Old Blylandic language

The Old Blylandic language (Old Blylandic: bliiwalęndisku tunga, Blylandic: ald blylęnsk tunge) is a language that was spoken in the Blyland region of Likkra between the sixth and thirteenth centuries. It is the predecessor to the modern Blylandic language.

Nouns
Old Blylandic distinguishes between six cases and two numbers: the nominative, vocative, accusative, genitive, dative and instrumental cases, and the singular and plural number. They can have one of three genders: masculine, feminine and neuter.

a-stem nouns
The a-stem declensional class is one of the largest declensional class in Old Blylandic. It consists entirely of masculine and neuter nouns, and corresponds roughly to the Latin second declension. There are three subclasses in this declensional class.

The plain a-stem masculines are declined as follows:

The plain a-stem neuters are declined as follows:

The ja-stem masculines are declined as follows: Note that the underlying root is niþ-, and the nis- forms are the result of palatalisation. Whether the vocative has the same form as the accusative is dependent on whether the root is light (short vowel + zero or one coda consonant) or heavy (long vowel or two or more coda consonants), with heavy roots giving identical forms.

The ja-stem neuters are declined as follows: The neuter nominative/vocative/accusative singular forms may instead end in unpalatalised root + -i, if the root is heavy.

The wa-stem masculines are declined as follows:

The wa-stem neuters are declined as follows:

ō-stem nouns
The ō-stem declensional class is also a rather large declensional class. It consists entirely of feminines, and corresponds roughly to the Latin first declension. There are two subclasses in this declensional class.

The plain ō-stem nouns are declined as follows: While there are jō-stem nouns, they decline identically to their plain counterparts.

The ī/jō-stem nouns are declined as follows:

i-stem nouns
The i-stem masculines and feminines are declined as follows:

The i-stem neuters are declined as follows: While this noun does not demonstrate palatalisation of the root, the nominative/vocative/accusative singular and the genitive plural exhibit palatalisation.

u-stem nouns
The u-stem masculines and feminines are declined as follows: Instead of palatalisation as in the i-stems, the u-stems exhibit umlaut. The unchanged root vowel is used only in the genitive singular.

The u-stem neuters are declined as follows:

r-stem nouns
The r-stem declensional class consists only of five nouns, all kinship terms: fadir, moodir, brooþir, swestir and dohtir/-duhtir

z-stem nouns
The z-stem declensional class consists only of neuter nouns.

Plain consonant stems
The plain consonant stem declensional class consists of nouns whose stems end in a consonant other than -r (r- and z-stems) or -n (n-stems).

The plain consonant stem masculines and feminines are declined as follows: The nominative singular ending may either be -er or -s. Note that the dative singular exhibits palatalisation in addition to umlaut.

The plain consonant stem neuters are declined as follows: Neuter consonant stems are rare, and all of them exhibit the loss of the stem-final consonant in the nominative/vocative/accusative singular (as seen above). As such, they're seen as an irregular declensional class.

an-stem nouns
The an-stem declensional class is one of the "weak" declensional classes, a set of classes defined by the -n- infix in many of its endings. It consists of masculine and neuter nouns.

The an-stem masculines are declined as follows:

The an-stem neuters are declined as follows:

ōn-stems
The ōn-stem declensional class is the feminine counterpart to the an-stems.

īn-stems
The īn-stem declensional class, like the ōn-stem class, consists entirely of feminine nouns.

Adjectives
Adjectives in Old Blylandic agree with the noun in case, gender and number. Most adjectives have two different sets of declensions, the "strong" declension, and the "weak" declension. The weak declension is typically used in conjunction with a demonstrative.

The terms "strong" and "weak" are misnomers in Old Blylandic; the terms refer to the distinctiveness of endings, and are more applicable to the modern language (whose weak declension consists only of three or four endings spread across 24 combinations).

The strong declension is as follows:

The weak declension is as follows:

Numerals
The cardinal numeral ęęner (1) declines as a strong adjective. The cardinal numeral twęę (2) declines as follows:

The cardinal numeral þriir (3) declines as follows:

The cardinal numeral födor (4) declines as follows:

Verbs
Verbs in Old Blylandic conjugate for two tenses (present and past) and three moods (indicative, subjunctive and imperative), and agree with the subject in person and number.

Irregular verbs
The copula is the most irregular verb in Old Blylandic. It consists of two separate verbs which happen to share past tense forms.

Dialectal differences
There are some variation in verbal inflection between dialects. In particular, the form of the second person singular varies depending on region. The following forms are attested for the second person singular: In general, the forms with -r- are considered to be standard in the Lobehaben dialect, with only byysj retaining the voiceless form. The forms with and without -t are in free variation in the Lobehaben dialect.
 * Indicative -sj, from Proto-Germanic *-si
 * Indicative -r, from Proto-Germanic *-zi
 * Indicative -sjt, from Proto-Germanic *-si + analogical -t from the second person plural and the strong past indicative.
 * Indicative -rt, from Proto-Germanic *-zi + analogical -t from the second person plural and the strong past indicative.
 * Subjunctive -s, from Proto-Germanic *-s
 * Subjunctive -r, from Proto-Germanic *-z
 * Subjunctive -st, from Proto-Germanic *-s + analogical -t from the second person plural and the strong past indicative.
 * Subjunctive -rt, from Proto-Germanic *-z + analogical -t from the second person plural and the strong past indicative.