Language scratchpad

This page contains languages currently under construction, which have yet to reach a stage where it can get its own article. Most, if not all, of these langauges will be part of either Innocence Seekers or one of its spinoffs.

Old Flefluan
Unlike Modern Flefluan, where much of the inflectional endings have eroded away, Old Flefluan retains distinct endings.

Nouns
Nouns have five cases and two numbers.

o-stem masculine:

o-stem neuter:

ā-stem:

Verbs
Note: This is a work in progress

Verbs located at the beginning of a clause (with the exception of the copula) are marked with an -(e)s suffix.

Copula:

Flefluan
While this language is linked to by a number of articles, it is not in the stage where it can get its own article.

Orthography
Note: This is a work in progress

Lenition is indicated by adding a  after the consonant, while voicing replaces the letter with its voiced counterpart.

Vowel digraphs do not indicate diphthongs (which are absent in Flefluan); instead they indicate vowel affection. Hiatus is indicated by an intervocalic .

Nouns
Nouns have four cases and two numbers. All declensional classes in Old Flefluan have collapsed into one in Modern Flefluan, distinguished only by mutation and gender.

Example declension of map ("son", masculine), without and with definite article: Neuter nouns have -a in the nominative/accusative plural instead of -e and -u and also display lenition in the accusative plural. Note that the final -n in the definite article assimilates with the following consonant, in this case becoming -m.

The accusative singular and genitive plural are identical for all nouns. While not shown here, they also show a different form of mutation, voicing (which only affects the voiceless obstruents).

Example declension of ben ("woman", feminine), without and with definite article:

Adjectives
Adjectives (including yn "one") typically take the same declensions as nouns. However, a few adjectives are irregular.

Declension of dau "two", without and with definite article, when combined with a noun beginning with /k/:

Note that tri "three" and peutar "four", despite their irregular feminines tir and peter respectively, decline regularly in the genitive and dative. In the nominative and accusative, they are endingless and do not induce mutation.

Verbs
Note: This is a work in progress

Verbs located at the beginning of a clause have separate forms (indicated as the first listed form in the below paradigms).

Note that the copula does not have separate sentence-initial forms.

Copula:

Blylandic
Like Flefluan, this language is not at the stage where it can get its own article.

Nouns
Compared with the old form of the language, the declension systems have partially merged. The vocative has merged with the nominative, and in many cases the nominative has merged with the accusative (some major classes still distinguish the two cases, but only in the singular). In general, the combined nominative/accusative uses the historical accusative forms. Neuter nouns originally had different plural forms from the masculine and feminine nouns in the nominative and accusative; however, levelling has since given them the masculine/feminine endings in most classes (typically -en).

a-stem nouns
Some nouns in this class display umlaut between the singular and plural; historically these nouns were consonant stems. All feminine nouns in this class display umlaut.

ō-stem nouns
This is a merger of two classes: the ō-stem, and the ī/jō-stem nouns.

i/u-stem nouns
This is a merger of the i-stem and u-stem classes.

n-stem nouns
This is a merger of three different classes, all with the -n- infix. This represents the "weak" declension.

The neuter declension is as follows:

Due to the merger of the nominative and accusative in most other classes (the only other class which preserves separate nominative and accusative forms is feminine-only), the n-stem declension is the only declensional class with two different sets of declensions depending on gender.

r-stem nouns
This class contains only five members: fadder, moder, broþer, swester and dutter.

z-stem nouns
This class has identical singular and plural suffixes in the nominative/accusative. However, umlaut often distinguishes the forms.

Consonant stem nouns
Like the z-stem nouns, these nouns have identical singular and plural suffixes in the nominative/accusative, with umlaut only distinguishing them. Historically, this class also included masculine and feminine nouns (with plural -en); however, they have migrated to the a-stem declension.

Adjectives
There are only two adjectival declension classes: the strong declension and the weak declension. The weak declension is only used in the presence of a determiner, and it is considered "weak" largely due to the merger of many endings (in fact, the masculine and feminine are merged in the weak declension).

The strong declension suffixes are as follows:

The weak declension suffixes are as follows:

Many adjectives can be declined using either declension, but some are strong only, while comparatives and most ordinals are weak only.

The definite article sa (also the medial demonstrative) is declined as follows:

Verbs
Verbs conjugate for mood, tense and number. Historically, they also conjugated for person; however, such conjugations have since disappeared.

The standard conjugational suffixes are as follows:

Strong verbs
Strong verbs are distinguished by the fact that their stems show ablaut. Their past participles end in -en. Strong verbs display i-umlaut in the singular present indicative, the past subjunctive and the plural imperative, and u-umlaut in the plural past indicative.

Conjugation of berren:

Strong verbs display four principal parts: the infinitive, the singular past indicative, the plural past indicative, and the past participle. For berren, they are berren, bar, bǫren and burren.

Weak verbs
Unlike strong verbs, weak verbs form their past tense via a dental suffix. Their past participles end in -t, -þ or -d. Note that the indicative and subjunctive have merged in the past tense for weak verbs, as all but one weak verb do not display umlaut.

Conjugation of heren:

Weak verbs only have two principal parts: the infinitive and the past participle. For heren, they are heren and herd.

Note that the only productive class of weak verbs includes an infix -e- between the stem and the conjugational suffix. This is invisible for suffixes which already have -e-.

Conjugation of salben:

One particularly important weak verb is hębben:

This verb is used as the perfect tense marker, when used with the past participle. Note that this verb is actually irregular; it is the only weak verb left that displays umlaut, meaning that the past forms still distinguish the indicative and subjunctive moods. The word-final -s and -ft, however, are completely regular (due to morphophonological processes turning -bs to -fs to -s, and -bt to -ft).

Preterite-present verbs
Preterite-present verbs are an unusual class of verbs. Their present forms are conjugated as if they were the strong past forms, while their past forms are formed similarly to weak verbs. They typically do not possess imperative forms

Conjugation of kunnan:

This verb is unusual; even in Old Blylandic, the weak dental suffix was absorbed into the nasal. Hence its different forms are only distinguished by umlaut.

Conjugation of witten:

This is also an unusual verb; the dental suffix is assibilated even in Proto-Germanic, but the dental stop re-emerged word-finally at some point in the language's development, leaving the -st ~ -ss- alternation.

Conjugation of skullen

Irregular verbs
Conjugation of wessen:

In archaic language, one may still find forms such as ek em (I am), þu irt (thou art) and þu wast (thou wast) where the modern language has ek is, þu is and þu was, respectively.

Conjugation of don:

Conjugation of gan: