Old Blylandic language

The Old Blylandic language (Old Blylandic: bliiwalęndisku tunga, Blylandic: ald blyylęnsk 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.

Orthography
Some of the earliest Old Blylandic texts were written in Blylandic futhork, an expanded version of the Elder Futhark that was used sparingly during the Proto-Blylandic period. Later, in c. 750, the Latin script was introduced.

Normalised orthography
Because Old Blylandic spelling conventions differed between scribes, a normalised orthography is generally used when studying old texts. In general, it is based on the modern Blylandic alphabet.

The following letters are used: Additionally, the letter &lt;ä&gt; is used to indicate /ai̯/, /æi̯/ or /ɑi̯/ before /w/. Doubled letters indicate long vowels and geminate consonants. &lt;é&gt; is rare, and typically marks unstressed /e/ (as opposed to stressed /e/, which is always written &lt;e&gt; as /ə/ cannot be stressed). The use of &lt;x&gt; is rare. Earlier transliterations paired &lt;q&gt; with &lt;u&gt; to form &lt;qu&gt;; however, this digraph is no longer used in contemporary transliterations.

The following digraphs are used (excluding long vowels/geminates): There are also the trigraphs &lt;hlj&gt; (/ʎ̥/, /ʎ̝̊/) and &lt;hnj&gt; (/ɲ̊/).

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.

In very early texts, traces of a locative case can be found. In the singular the strong declensional classes merged the locative and dative singular forms, while the other declensional classes often distinguish it. In the plural the a-stem declension used -ęr as the ending, the u-stem declension used -ur with u-umlaut, the ō-, i- and r-stem declensions used the same form as that used by the genitive singular, while the other declensions used -r/-s/-n (an-stem -an, ōn-stem -on, īn-stem -in, z-stem -is with i-umlaut, consonant stem -s/-er with u-umlaut). Not all locative forms are attested.

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: The u-stems exhibit umlaut, and in the genitive plural, also exhibit palatalisation. 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.

There is one irregular noun in this declensional class (aar/ęęr "copper, ore"):

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 and locative plural endings may either be -er or -s, depending on whether the stem ends in a voiceless obstruent (in which case -s is used). 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: Note that the vocative forms listed above are rarely, if ever, used outside of strong-only adjectives. Typically adjectives modifying noun phrases in the vocative use the weak declension.

The weak declension is as follows:

In all cases, adverbs are formed using the neuter genitive singular (of the strong declension, where applicable), with four exceptions (the adverbial form of gooder "good" is wel, the adverbial form of ybiler "bad, evil" is identical to its comparative form, and the adverbial forms of superlatives replace the -ist- or -ost- with -est; comparative adverbs are mentioned below). The strong neuter genitive singular is also used when the adjective is used as a predicate. Comparatives are generally formed by adding -iro to the adjective (and applying umlaut if applicable), while superlatives use -ister (which also induces umlaut). Some adjectives use -oro and -oster instead to form their comparatives and superlatives.

All comparatives, present participles and ordinal numerals (with the exception of fyrister "first" and annarer "second, other", the latter being strong only, and þrizo "third", whose declension is slightly irregular) decline as follows: Unlike with normal adjectives, comparatives form their adverbs by replacing the -ir- or -or- with -er (e.g. bętiro "better" becomes bęter), with a few exceptions.

The ordinal numeral þrizo deviates slightly from this declension, through the use of palatalisation rather than umlaut to distinguish between the two stems:

Historically, present participles had a different declension:

By the 11th century, only one adjective (sanns "true") displayed this declension. It is considerably irregular: This adjective is not to be confused with the noun syndi ("sin"), with which it shares the same etymology.

By the 13th century, even this adjective had largely regularised, but adapting both strong and weak endings. However, it still retains its umlauted feminine form (sęnn-) even in the modern day.

Irregular adjectives
The following adjectives are irregular:

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: Note that the typical /ij/ → /j/ sound change does not affect the þrij- forms, as */θɾj/ is a forbidden onset.

The cardinal numerals from 4 to 13 decline as follows: The numerals from 14 to 19 decline identically to the numeral for 13. Note that unlike the numerals 1 to 3, these use the neuter forms as the lemma rather than the masculine/feminine (with the declined forms for all numerals above four being an innovation).

The numerals from 14 to 19 are as follows:

Cardinal numerals 20 and greater are syntactically nouns, rather than determiners, meaning that the noun it modifies must be declined in the genitive plural.

The form of the decades varies with dialect, with the Lobehaben and Widberg dialects differing in their formation.

In the Lobehaben dialect, the decades are suffixed with a variant of -hund- (not to be confused with hundarat "hundred"), which is neuter. It declines as follows:

The decades are listed below:

In the Widberg dialect, the decades are suffixed with -tigir, which declines as a masculine u-stem plural noun:

The decades are listed below: One should note that for 20, 30 and 40 the twee, þriir and födor decline as if they were separate (with i-umlaut affecting twęę, giving twee and twęnn; the locative of tweetigir is presumed to be *twöörutigur).

The cardinal numeral hundarat (100) is declined as follows: Even though the singular form is semantically plural, it is still considered "singular" in the grammar, and thus determiners, adjectives and verbs that agree with it take the singular. This only applies to 100; additive compounds always take plural agreement. Multiples are denoted by a numeral directly preceding hundarat declined as a neuter (e.g. twoo hundaradu "two hundred").

The cardinal numeral þuusundi (1000) is declined as follows: Like hundarat, this numeral's singular form, despite being semantically plural, is grammatically singular. Multiples use preceding numerals in their feminine forms (e.g. twoor þuusundor).

The ordinal numerals are listed below:

Personal pronouns
Old Blylandic has personal pronouns in the first and second person; demonstratives are used for the third person. Unlike all other nouns and pronouns, which only have singular and plural forms, personal pronouns also possess dual forms, which refer to exactly two referents. Personal pronouns do not distinguish gender.

The "genitive" forms listed above are actually possessive pronouns, which decline as strong adjectives. The locative forms given above are reconstructed except for the reflexive (which is attested once); the singular is based off the reflexive, while the dual and plural forms are assumed to use the usual locative plural suffix.

Interrogatives
There are three sets of interrogative pronouns. The first, the general interrogative, is declined as follows: This pronoun is highly defective, and possesses only singular forms, even if the referent is known to be plural. Predictably, it lacks a vocative. There are no attested feminine forms (which would be *hwoo, *hwon, *hwerur, *hwerę and *hweru).

The other two interrogative pronouns are hwęrer (which of many) and hwaþarer (which of two), which both decline as strong adjectives.

Demonstratives
There are three levels of demonstratives in Old Blylandic. The existence of a demonstrative in a noun phrase forces the use of the weak adjective declension for adjectives that can be declined in the weak declension.

The following is the proximal demonstrative:

The following is the medial demonstrative: This can also be used as a definite article.

The distal demonstrative jęęner declines as a strong adjective.

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. Many verbs also have third person present passive forms, which even by the time of Old Blylandic have become archaic (the preferred way to form passives is to suffix the verb with -sik). Non-third person passive forms in the entire Old Blylandic corpus are extremely rare, although one prominent non-third person passive form in the corpus is hęętę ("I am called"), which is itself a fossilisation (the typical first person singular form would be *-amę, based on Runic Blylandic -amai).

Strong verbs
Strong verbs are a large, but closed class of verbs in Old Blylandic. They form their past tense via ablaut or reduplication.

The following is a typical example of a strong verb:

There are several classes of strong verbs, which possess five or six principal parts. The ablauting classes are listed below: For some categories, the past participle may either have /o/ or /u/. The vowel used is dependent on the consonant(s) following it. Not shown are possible consonant alternations (e.g. fennan, finnis, fann vs. fanst, funden), although they can be figured out from the principal parts (in particular, /z/ solely originates from palatalised /d/).

The reduplicating classes are listed below: Note that the reduplicating classes only have five principal parts, instead of the six possessed by the ablauting classes.

Weak verbs
The weak verbs represent a class of verbs whose past tense forms end in a dental suffix (as opposed to being marked by ablaut or reduplication, as with the strong verbs). There are several classes of weak verbs, distinguished only by how they form their past tense. The verb hęban, while weak, is considered to be irregular due to its anomalous present tense.

The conjugation of a typical weak verb is as follows:

There are two general classes of weak verbs, distinguished by their infinitive: Weak verbs only have three principal parts; all past forms can be derived from the past participle.

There are a few verbs which do not fit into this classification. These include the suffixless weak verbs (e.g. bringan/bringis/braahter). While they are not classified into one of the two main classes, they are still considered regular.

Preterite-present verbs
The preterite-present verbs are a small group of verbs whose present forms resemble the past forms of the strong verbs. Their past forms are conjugated as weak verbs. They do not have passive or imperative forms.

The following is an example conjugation of a preterite-present verb:

The following preterite-present verbs are attested in Old Blylandic: Preterite-present verbs, like reduplicating strong verbs, have five principal parts. However, their set of principal parts is different, to account for their anomalous present tense.

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.

In Old Blylandic, the first forms given were predominatly used. The forms beginning with b- occurred more often in older forms of the language, and were used to express permanent truths (similar to how beon was used in Old English). The forms swar, stir, sumer and ste were rare throughout the entire Old Blylandic corpus.

Related is the verb mesan, the negative copula, and is used to negate verbs when combined with the infinitive: This is derived from ni + wesan. The particle ni itself, however, is archaic even in Old Blylandic in its role as a verbal negator. The forms nissur, nister, nissumer and nist were rare throughout the entire Old Blylandic corpus.

Neither wesan nor mesan may be used as an existential, nor used to indicate the location of a subject. The verbs oran and njoran are used instead.

The verb doon ("to do") is irregular:

The verb gaan ("to go") is irregular:

The verb wilan ("to want") has a weak past tense, but its present forms are irregular.

The verb hęban ("to have", auxillary) is the only remaining class 3 weak verb in Old Blylandic: It is considered to be an irregular verb because it retains irregular present conjugations, but it has an otherwise regular past tense.

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.