it was easy to deal with the Pope than with his half-brother, now (alt)-Justin II, Eastern Roman Emperor.
The 7th century was even worse for the Byzantine in OTL than in ours, as alt-Justin II and his successors had to deal with the Western Empire, the Sassanids and later the Muslim forces. Eventually, the empire, much weakened was reunited under the Roman dynasty. (In the meanwhile, the Arian nobility had found more politically convenient to adopt Catholicism).

In the ATL, Charlemagne never becomes Emperor -- he remains Karle I, rei Frangoro, king of the Franks and technically (that is, in the most technical and meaningless sense possible) a vassal of Cesar in Rome while le Sacre Empere Romane Gocce comprises Italy, bits and pieces of Southern France, much of Spain, part of the African Coast, Greece and parts of Turkey.

That's all I got for now, except that, fast-forwarding to the 15th and 16th centuries, poete Romanesci (that is, from Rome proper) start writing serious work in the long-ignored vurgare del Urbe.

[zompist]

The joke of the Romance di Trei Regni is good enough that I hope you write your alt history to justify it.

The root problem, I think, is that you have a rich urbanized East, and only area that can match it, barely, is Italy. Barbarians threatened the East too, but they could generally be defeated or bought off, nor could they seriously threaten the eastern cities.

Another data point: the Byzantine expeditionary force that reconquered Italy, Andalusia, and Carthage, numbered just 15,000. This is less than 1/10 the size of Augustus's army. Yet the western states couldn't match it.

This isn't to say your scenario is impossible, but you need to be pretty clever to conquer Constantinople. I'd suggest having your Western emperor allied with the eastern cities (Antioch, Alexandria). And if you want to keep the empire going, something has to be done to shore up the economy in the west. I don't have any great ideas on that, and I suspect that you'd have to write off Spain at least. Would you actually send the Egyptian grain to Rome rather than Constantinople? That could be a problem in retaining eastern support.

A minor point: not sure I get the capital moving back to Rome. When the major threat was from the north, Ravenna made a lot more sense— it's the same reasoning that put the Chinese capital right next to the steppe. It doesn't help much when the Muslims invade the east, but then Rome wouldn't help for that either.

FWIW, a perfectly good Roman Empire Continues story is our actual timeline... they made it to 1453, which is pretty impressive. We hide it by calling them Byzantines, but till the end they called themselves Romans. For that matter, the Arabs called them al-Rum, and since the nearest part of the empire to them was Anatolia, they continued to call that region al-Rum. So the name of the poet Rumi, who was from there, means 'Roman'.

[Moose-tache]

Some people like to say the Roman Empire never collapsed; it just decided to become a church. Not strictly true, but food for thought.

One big difference between the western Roman collapse and the many cycles of collapse and return of central power in China is that when central authority in China waned, the ascendant local powers were usually Chinese. The various states that popped up or reasserted themselves after a dynastic collapse were almost always ruled by Han Chinese, with a few exceptions around the periphery. The people who capitalized politically on Rome's weakness were not Roman, and the kingdoms they established were not taken over by native dynasties, in some cases, for centuries. That meant that there was a gap between when Romans in Rome controlled a territory and when local Romans re-took it, and by then the landscape was divided into states with their own armies, legitimate ruling families, garrisons, etc. The Franks were completely inadequate to the task of re-establishing a subcontinent-ruling dynasty, and no one else came close. It would be like if the Mongols invaded, but instead of one Yuan Dynasty, there were a dozen Mongol states across China that established their own history and culture, and stayed in power for four or five hundred years. What sort of China would emerge after locals finally wrested power away from the Mongols? Would there be a Ming Dynasty at all? Would ambitious local barons struggle to be the next "Khan of Guangzhou" rather than Emperor of China?

That makes me wonder if maybe the eastern Romans could somehow capitalize on the poverty of the west. Instead of retaking territory from entrenched Germanic kingdoms, what if the Byzantines took it upon themselves to put an ailing west under new management some time during the fifth century? The main question I guess is why would they bother, since the whole territory could only have been a burden. But maybe there's a compelling reason in ATL. Then Byzantine control fades into petty warlords (i.e. central Roman control becomes local Roman control). At that point the only thing you need for re-unification is for one statelet to be stronger than most of the others. The institutions needed for them to consolidate and hold their conquest would already be in place.

[zompist]

The various states that popped up or reasserted themselves after a dynastic collapse were almost always ruled by Han Chinese, with a few exceptions around the periphery. The people who capitalized politically on Rome's weakness were not Roman, and the kingdoms they established were not taken over by native dynasties, in some cases, for centuries. [...] It would be like if the Mongols invaded, but instead of one Yuan Dynasty, there were a dozen Mongol states across China that established their own history and culture, and stayed in power for four or five hundred years. What sort of China would emerge after locals finally wrested power away from the Mongols?

I think you're forgetting quite a bit of Chinese history. E.g.:

* after the Three Kingdoms period, the north was ruled by the Sixteen Kingdoms-- mostly northern barbarians
* the north was finally unifed by the Tuoba, who evolved into the Sui dynasty that reunified China
* the Tang were nearly overthrown by the Turkic/Iranian An Lushan
* after the Tang, north China was mostly ruled by Turks
* The Khitans took over part of the north; the Jurchens took over all of it
* finally, the Manchus took over everything

Northern China, especially, was run by barbarians probably as much as by Han.

In both areas, "barbarians" were not culturally incompatible with the empire, and assimilated quite easily.

I think the major difference is that the European/Mediterranean area naturally fragments much easier, and the components are easier to defend. Plus there's the element I already mentioned: the Western empire was already deurbanized-- and even centuries earlier had not been as urbanized or wealthy as the east. The Western empire looked good on paper, but it was basically a frontier area that took more resources to hold than it produced.

[Ares Land]

The joke of the Romance di Trei Regni is good enough that I hope you write your alt history to justify it.

Eh, thanks. To be honest, the whole alt history is mostly an excuse for the alt-Italian conlang

My reasoning is mostly that Germanus was fairly popular and had a reasonable claim to the Gothic throne, to the point that he'd face much less of a Gothic force. Italy is still devastated, but less so, and likewise, the Byzantine treasury is still ruined, but less so and, as a consequence the Byzantines manage to resist the Lombards.... And after that, it so happens that the West is actually fairly calm while the East has to deal with the Bulgars, the Sassanids, the Arabs, etc.
But your post made me rethink quite a bit and I'll have to reconsider a lot, and catch up on early medieval and Byzantine history.
I think Italy, Africa and Spain will remain, for now, Byzantine exarchates, just as in our timelines. (Well, except that exarchates were created by Maurice, who was never emperor in the ATL, but it'd make sense for Germanus II to come up with something similar).

A minor point: not sure I get the capital moving back to Rome. When the major threat was from the north, Ravenna made a lot more sense— it's the same reasoning that put the Chinese capital right next to the steppe. It doesn't help much when the Muslims invade the east, but then Rome wouldn't help for that either.

You're right, it doesn't really make sense at this point.
I believe now that the Ostrogoths' Arianism isn't nearly as much of a problem as I thought and that the pope wasn't really that much of a problem, so the capital would probably stay in Ravenna, which is easier to get to from Constantinople.

A minor quibble, though, the major threat is no longer from the North. Italy is next due for Muslim attacks, coming from the south. Though I still have to figure out what the Lombards will be up to, but I get a feeling that the Romans enlist the Franks' help to kick them out, just like the Pope did in OTL.

I still need Rome to be the capital at some point, or at least to be politically important enough for the Roman vernacular to become a litterary standard. But I still have centuries for that!
That's strictly for aesthetic reasons, btw, I just want the language to be related to Central Italian and not to Romagnol.

[Ares Land]

Speaking of language, here's the reason I came up with that alternate history anyway.

The internal history of Voigare isn't very different from that of Italian. The need for a common vernacular began to be seriously felt, in the XVIIIth century. Unlike Italian, which only had the peninsula to deal with, it had to be minimally intelligible from Portugal to Dacia and from Gaul to Mauretania. Eventually the choice settled, is in OTL, on the de-facto literary standard with a fair bit of borrowing from other dialects and reborrowings from Latin.
That standard was, as in OTL, a fairly conservative dialect -- a double advantage, as it felt 'purer' and its conservatism helped keep a minimum of intelligibility for speakers of other Romance languages.

In the ATL, the dialect chosen was not that of Florence, but that of Rome. (Well, the dialect of Rome as spoken two centuries earlier).

Citizens of the Romance-speaking parts of the Empire simply called it Voigare 'popular'.

Sound changes from Latin to Voigare:

We begin with the expected Classical to Vulgar Latin changes, well established before our point of divergence:

e, i → j /C_V and [-stress]
e, ai → ɛ
i, eː, oi → e
iː → i
o → ɔ
u, oː → o
uː → u
a, aː → a
m,n → Ø /_# (except in a few common monosyllables where m→ n)
h → Ø
w → v
i,u → Ø in the antepenult
ns → n /_#


Changes specific to Voigare:


b,d,g → v, ð, ɣ / V_V (Occured in Italian dialects too, but more sporadically)

VC → VC: / [+stress][-long]. That is a consonant is reduplicated following a short, stressed vowel. (That's not quite the rule in Italian, but pretty close and common south of the La Spezia-Rimini line).
v, ð, ɣ → Ø
but v:, ð:, ɣ: → bb, dd, gg

(generic Italo-Romance stuff)
kt, pt → tt
g → dʒ /_i,e,ɛ
k → tʃ /_i,e,ɛ
t,d → ts, dz /_i,e,ɛ
nj, gn → ɲ
lj → ʎ

skj, stj, ssj → ʃ

ks → ss
w → gw
(Ditto)

l → i / C_

As far as I know, this change is typically Roman in OTL as well:
l → i / _C

And so is
sj → j
(In general Romanesco has kept j, which Voigare does as well)

Typically Italo-Romance (south of the La Spezia - Rimini line)
Vs → Vi / _# and [+stress]
as → e /_# and [-stress]
is → i /_# and [-stress]

These two changes are specific to the ATL... But they have been theorized for early stages of Italian.

os → u /_# and [-stress]
es → i /_# and [-stress]

{t k d m n s} → Ø /_#

ɛ,ɔ → e, o [-stress]
Metaphony:
ɛ, ɔ → je, wo / before i,u but not before double consonants.
e, o → i, u / before i,u
That is not the Tuscan ɛ, ɔ → je, wo, though the changes are related. Instead, vowels are raised in anticipation of a following high vowel. It's almost universal in Italo-Romance.

p, t, k → b,d,g / V_V (common in Southern and Central Italian)
p, t, k → b,d,g / V_r (also attested in Italian)

These changes are most probably due to Greek influence, though nasal+stop cluster simplification is common in Southern Italian in OTL.
mb, nd, ng → bb, dd, gg
mp, nt, nk → mb, nd, ng
And finally:
ʎ → j (as found in Latium to this day).

Highlights

As you can see, Voigare would be comfortably at home in OTL Central Italy.
Grammatically, though, it's fairly atypical:
It has kept three cases: nominative, oblique and genitive (though the genitive is rather marginal) and three genders: masculine, feminine and neuter.
The recent past is closer in usage to the English past perfect while the preterite is still very much in use; it has a progressive not unlike the English progressive. The future is marqued with a particle + subjunctive.

A few samples
I just decided on a few changes, so I'll just take the opportunity to correct earlier samples

L'emperiu ne se finì mai: na atternativa storia. (The nominative singular is in -u, finally)
La romance du Trei Regni (so's the accusative plural).
L'emperu aloggo dibbisu dei che s'unia, aloggo unidu dei che se divida. (Just like Modern Greek, Voigare eschews the infinitive)
Karlu I, rei Frangoro (with one of the remaining uses of the genitive)
Le Sacru Emperiu Ruomanu Guoccu

[Kuchigakatai]

Alt-Historian usually try to find some reason why the empire could have endured. But I think the problem is not so much that the empire fell, but that no one manage to put it together again!

This is what I always think of when it comes to my own approaches to the Latin Roman Empire Survives theme. The early Yellow River civilization breaks apart in 770 BC, then unites again in a much larger size in 221 BC, then breaks apart again in 189 AD, then unites again in 589, then breaks apart in 755, and then the Mongols annex the whole place into their empire by 1278, and since that time there have been no long-term territorial splits in China.

(Does Taiwan count? Idk.)

I suppose Europe is easier to defend, as Zompist says, and also the divided European powers seem successful at balancing each other out across time. If Spain grew too large, or England became a huge threat, the others would temporarily work together to put either down, etc. In China, there's a recurring theme of the territory getting taken over by essentially two similar competing factions, and then one quickly conquers the other (Qin vs. Chu by 223 BC, N.Wei>Sui vs. Chen by 577, and even Jin vs. Song by the 1120s going on for over a century until the Mongols end them both).

I sometimes imagine an analogy in a European history where, ignoring geography at our peril for a moment of suspended disbelief, France manages to conquer England, Scandinavia and Spain, while the startled HRE pulls support from the rest of the Roman Catholic lands and takes over France...

So in the ATL (Alternate TimeLine as opposed to OTL Our TimeLine), tbe fall of Rome occured on schedule, Ricimer, Romulus Augustulus and so on... But as they say in la Romance di Trei Regni, "l'empere aloggo dibbise dei s'unire, aloggo unite dei se dividere. "

A minor point: not sure I get the capital moving back to Rome. When the major threat was from the north, Ravenna made a lot more sense— it's the same reasoning that put the Chinese capital right next to the steppe. It doesn't help much when the Muslims invade the east, but then Rome wouldn't help for that either.

What is that reasoning?

[zompist]

A minor point: not sure I get the capital moving back to Rome. When the major threat was from the north, Ravenna made a lot more sense— it's the same reasoning that put the Chinese capital right next to the steppe. It doesn't help much when the Muslims invade the east, but then Rome wouldn't help for that either.

What is that reasoning?

You put your army right next to the military threat.

The distance from Xi'an to Beijing is about 1100 km. That's 37 days travel for an army, assuming provisions are already laid up along the route (i.e. the army doesn't have to slow down to forage). Then add whatever time it takes to get to the front, plus the fact that you're starting the war with your troops already exhausted from a month-long march.

There are other considerations, of course. A central location is best for administration. You probably want close access to the sea. But the logic of military preparedness was so strong in China that even Southern-originated dynasties like the Ming moved to Beijing.

[evmdbm]

To some extent I wonder if the problem is not the barbarians from the north - Rome could afford to lose what is Britain, France, Germany and (to a lesser extent) Spain. Not much in the way of rich cities there, fortify the Alps and keep them out - so long as this was a conscious decision and kept Italy and the East united.

The problem is the Arabs. 7th century the Arabs smash most of the Eastern Roman Empire and the new Persian Empire. Byzantium eventually retreats and reorganises to what is now Turkey, Greece and Bulgaria, but never really recovers and then the final death blow wasn't really 1453 but 1201 and the Latin Empire of Constantinople - for the next 200 years Byzantium had little if any point to it. What are you going to do about the Arabs - and then you have the Mongols...

[Ares Land]

Yes, the Arabs and then the Turks gave the Byzantines hell -- but then again, so did the Sassanids!
A nitpick: the Byzantines were still eminently respectable, especially after the Macedonian dynasty took over.
For now I think the Arabs still take the Levant and Egypt, but if I can justify it they'll be stopped at Carthage (but I'll have to look up the details of the Muslim conquests before I can decide something with some confidence).

But, you're right: one of the biggest problems is what happens with the Arab conquests.
In OTL, emperor Maurice's assassination precipitated a very long and bloody war between the Byzantines and the Sassanids. But in the ATL, Maurice, I believe is never emperor. One of Germanus' sons is emperor instead. Does he get assassinated? And if he's not, is there still war between the two empires? For now, I have no idea. I assume there'd be a Roman-Persian war anyway, and an assassination wouldn't be out of place (the Byzantine treasury is empty just as in OTL, so the army's still very, very disappointed...) but I need to figure out the details.
Which are, in turn, very important, since in OTL both empires were very weakened when the Muslim forces arrived...

[Ares Land]

Phonology
So here's the inventory:
Consonants

	Labials	Dentals	Post-Alveolars	Velars
Plosives	p b	t d		k g
Fricatives	f (v)	s	ʃ
Affricates		ts	tʃ dʒ
Nasals	m	n	ɲ
Liquids		l r
Semivowels	w			j

Vowels

	Front	Central	Back
High	i		u
Mid	e		o
Low		a

You'll see that it's a bit more restricted than Italian.
v is not quite an allophone of b. The distinction actually disappeared but was reintroduced through Latin reborrowings: bèr, 'imperial officer' vs. virili, 'manly' or laboriosu, industrious vs. lavoro, I work.
There's no /z/, and no /dz/ either; /ʎ/ merge with /j/

Consonants can be geminated between vowels or word-initially: le ddonne, 'the ladies (acc.)'

The vowel system is rather different from Italian: it's a five vowel system both in unstressed and stressed position. [ɛ] and [ɔ] are allophones of /e/ and /o/ in closed syllables. There's no vowel reduction (in the standard dialect, that is!)

s and ʃ are supposedly never voiced. Intervocalic voicing is fairly common outside of Rome. So you won't sound wrong if you voice them, but you'll sound provincial, which is probably worse.

/b/, /d/, /g/ may be pronounced /β/, /ð/ and /ɣ/ intervocally (and like reduplication, it works between work boundaries: le bèr [le βɛr]). That is a hallmark of upper-class speech, but it's also common in Hispania, Southern Italy and Africa.
And if you want to sound extra posh (or Italian) drop final r's and lengthen the vowel: le bèr [le βɛ:]

/p/, /t/, /k/ may be pronounced /β/, /ð/ and /ɣ/ as well, which happens under very restrictive conditions: 1) you're very, very lower class 2) you're very, very upper class. And by upper class, I mean the 'my ancestors were already patricci under Justinian and my great-auntie was Hadrian's wife's chambermaid' kind of upper class. 3) you grew up in rural Toscia.

[Ares Land]

Nominal Morphology

So Voigare nouns mark three cases: nominative (casu ssubiettu), oblique (casu rregime) and genitive (casu ggenique).

ATL grammarians insists that Voigare has three genders as well. The neuter is vestigial, but if you wanted to be really pedantic about it Voigare has really four genders: masculine, feminine, neuter and uncountable. Oh, and did I mention that most common nouns are irregular?

In general, prescriptive grammarians operate under the assumption that it's not a real prestige dialect if it's not difficult to learn.

We would've expected better from ordinary Romanesci, but they didn't bother simplifying things either. Like they say in Rome, "Dei! Se paria como se voi, conniu!"

But let's keep things simple and start with masculine and feminine nouns in easy declensions.

First declension
la rosa, 'the rose'

	Singular	Plural
Nominative	la rosa	le rose
Oblique	la rosa	le rrose
Genitive	i rose	laro rosaro

The nominative and oblique are identical in the singular; the genitive singular is identifical to the nominative plural (but the articles differ!).
The initial consonant is geminated in the oblique plural > rrose -- that is universal across all declensions.

First declension nouns are mostly femine, but there are exceptions:
le poeta, the poet

	Singular	Plural
Nominative	le poeta	i poete
Oblique	lo poeta	lu ppoete
Genitive	i poete	loro puiti

The masculine article always distingues nominative and oblique, but the genitive plural and the nominative singular are identical.
The form Puiti is our first introduction to metaphony: vowels are raised before a final -i or -u

Second declension

le mongiu, the monk

	Singular	Plural
Nominative	le mongiu	i mongi
Oblique	lo mongio	lu mmongiu
Genitive	i mongi	loro mongioro

le fiju, the son

	Singular	Plural
Nominative	le fiju	i fiji
Oblique	lo fijo	lu ffiju
Genitive	i fiji	loro fijoro

That declension is a little more tricky than its Latin counterpart:

For instance, le torru, the bull exhibits both metaphony, reduplication in the singular oblique and a tricky gentive plural.

	Singular	Plural
Nominative	le tuoru	i tuori
Oblique	lo torro	lu ttuoru
Genitive	i tuori	loro torò

le fuogu, the fire is even worse:

	Singular	Plural
Nominative	le fuogu	i fuogi
Oblique	lo focco	lu ffuogu
Genitive	i fuogi	loro fogoro

[Darren]

I really like this. It feels as though it belongs somewhere in Italy, but at the same time it's very distinctive. It reminds me a little of Neapolitan (one of my favourite Romance languages) with final -u and lots of gemination including word-initial.

[Travis B.]

I really like this. It feels as though it belongs somewhere in Italy, but at the same time it's very distinctive. It reminds me a little of Neapolitan (one of my favourite Romance languages) with final -u and lots of gemination including word-initial.

Exact same thought here.

[Ares Land]

Eccaristò addu!

[Ares Land]

Third declension
This declension is characterized by a stress shift between the nominative singular and the other cases:

la candor, 'the singer'

	Singular	Plural
Nominative	le candor	i canduri
Oblique	lo candore	lu canduri
Genitive	i canduri	laro candoro

More difficult

l'emberador

	Singular	Plural
Nominative	l'emberador	i 'mbiraduri
Oblique	lo emberadore	lu simbiraduri
Genitive	i 'mbiraduri	lor' emberadoro

Note the metaphony emberadore > imbiraduri.
In vowel initial nouns, a -s is preposed (instead of reduplication), and the initial i is dropped after the article in the genitive singular and the nominative plural.
The le > l' shift is fairly predictable if you're familiar with Romance languages, but the final o of loro is dropped as well.

While we're talking about emperors, if emberadore is too irregular for you, le Cesar is easier:

	Singular	Plural
Nominative	le Cesar	i Ciesari
Oblique	lo Cesare	lu Cciesari
Genitive	i Ciesari	loro Cesaro

There are third declension feminine nouns:

la sor, the sister

	Singular	Plural
Nominative	la sor	le suri
Oblique	la sore	le ssuri
Genitive	i suri	laro soro

Third declension nouns often lost the final consonant in the nominative singular:
Some examples:

le dò, the duke

	Singular	Plural
Nominative	le dò	le ducci
Oblique	lo docce	lu dducci
Genitive	i ducci	loro docco

la virtu the virtue

	Singular	Plural
Nominative	la virtu	le virtudi
Oblique	la virtude	le vvirtudi
Genitive	i virtudi	laro virtudo

An irregular noun: la par, the part with a genitive plural in -zio

	Singular	Plural
Nominative	la par	le parti
Oblique	la parte	le pparti
Genitive	i parti	laro parzio

The stress shift may trigger irregularities in the stem:
le sennior, 'the gentleman'

	Singular	Plural
Nominative	le sennior	i seniuri
Oblique	lo seniore	lu sseniuri
Genitive	i seniuri	loro senioro

We're not quite done yet with the third declension...


Nouns in -i or -e:

le nome, the name (with a stem change for extra fun!)

	Singular	Plural
Nominative	le nome	i nomni
Oblique	lo nomne	lu nomni
Genitive	i nomni	loro nomno

le serrie, the sargeant:

	Singular	Plural
Nominative	le serrie	i serriendi
Oblique	lo serriende	lu sserriendi
Genitive	i serriendi	loro serrienzio

le re, the king

	Singular	Plural
Nominative	le re	i rei
Oblique	lo re	le rrei
Genitive	i rei	laro reo

not be confused with la rei, the thing (slightly irregular)

	Singular	Plural
Nominative	la rei	le rei
Oblique	la re	le rrei
Genitive	i ri	laro rè

Other nouns in -i, la torri, the tower

	Singular	Plural
Nominative	la torri	le torri
Oblique	la torre	le ttorri
Genitive	i torri	loro torrio

le llustri, the nobleman (not quite a peer, but a very high-ranking aristocrat):

	Singular	Plural
Nominative	le llustri	i llustri
Oblique	lo llustre	lu llustri
Genitive	i llustri	loro llustrio

Not complicated enough? No problem. Here's le boi, the ox, a common irregular noun

	Singular	Plural
Nominative	le boi	i buovi
Oblique	lo bovve	lu bbuovi
Genitive	i buovi	loro bovvo

Nouns in -ei

le nobei, the nobleman that is not quite as high as a lustri

	Singular	Plural
Nominative	le nobei	i nobei
Oblique	lo nobie	lu nnobei
Genitive	i nobei	loro nobejjo

le spettabbei, the nobleman who outranks a nobei but is not quite a llustri yet.

	Singular	Plural
Nominative	le spettabei	i spettabei
Oblique	lo spettabie	lu spettabei
Genitive	i spettabei	loro spettabejjo

(no reduplication before two consonants)

Nouns in -o

L'ommo, the man is a special case:

	Singular	Plural
Nominative	l'ommo	i omni
Oblique	l'omne	lu somni
Genitive	i omni	loro omno

The general pattern is:

la canzio, the song

	Singular	Plural
Nominative	la canzio	le canzioni
Oblique	la canzione	le ccanzione
Genitive	i canzioni	loro canziono

[Ares Land]

Confused yet?

Don't be. Actually the declensions are easier than Latin's and the rules are only marginally harder than, say, Italian pluralization rules.
A quick summary:


Nouns ending in -a

Typically, first declension:
Nom sg. -a, obl sg. -e,, gen. sg -enom pl. -e, obl pl. -egen pl. -aro

Some hints:
The nominative and the accusative are identical in the singular and the plural with a a > e pattern reminiscent of Italian (but be careful, 'poets' is poeti in Italian but poete in Voigari!)



Nouns ending in -u
Nom sg. -u, obl sg. -o,, gen. sg -i, nom pl. -i, obl pl. -u -oro

nouns ending in -ei (except la rei)
Nom sg. -ei, obl sg. -ie,, gen. sg -ei, nom pl. -ei, obl pl. -ei -ejjo

Nouns ending in -i
Nom sg. -i, obl sg. -e,, gen. sg -i, nom pl. -i, obl pl. -i -io


Nouns anding in -o
Nom sg. -o, obl sg. -one,, gen. sg -oni, nom pl. -oni, obl pl. -oni -ono

Nouns ending in -e[/b]
Nom sg. -e, obl sg. -e,, gen. sg -i, nom pl. -i, obl pl. -i -o

Nouns ending in -e, with an oblique in -ende
Nom sg. -e, obl sg. -ende,, gen. sg -i, nom pl. -endi, obl pl. -endi -enzio

Nouns with an oblique in -ti
Nom sg. -Ø, obl sg. -te,, gen. sg -ti, nom pl. -ti, obl pl. -ti -zio

Everything else
Nom sg. -Ø, obl sg. -e,, gen. sg -i, nom pl. -i, obl pl. -i -o

The genitive singular is always indentical to the nominative plural.
Genitives in -oro are simplified to -ò after an r: *tororo > torò, 'bull'


Stem alternation:
Well, there's little you can do but learn the genitive singular, or the nominative plural (same difference, really).

Making sense of metaphony
Metaphony may seem random, but it's really not.

First off, a few words on stress.
In monosyllabic nouns and verbs, the sole syllable is stressed. Stressed conjunction are marked with a grave: è 'and'
As a general rule, stress falls on the penultimate syllable. rosa ['ro.sa], rosaro [ro.'sa.ro] poeta [po.'e.ta]
In some cases stress may fall on the last syllable, in which case the stressed vowel is marked with a grave: torò [to.'ro]

Stress never falls before the penultimate syllable! An anchor is ancora ˈan.ko.ra in Italian but angra in Voigare.

That being said,

When a words ends in -i or -u, all preceding -e or -o are raised.

*poeti > puiti
*docci > ducci
*emberador > imbiraduri

However, consonant clusters and ni /ɲ/ sc /ʃ/, gi /dʒ/, ci /tʃ/, z /ts/, stop+e, stop+i block metaphony:
mongiu not *mungiu
nomni not *numni
seniuri not *siniuri
nobei not *nubei

Ok, now here's the hard part.

Before geminates, o > uo, e > ie and the geminate is shortened

*bovvi > buovi
*torru > tuoru

And geminate stops are voiced:
*foccu, focci > fuogu, fuogi

But... when the consonant was already a geminate in Latin, or when a consonant clusters is introduced due to stem alternation, metaphony is blocked:

torri, 'towers' not *tuori
omni, 'men' not 'uomni

And sometimes gemination is kept and o > u.

ducci not *duoci

And there's nothing you can you do about it except learn it, unless you happen to remember the Latin etymon...

Why is that? Well, you'll have to get back to the stress rule.

As a rule, in Voigare, the stressed syllable is heavy.
You may have heard that Vulgar Latin lost vowel length. Actually, that's only half true.
What VL lost was phonemic vowel length. But the quality was kept, so o: > [o:] and o > [ɔ].
In unstressed syllables, all vowels were shortened, so far so good.
But what happened to stressed ɔ in open syllables? For instance in ['fɔ.ko] the stressed syllable is light, yet Voigare phonology dictates that it should be heavy... So Voigare doubles the consonant: ['fɔk.ko] thus making sure that the stressed syllabe is heavy. On the other hand, there's no such problem with * cantōris > [kan.to:.ris] so no gemination there.

What happens when metaphony gets into the picture? Well, ['fɔ.ki] > *['fɔ.ki] > ['fwɔ.kii] and the stressed syllable [fwo] is heavy, as it contains a diphtongs. So there's no need to geminate k, hence > *[fwoki]. A single, voiceless consonant is voiced intervocally, hence fuogi.

What's the deal with docce > ducci, though?
Well, Lat. dukis > [do.kis] with short o, unlike [kan.to:.ris], because short u > short [o], not [o:]. With metaphony ['do.kis] > ['du.kis]. Stressed ['du] should be heavy, so ['du.kis] > ['duk.kis] > ducci

(If you're curious, all of this actually happened in Italo-Romance; I simply added the extra complication of case...)

We've now covered the most common cases in noun declensions. Next we'll cover some more irregularities, and finally, the neuter.

[Ares Land]

A curiosity: the fourth declension

This class only has one member, la mannu, 'the hand'

la manu, 'the hand'

	Singular	Plural
Nominative	la manu	le mannu
Oblique	la manno	le mmannu
Genitive	i mannu	laro mannuo

The importance of being Constans

I should cover this with adjective and present participle, but I should mention the very common personal name Costa, which looks like it belongs to the first declension, but actually belongs to the third:

	Singular
Nominative	le Costa
Oblique	lo Costande
Genitive	i Costandi

This is as good a time as any to mention Voigare, just like Greek, requires definite articles before personal names.

la pa, 'peace' is similarly tricky:

	Singular	Plural
Nominative	la pa	le pagi
Oblique	la page	le ppagi
Genitive	i pagi	laro pago

Mixed declension
This class covers nouns in -er, with second declension endings, but a consonantal nominative singular, and (sometimes) stem changes

le prester, the priest

	Singular	Plural
Nominative	le prester	i privirri
Oblique	lo preverro	lu privirru
Genitive	i privirri	loro preverrò

le puer, the page boy, the knave

	Singular	Plural
Nominative	le puer	i puirri
Oblique	lo puerro	lu ppuirri
Genitive	i puirri	loro puerrò

This covers most nouns in -er, except for patter (padre, padri, padri, padro), frader (fradre, fradri, fradri, fradro) and mader (madre, madri, madri, madro)


Proper names

Greek names in -i are invariable: la Penelopi, le Socrati
Those in -e from their oblique in -a and their genitive in -a: le Leonide, lo Leonida, i Leonida

Names in -os are cooptoded into the second declension: l'Alessandru, lo Alessandro, i Alessandri
And those in -on are treated as neuter: lo Partheno, lo Partheno, i Partheni


Gods and uncles

le Diu / le diu (God, the god) and le ziu (the uncle share the same paradigm (a slightly different version of the second declension

	Singular	Plural
Nominative	le diu	i dei
Oblique	lo dio	lu ddei
Genitive	i dei	loro dioro

	Singular	Plural
Nominative	le ziu	i zei
Oblique	lo zio	lu ziu
Genitive	i zei	loro zioro

(No reduplication for ziu, though!)

Feminine nouns in -ce
In the oblique plural, feminine nouns in -ce or -ge are not palatized, but they are in the nominative plural and the genitive plural

l'amiga, the friend

	Singular	Plural
Nominative	l'amiga	le amige
Oblique	l'amiga	le samighe
Genitive	i amige	lar' amigaro

(compare Italian amica > amiche)

[Ares Land]

The neuter

There isn't much left of the neuter in the Voigare. But still, there's enough for a post!

Mass nouns
Neuter is mostly used for uncountables, and they're straight derivations of second declension masculines.
Well, that's not quite true. Actually, the masculine was derived from the neuter.

le ferru, 'iron, the iron tool' > lo fferro 'iron'
le Romanu, 'the Roman, the Roman citizen' > lo rromano 'the Roman language, voigare'
lo bburro (n) 'the butter' > lu burru (n.) the butter (a kind of butter) > i burri 'the different kinds of butter'

The nominative is identical to the oblique, both end in -o and used the article lo, with initial geminitation where possible. The genitive is formed like in second declension masculines:

lo bburro, 'the butter'

	Singular
Nominative	lo bburro
Oblique	lo bburro
Genitive	i burri

True neuters

Some nouns are still true neuters.
lo ppiro, 'the pear'

	Singular	Plural
Nominative	lo ppiro	la pira
Oblique	lo ppiro	la pira
Genitive	i piri	loro pirò

There's no reduplication in the plural; but there is in the nominative and oblique singular!


lo ovo, 'the egg'

	Singular	Plural
Nominative	lo ovo	la ova
Oblique	lo ovo	la ova
Genitive	i uvi	loro ovoro

lo bracchio, 'the arm'

	Singular	Plural
Nominative	lo bracchio	la bracchia
Oblique	lo bracchio	la bracchia
Genitive	i bracchi	loro bracchioro

Note that neuter lo, la + vowel adds no epenthetic -s,

Fruit names, in particular, are often reanlyzed as a singular femine. As a consequence, la pira, le pire (the pear, the pears) is also correct (and arguably feels less pedantic). And then a collective plural has been reinvented: la pira > la pirre the (uncountable) pears, lo ovo > la ovra, the clutch.

Neuters in -u

Neuters in -u form their plural in -ora:

lo ttempu, time

	Singular	Plural
Nominative	lo ttempu	la tempra
Oblique	lo ttempu	la tempra
Genitive	i tempri	loro tempro

Look no further for the origin of the collective in -ra.

Many neuters have been reanalyzed as masculines or femines, but some masculine nouns became neuters in Voigare:
campu, campra 'field, fields', ortu, ortra, 'garden, gardens', bosco, boscra, 'wood, woods', lettu, lettra, 'bed, beds'

Or, to be, entirely correct, both genders are acceptable in the singular, so that:

esto llettu è comdo , este lettu è comdo, este lettu è comdu 'this bed is comfortable' are all equally acceptable, and so are facce lo llettu
and facce lo letto 'he makes the bed'.

Whew! I think I've covered all cases, so that's all for nouns.

[WeepingElf]

Nice! While I am not much into alternative histories (most I have seen are either implausible, attempts at advancing a - usually right-wing - political cause, or both), I do like how your language develops!