In English and German, there are quotable sources stating that strong/irregular conjugation is not productive, I.e. no new verbs that enter these languages will be strong. Is there a quotable source for this in Swedish, or is it not the case? The quote can be in any language, I’d just like to see if one exists!
I have created a Swedish Verb conjugation Android app.
Hi guys! As the Swedish verbs can be a bit tricky I have made an app to practice them, if the verb is missing you can add the verb even and make your own practice cards with your preferable translation.
Hard to explain all the stuff without the need of writing a book :p Check out this video Verb Mate - Youtube If you have time after you tried it, please fill this questionary what you think should be next Survey Monkey Survey. So I know what I should focus on! :)
You can either practice verbs in sentences (Up to 5 different) so you learn how to use it in a phrase or you can focus on the verbs directly.
I will try to describe as short as possible. * You can make your own practice cards a phrase that holds up to 5 different verbs and their tenses. * You can choose between 3 different inputs (cards with random tenses, random words of the correct tense or normal keyboard). * You can follow statistics on your cards % correct, points, and streak, so you can see what verbs you have problem with. * Offer different modes of practice, only discard when correct, always or never. (on the fly) * works offline * free
I've been abusing the crap out of verbix to learn some conjugations, but I'm looking for something on nouns? Also Swedish learners feel free to add me.
Where's a good place to learn Swedish verb conjugations?
My friend has been teaching me Swedish since March, but I'm having trouble with verb conjugations. Is there anywhere where I can learn Swedish verb conjugations online?
Hej. Right now I’m reading the original Swedish version of Nils Holgerssons Underbara Resa Genom Sverige, and I keep coming across a verb conjugation I’ve never seen before. Basically the ending -o is added to the stem. An example sentence from the book: “For hans skull flögo de också litet långsammare än vanligt” (17). I’ve managed to translate based on context, but I’m still very confused about this conjugation. I noticed that this form tends to be used after prepositions, but why not just write flög? I’ve never learned this before. Or maybe it’s not relevant to modern Swedish anymore and I’m freaking out for no good reason, but I’m still curious if anyone knows. Tack
How do I improve my Swedish from my Svengelska and gather more Swedish vocabulary?
I'm from Hong Kong and I just began my first year in university. I have been in touch with Swedish since I was just a 12-year-old kid. Previously as a mellanstadium student I have learnt a bit of French but I did not continue. Later, with only Wikipedia, Wiktionary and Wikiversity, the first thing I did was learning all the declensions and conjugations (for example:en modig hjältinna pratar, flera modiga hjältinnor pratade, den modiga hjältinnan har pratat, de modiga hjältinnorna ska prata), as well as A-Ö and 1 to 1 000 000. I had no problems pronouncing the sj-sound and know about soft/hard vowels and some exceptions (e.g. Kiruna is pronounced with a hard K while Kista is pronounced with a soft K, kör means choir when pronounced with a hard K but driving when pronounced with a soft K), and I can vary the word order. Since I've been trained in English since I was 1 year old (for your reference, I have 8.5 in IELTS Reading and Listening), I learnt Swedish from English, and since a major portion of Swedish vocabulary have cognates in English, I often tend to speak what is called "Svengelska" - What sounds like Swedish but with kinda excessive anglicisms and English-style verb-preposition patterns (e.g. attackera, arrivera, posta, duplicera, revanschera, intresserad i). I know that attackera is proper Swedish as stipulated on svenska.se, but I thought anfalla would be more proper Swedish. I also find myself to be in a lack of genuine Swedish vocabulary. Earlier during högstadium and gymnasium I tried to gather some Swedish vocabulary by watching svtplay.se 's news programs and by following some Swedish Instagram accounts (note that I used to watch Aktuellt, not that news session in easy Swedish which only started in 2019). I have also set my phone's language to Swedish since I was 12 years old. I also got myself familiar with Swedish TV channels, since I grew tired of watching TVB (TVB in Hong Kong is like RTL in Luxembourg). And with this, that means I listen to Melodifestivalen songs as well, such as "Främling" and "Diggiloo Diggiley". Later when I finished my university entrance exams in May, I decided to look for some Swedish anime. And I found out that sailormoon, first aired in 1996 on TV4, was the first anime to be telecast on Swedish TV. I later discovered that there are more Swedish-dubbed anime before Sailor Moon like Starzinger and Silver Fang, but they would not and did not air on SVT, which was in state monopoly at the time. I have been watching Sailor Moon since September and now I'm up to Episode 30. I've got loads of vocabulary from the series, and I checked each word's meaning and examples on the Swedish Academy Dictionary. For verbs, there are besudla, utplåna, låtsas, nappa, koka ihop, åkalla, etc.\ For nouns, there are skråma, tönt, vits, avsikt, förtvivlan, etc.\ For adjectives, there are äkta, klok, läskig, begåvande, skör, etc. None of the above words sound like svengelska now. Sailor Moon introduced to me colloquial Swedish that I couldn't find on Aktuellt, but I believe there are much more sources I can learn genuine Swedish from. TT's page about svengelska is one of them. Are there any other good sources?
I just started learning infinitive verbs. With the exception of the suffix, they all seem to be the same as regular verbs. How do I know when to use an infinitive compared to a normal? What actually is an infinitive verb, anyway?
I often struggle to look up the past tense or supinum forms of verbs, I was wondering if anyone knows any good resources for this? For example, say I know the verb "att leta" and I want to remember how to say "I have searched", is it "jag har letat"? How do I modify the verb? It's not always easy to google.
Estonian is one of the rare European languages that are not Indo-European. Estonian is a Uralic language, in the Finnic branch. It is spoken in Estonia by about 1.1 to 1.3 million people, most of them natively. It is the official language of Estonia and therefore one of the official languages of the European Union.
History
Estonian has a long history like many others. It is not fully clear how it came about but it seems that it is mostly a combination of different Baltic Sea Finnic languages that were around. These formed over time the Northern and Southern Estonian languages. But it is important to point out that nobody is fully sure what tribal languages influenced which. We do know that these tribes migrated to the region in multiple waves so it took a while. Northern Estonian later developed into the Estonian language of today, though some southern elements remain and there is a specific dialect as well. Võro is a still existing dialect that is spoken in the most Southern part of Estonia. Estonians did not develop writing in time so the first records we have were from the Chronicles of Henry of Livonia who accompanied the Germanic knights in conquering the lands. This time is also thought to be the era of biggest developments in the language. Still, there was no writing as the locals were subjugated to serfdom and German was the main language (along with Latin). When the land was conquered by the post-reformation Swedes in the 16th century, this triggered more focus on the language and the first proper language examples in writing are also from that era. During the Swedish era, the two Estonian languages were also brought together and literature started developing. Proper language development into a modern language with literature, authors and ideas was during the 18th-19th century when Estonians started focusing on identity and possible independence. Language has continued to develop during the 20th century as it has moved away from the Germanic writing style and incorporated more international elements.
Phonology and orthography
Estonian uses the Latin alphabet but with some additions, mostly umlauts of varying kinds. Estonian has nine different vowels and a complicated set of diphthongs, 28 are native Estonian. The vowel sounds a, e, i, o, u, ö and ü are similar mostly to their Swedish or German counterparts. Ä is similar to Swedish ä. All umlauts are separate phonemes. There is also the letter õ which denotes /ɤ/, unrounded /o/. Most similar is the Russian ы. Consonants are typical Latin letters with some additions and this is where some of the confusion happens. Estonian uses multiple alphabet lists, one fully local, one foreign and sometimes one in between. Letters like c, q, w, x and y are only in proper names of foreign origin. Letters like f, z, š and ž are in loanwords and foreign names. These are considered to be foreign letters. The umlaut consonants are mostly due to Russian influence as Russian utilizes so many similar ones. Estonian orthography is phonemically based, graphemes and phonemes matching. There are some exceptions to that, the bdg-kpt pronunciation is often misleading. Sometimes š and ž are replaced by sh and zh if needed but that would be incorrect. A speaking example (news) A speaking example (a very casual interview from the news)
Grammar
No sex-no future! Nouns Estonian nouns do not have grammatical gender and also have no articles. But on the other hand, they decline in 14 cases! This includes the usual (nominative, genitive, partitive) but also six different locative cases (interior and exterior) and five other (translative, terminative, essive, abessive, comitative). Each case comes in both singular and plural and affects both nouns and adjectives. Cases usually present in suffixes but sometimes also change the core of the word (nom: uks (door), gen: ukse, par: ust). There are of course rules to the core word changes but there are over 100 word types so mastering all the cases is difficult. Pronouns Like nouns, Estonian pronouns have no gender. He and she are both tema (or ta for short). There is no indication of gender anywhere else in the pronounce either. There are six personal pronouns, each also declining. There are also reflective, demonstrative, interrogative, existential, free choice and universal pronouns, each also declining. Verbs Verbs have multiple moods and voices but to make it simple, let’s focus on the basics. Estonian verbs conjugate in 6 persons (i, you singular, he/she, we, you plural, they) and verbs have a present, past and perfect form. The perfect form does not conjugate. There are multiple infinitives (- da and - ma infinitive) and many other forms. There is no future tense (no sex, no future!). The verb conjugation is mostly rule-based but there are extreme cases where the whole word changes. The verb minema (to go) is possibly the worst example. Minema – ma infinitive Minna – da infinitive Ma lähen – I go; sa lähed – you go, ta läheb – he/she goes, me läheme – we go, te lähete – you go, nad lähevad – they go. And then the past: ma läksin, sa läksid, ta läks, me läksime, te läksite, nad läksid But don’t worry, other ones are not as bad. More on grammar for those who are interested
Well, this looks difficult...
Yes, Estonian is one of those languages that are difficult to master for the outsider as there is a lot of grammar. I am a native speaker but I study Finnish and now I see the problem. On the upside, Estonians are welcoming when people try to learn their language and there are some simple things as well, word order is very forgiving, no gendered words and the suffixes are doable. And the language is quite pretty (if I do say so myself) If you want to get started on learning, here is a good link. Feel free to ask more questions in the comments and if something seems off, let me know! Previous LOTWs
I need to learn a language, enough that I can follow basic conversations in the next month, and achieve fluency in the next three years. I don't really mind which language it is, as long as it is spoken by at least 20 - 25 million people, and something that isn't so hard to acquire because I would only have to study for 30 mins to an hour every weekday. I already speak English, Russian, And Tagalog (all N, mom is Russian, dad is Filipino, and growing up in a major city here in the Philippines you also learn English by default).
My first choice was Korean, but the only tutor we could find backed out. Then it was Spanish. I kind of hit a wall with verb conjugations, but the real problem was lack of interest with the language. My heart just isn't in on it. (Lack of interest with Spanish, not lack of motivation to learn a new language. If it has to be Spanish then I would of course stick with it) So any suggestions? Nothing too complex, spoken by at least 20 million people, has enough resources online.
Also I'm kind of having trouble pronouncing my R. Like, it comes out as an H, maybe an RH. I could form a rrrr like I'm growling without a G, but I have to put some effort into it. On quick casual relaxed speech my R comes out like an H. Just something to consider.
Languages I'm currently eyeing are Afrikaans (not sure if it meets the population cut), Swedish, Dutch, Japanese (but IDK if Kanji + the language itself is enough for the time that I have), Norwegian. Maybe French? But also feel free to suggest something else.
Motivation to learn the language isn't a problem, because I'm required to do it (long story, family shit). Thanks a lot
Ærsk: The Phonology and Etymological Orthography of a Nordic West Germanic language
For ad werþe zen nýe Mannen, bez mann hæbbe allhjarted. [ɸɔɾ ɑ ˈɰɛrːs̪ə ʃɲ̩ ˈnœʏ̯ːjə ˈmɑnːn̩ bəʃ ˈmɑnː ˈʃæbːə ˌɑlːˈʃɑrːtə] for to become-inf the.m.sg new-def.m.sg Manne-the.m.sg be.fut.sg man.sg have-inf all-heart-def.n.sg "To become God, you have to walk in everyone's shoes." - Erish proverb
Erish (ærsk), an a posteriori West Germanic artlang, isn't the first constructed language I've worked on, but it is the first one I can say has come to a point where it is presentable. The concept is that, in the conworld, Erish arises from Proto-West Germanic nearby North Germanic languages as they arise from Proto-Norse, and is still in a sort of sprachbund with them. Intelligibility, particularly in speech, is hampered by Erish's own innovations, especially phonologically. Here, I would like to provide a summary of the closest thing to a standard Erish pronunciation, as well as an account of the orthography, as its depth tells a bit about the changes that Erish has undergone. With each, I'll give a snippet about the goals I had going into them, as well as feedback questions I myself have - Erish is and will always be a work-in-progress. I am greatly indebted to a variety of resources, so I will provide several of them at the end of this post and the others that may follow it, as well as a concluding gloss.
Phonology
Most Erish speakers simply use their own dialects when speaking, up to and including the King or Queen. The pronunciation taught to foreigners, as well as the one used in national broadcasting, is that of Hamnstead, which was the city where radio broadcasting first developed in Erishland, and which is still a center of national media. The Hamnstead dialect is a Western dialect close enough to Southern dialects that its phonology is sort of a mixture of the two groups, plus its own quirks. Goals Personally, this phonology is my attempt at creating one reminiscent of the older stages of Germanic languages, but which feels plausibly modern and plausible in a place where North Germanic contact and influence continues into present. A bit of a summary and highlights of what that means:
The vowels, especially as phonemes, are not too dissimilar from contemporary and historic relatives, as Germanic languages were and are known for their many vowels.
Hamnstead Erish doesn't have the /ɵ,ʉː/ of Southern Erish dialects, but the realization of /eː,øː,oː/ is similar to the Norwegian and Old Norse diphthongs. They even sort of correspond, but with the asterisk that they also correspond to Norwegian /iː,yː,ʉː/ and /eː,øː,oː/.
The consonants may seem more akin to Spanish than Swedish, though in my view, it's a blend of the latter and Gothic. I do give props to the interpretation of Spanish /ɾ/ being ungeminated / for Erish /'s allophony, though.
Word-initial /ɕ,j,ɧ/ in Swedish corresponds to /t͡ʃ,ʝ,ʃ/ in Erish; /ʝ/ is similar phonetically to Old English /j/. However, one word with Erish initial /ʝ/ also corresponds to Swedish /h/; initial /ʃ/ also corresponds to many Swedish /h/'s, and even a few /d/'s.
Many of the apparent archaisms are actually re-innovations. Why cling to an old way of pronunciation when a change closer to present day can plausibly re-introduce something similar?
Case in point: Is the [β] allophone of /b/ you lenited decades ago hard to distinguish from the /v/ you and your neighboring languages have had for centuries? Just merge /v/ with /b/!
The only notable phonological archaisms of Hamnstead Erish, to my knowledge, are that there is still a short /æ/ from i-umlauted /a/ (something uncommon even among Erish dialects), and that Proto-Germanic *h is still pronounced as /x/ where it hasn't merged with other phonemes.
There's /ɣ/ as well, but Dutch and Low German also preserve it. It's also a bit misleading, since /ɣ/ is actually /ɰ/. The /ɣ/ transcription is used for consistency with what otherwise varies between /ɣ/, /ɰ/, and /w/ between dialects.
Vowels Hamnstead Erish has a rather bland vowel inventory for an Erish dialect. About the only notable feature, phonemically speaking, is that there is still a short /æ/ distinct from /ɛ/, though that's typical of Western dialects. Phonetically, though, the story's a bit more complicated - Hamnstead Erish is amongst the few dialects that can be argued to, in some limited way, preserve most of the original Old Erish diphthongs, and has re-innovated a very limited form of allophonic u-umlaut.
Front unrounded
Front rounded
Back
Close
ɪ • iː
ʏ • yː
ʊ • uː
Mid
ɛ • eː
œ • øː
ɔ • oː
Open
æ • æː
ɑ • ɑː
The short vowels are phonetic monophthongs
The close vowels are near-close [ɪ,ʏ,ʊ]
The mid-front vowels, especially /ɛ/, are mid-front [ɛ̝,œ̝]; /œ/ may also be open-mid [œ̝]
/ɛ/ in unstressed syllables is generally [ə], though broadcasters tend towards using an [ɛ̠]
The mid-back vowel is either open-mid [ɔ] or, less often, mid [ɔ̝]
In unstressed syllables, it may be realized as a retracted, raised [ɞ̟˔], but this is far less common than the [ə] realization of /ɛ/. This may have to do with unstressed /ɔ/ always being morphologically associated with some marked feature, namely the feminine gender, neuter plural, and plural subject of the past tense.
The open front vowel may be near-open [æ] or open [a]
The open back vowel in regular syllables may vary between completely unrounded open back [ɑ], or a very weakly rounded [ɑ̜]
/ɑ/ is fully rounded to [ɒ] if a following syllable contains /ɔ,ʊ/, or the allophone [ɒ]
The long vowels /iː,uː/ are phonetic monophthongs [iː,uː]
/ɑː/ is phonetically a monophthong, but may be raised [ɑ̝ː], and follows the allophonic rounding pattern of its short counterpart
All other long vowels are realized as diphthongs
The mid-vowels /eː,øː,oː/ are realized as closing diphthongs [ɛɪ̯ː,œʏ̯ː,ɔʊ̯ː], or [eɪ̯ː,øʏ̯ː,oʊ̯ː]
/yː,æː/ are realized as backing diphthongs [yʉ̯ː,æɐ̯ː]
Consonants Hamnstead Erish, like most Erish dialects, has a consonant inventory that is phonemically similar to the Nordic languages, but the allophony of these consonants is less so. Voiced stops regularly lenit to approximants that devoice and fricate word-finally; this leads to the notorious "Erish hiss". Notable aspects of Hamnstead's phonology are the merger of /ʂ/ and /ɕ/ into /ʃ/, a change which is common but still absent in Southern dialects, and that /ɣ/ is a velar approximant, instead of the labiovelar common to Western dialects.
Vclss. labial
Vcd. labial
Vclss. coronal
Vcd. coronal
Vclss. palatal
Vcd. palatal
Vclss. velar
Vcd. velar
Nasal
m
n
ɲ
ŋ
Stops
p
b
t
d
t͡ʃ
(d͡ʒː)
k
(gː)
Cntnts.
f
(β)
s
(ð)
ʃ
ʝ
x
ɣ
Laterals
l
ʎ
Trill
r
The nasals are generally realized as [m,n,ɲ̟,ŋ], with the palatal and nasal being inherently geminate. Before a coronal obstruent, they are typically realized as [ɱ,n̪,ɲ̟,ŋ].
After a syllable initial voiceless obstruent, /n,ɲ/ are voiceless [n̥,ɲ̟̊].
Unstressed, word-final /ɛm,ɛn/ are commonly realized as syllabic [m̩,n̩].
Unstressed sequences of /ʃɛn/ and sometimes /t͡ʃɛn/ may be realized as [ʃɲ̩,t͡ʃɲ̩]
Similar to many other Germanic languages, the voiceless stops /p,t,t͡ʃ,k/ are realized as aspirated [pʰ,t̪ʰ,t͡ʃʰ,kʰ] in stressed onsets if they are not preceded by a sibilant.
The voiced stops /b,d/ are plosive [b,d̪] if they are morpheme initial, geminated, or post-nasal. Elsewhere, they lenit to the approximants [β̞, ð̞], which devoice and spirantize word-finally to /f,s/.
The process of /d/ to /s/, in tandem with /ʝ/ to /ʃ/, is a well-known feature of Erish phonology. Uneducated Erish speakers using other languages may apply it, making the "Erish hiss".
The voiced continuants /ʝ,ɣ/ are approximants [j,ɰ]; when geminated, they harden to stops [d͡ʒː,gː]. Similar to the voiced stops, the approximants devoice and spirantize to /ʃ,x/ word-finally.
In emphatic speech, or speech mimicking Eastern dialects, the phonemic and allophonic voiced continuants may be pronounced as [β,ð,ʝ,ɣ], though never with the same frication as the voiceless continuants.
The voiceless continuants /f,s,ʃ,x/ are consistently realized with strong constriction as [ɸ,s̪,ʃ,x].
Some dialects have free variation in the realization of /f/ from [ɸ] to [f], and a few consistently realize it as the labiodental /f/.
After a voiced stop, /f/ is realized as [v], which usually has less frication than the voiceless allophone, but is not an approximant like the phonemic voiced continuants.
The coronal lateral /l/ is normally realized as [l], but when in contact with /t,d,s/, it is laminal denti-alveolar [l̪].
After a voiceless consonant, it is voiceless [l̥~l̪̊].
The palatal lateral /ʎ/ is a traditional phoneme of Erish, but younger generations outside of the South have begun to merge it with /ʝ/. It is realized as an alveolo-palatal [ʎ̟].
After a voiceless consonant, it is voiceless [ʎ̥˖].
The trill / is realized as a full trill morpheme-initially or when geminated; in other contexts, it is an alveolar tap [ɾ].
After a voiceless consonant, it is voiceless [ɾ̥].
Unstressed, word-final /ɛ is commonly realized as [ɐ].
As described throughout, the coronal obstruents /t,d,s/ are dental [t̪,d̪,s̪]. Other dialects may use an alveolar realization [t,d,s].
Before /k/, /s/ is usually alveolar [s].
The palatal and velar obstruents /t͡ʃ,ʃ,ʝ,k,ɣ,x/ are all allophonically rounded to [Ḱʷ,Kʷ] before rounded vowels.
All consonant onsets and codas above, excluding zero consonants
If hiatus occurs, /j/ is inserted if the first vowel is front; if back, /ɣ/ is inserted.
Nasal + obstruent: mb
Lateral + obstruent: lb, lɣ
Trill + nasal: rŋ
Trill + obstruent: rb, rʝ, rɣ
All stressed syllables are inherently heavy - if there is no long vowel, the first consonant to follow is geminated. Neither long vowels nor geminates may occur in unstressed syllables. Prosody Like most other Germanic languages, the most common syllable to be stressed is the first (and often only) of a given word. Loanwords can follow different patterns, but a rule of thumb is that the syllable before the last consonant of a root is the one to be stressed. Feedback Questions Questions I personally have are:
For those familiar with the phonologies of older Germanic languages as well as Proto-Germanic, does the consonant system seem like a good "modern version" of that type of phonology?
Is it a good idea to leave all long vowels other than /ɑː,iː,uː/ as phonetic diphthongs? Would it take a short time before the diphthong allophones become phonemes of their own, or would they remain stable?
I'm fairly comfortable with /ʝ/ devoicing and spirantizing to /ʃ/ word-finally because there are direct attestations of such final-obstruent devoicing, but is it plausible for /d/ to similarly go to /s/?
Does anybody have a resource that consistently gives phonemic transcriptions of Swedish, Norwegian, and Danish words, especially regarding pitch-accent/stod?
Orthography & History
Erish is written with the standard 26 letters of the Latin alphabet and the additional letters þ, æ, and œ. Unfortunately, pronunciation cannot be succinctly described for Hamnstead Erish because the orthography is fairly etymological, essentially reflecting the pronunciation of Old Erish with a few simplifications and updates. It is, though, fairly regular, and the hope of Jugar Raskson, the father of modern Erish orthography, was that the written language would let as many people as possible derive their own pronunciation from the spelling. Goals Erish orthography is essentially fighting two battles: the battle to modernize spelling and keep the rules as regular as possible, and the battle to keep important cultural and religious texts from the Old Erish period as intelligible as possible. I've looked at Icelandic and Faroese for inspiration, but also incorporated principles from languages with less orthographic depth.
As will be seen, Erish orthography is more than willing to keep native spellings a millennium old. It is less concerned about loanwords, which may be mangled to keep regularity.
With no small amount of resistance from traditionalists, many old graphemes have either been dropped or restricted in usage. Joches "horses", for example, used to be spelled johves.
The use of the letter k for /k,t͡ʃ/ is actually fairly recent; the traditional letter in Erish was c, and this is still seen in the basic long forms of k, g, and h being ck, cg, and ch.
Similarly, the use of w is a modernism; v was used for both itself and w, and this is still seen in the spellings of Cv clusters.
Erish tries as much as it can to avoid diacritics and special characters, so it makes use of every letter of the Latin alphabet as a regular part of its orthography.
The accented vowels are there because digraphed vowels would suggest vowels in hiatus or perhaps even long vowels.
The letters æ and œ are used along with þ more or less out of in-universe tradition.
Vowels The following table presents the pronunciation of vowel graphemes in Erish. Note that the "jV" digraphs are only pronounced in this way if the j is word-initial or can soften a preceding consonant:
Letter(s)
a
e, í, eì, aì
i
o, á, ú, aù, où
u, ó
y
æ, já
œ, jó, jú, ý, oì, eù
Short
/ɑ/
/ɛ/
/ɪ/
/ɔ/
/ʊ/
/ʏ/
/æ/
/œ/
Long
/ɑː/
/eː/
/iː/
/oː/
/uː/
/yː/
/æː/
/øː/
The long vowels are only used if the vowel is stressed and followed by no more than a single consonant; when there is a long vowel before multiple consonants, an apostrophe is inserted after the first consonant, as in gód't "good (n.)" /ˈɣuːst/. In all other cases, the short vowels are used.
Several common grammatical words are pronounced in common speech with a short vowel, such as jis "ye" [jɪs], mostly because they are unstressed.
The grave accented letters ì and ù are used to represent the second element of potential diphthongs in Erish dialects that arose from loanwords. In Hamnstead Erish, they are simply (phonemically) monophthongs.
Because it is impossible for vowels to stand in hiatus, any sequence where two vowels stand in hiatus, such as fríen "free" /ˈfreːʝɛn/, is treated as though a g stood between the two vowels.
The accented letters correspond to Old Erish /aː,iː,oː,uː,yː/, which shifted during the Middle Erish period. In the Hamnstead dialect, /aː,oː/ shifted to /ɔ~oː,ʊ~uː/.
/iː,uː,yː/ merged with the Old Erish diphthongs /ɛi̯,ɔu̯,œy̯/, and then later monophthongized to /ɛ~eː,ɔ~oː,œ~øː/
The demonstrative pronouns zó "this, that (f.)", zád "this, that (n.)", zós "these, those (f.)", zóm "these, those (dat.)" are written with acute accents, but their sound value is that of the unaccented letter. This is done to distinguish them from the definite article.
The Old Erish glides /jaː,joː,juː/ became /æː,øː,yː/, so long as the /j/ didn't palatalize the preceding consonant and wasn't word-initial; this /yː/ would go through the process described above,
Consonants To keep Erish consonants simple, and as allophony has already been covered, their transcription here is phonemic. In educational materials for Erish, consonants are generally divided into four groups, plain, strong, weak, and the letter g, which are grouped based on whether and how they can soften. Basic rules about consonants include:
Consonants are long if they are not word-initial, and they are doubled, their grapheme is composed of more than one letter, or they precede another consonant without an intervening apostrophe.
The one exception is qu, which is treated like a short consonant for both consonant and vowel length.
Several consonants can also become fricatives word-finally if they are short.
Before another d, s, t, frication may also occur, with the resulting consonant, in line with pronunciation rules, being long or short.
Plain consonants Plain consonants are so-called because they cannot soften under any circumstances.
Letter(s)
Hard
Fricative
b
/b/ binde "to bind" /ˈbɪnːdɛ/
/f/ lab "lab(oratory)" /ˈlɑːf/
f
/f/ faþer "father" /ˈfɑːsɛ
m
/m/ móte "must" /ˈmuːtɛ/
ng
/ŋ/ wing "wing" /ˈɣɪŋː/
p
/p/ pá "on" /ˈpoː/
r
/ rotte "rat" /ˈrɔtːɛ/
v
/b/ virus "virus" /ˈbiːrʊs/
/f/ livte "lived" /ˈlɪfːtɛ/
V may also represent /f/ after a consonant, such as in tves "two" /ˈtfeːs/, as least in Hamnstead Erish. Erish dialects generally vary between this v representing /f/, /w/ (the original Old Erish value), or /x/.
V otherwise reflects non-initial instances of Old Erish /f/, which was realized as [v], and later became its own phoneme. When /b/ began to be lenited to [β] around the 1700s, this facilitated the merger of /v/ with /b/ (as well as the shift of /f/ to [ɸ]).
Strong consonants Strong consonants are "strong" enough it takes a j or z to soften them. Because strong consonants are long when softened and non-initial, they lack soft fricative forms. They include the coronal consonants which got palatalized to retroflex consonants, though z was retroflex for most of Erish history. The retroflex spellings tend not to occur in modern loanwords unless Henskland adopts a retroflex form; it's the only Land left that hasn't merged the retroflex consonants with the palatals.
Letter(s)
Hard
Soft
Fricative
d
/d/ dœr "door" /ˈdøː
/ʝ/ bedje "to ask" /ˈbɛʝːɛ/
/s/ sæd "seed" /ˈsæːs/
l
/l/ láte "to let" /ˈloːtɛ/
/ʎ/ ljúht "light" /ˈʎɔxːt/
n
/n/ naht "night" /ˈnɑxːt/
/ɲ/ hænje "to hang" /ˈʃæɲːɛ/
s
/s/ synge "to sing" /ˈsʏŋːɛ/
/ʃ/ sjelv "self" /ˈʃɛlːf/
st
/st/ stóren "big" /ˈstuːrɛn/
/ʃ/ stjarne "star" /ˈʃɑrːnɛ/
t
/t/ sten "stone" /ˈsteːn/
/t͡ʃ/ sitje "to sit" /ˈsɪt͡ʃːɛ/
z
/ʃ/ meze "more" /ˈmeːʃɛ/
þ
/s/ þing "thing" /ˈsɪŋː/
/ʃ/ þjúv "thief" /ˈʃoːf/
In the definite article -ed as well as core grammatical words like ged "it" /ˈʝeː/, zad "the; that (n.)" /ˈʃɑː/, and gvad "what" /ˈɣɑː/, d is silent.
D does not fricate after l or r, as in hald "hold (imp.)" /ˈxɑlːd/ and gard "farm" /ˈɣɑrːs/, but does after t, as in wlet'de "searched" /ˈɣleːstɛ/
The use of j or z for softening strong consonants is largely predictable.
J is only used at the beginning of words, whilst z is normally used word-medially.
Word-medial palatalizing j is an indication that the verb - and it is always a verb - has an irregular conjugation that involves hardening (depalatalization).
J, however, is always used after l or n; lz and nz indicate /ʎʃ,ɲʃ/
Lj and nj can only soften initially if they are word-initial, or part of the onsets hlj, hnj, slj, or snj.
Before k, n is pronounced /ŋ/, as in tank "tank (container)" /ˈtaŋːk/
Before c, sk, tz, or z, it is pronounced as /ɲ/ as in lunc "lunch" /ˈlʊɲːt͡ʃ/
S softens before lj and nj to /ʃ/, such as in snjó "snow" /ˈʃɲuː/
T fricates before d, tt, or apostrophized t, as in hlot'de "allotted" /ˈxloːstɛ/
Z reflects Old Erish /ʂ/, which was the main reflex of Proto-Germanic *z in Old Erish (some earlier instances did get devoiced to /s/ instead).
/z/ never occurred word-initially in Proto-Germanic, but it did in Old Erish, such as in zat "the; that (n.)" (whence modern Erish zad). This developed from some instances where a weakly stressed /θ/ got voiced to [ð], which soon assibilated to /z/, which later devoiced to /ʂ/.
Þ reflects Old Erish /s/, the main reflex of Proto-Germanic *þ in Old Erish. Around the late 900s, the original dental fricative /θ/ assibilated to /s/, but remained contrastive with /s̺/, the reflex of Proto-Germanic *s. Although this contrast was lost by the 1400s, it is still reflected in Erish orthography.
Weak consonants Weak consonants are "weak" enough that vowels can soften them in addition to j; in instances where a soft pronunciation is used, it is either because a hard letter is used, or because there is a v "shielding" them. They include the reflexes of the Old Erish velar consonants /x,k,sk/, as well as the labiovelars /xʷ,kʷ,skʷ/. The basic principle governing their softening is that they do so before certain vowels initially, and after other vowels elsewhere. If neither of these conditions are met, they use a hard pronunciation. It is to be noted that, barring one exception, acute accented letters have the same effects as their unaccented counterparts, and so they are not treated seperately here (grave accented vowels never soften a consonant).
Letter(s)
Conditions or example
Softens initially
Softens elsewhere
Hard
h (short), ch (long)
Conditions
to /ʃ/ before e, i, y, æ, œ
to /ʃ/ after e, i, y, æ, œ
/x/ in all other conditions
Examples
himmel "sky" /ˈʃɪmːɛl/
reht "justice" /ˈrɛʃːt/
hús "house" /ˈxoːs/
k (short), ck (long)
Conditions
to /t͡ʃ/ before e, i, y, æ, œ
to /t͡ʃ/ after i, y
/k/ in all other conditions
Examples
kyng "king" /ˈt͡ʃʏŋː/
rík "realm" /ˈreːt͡ʃ/
bók "book" /ˈbuːk/
sk (short and long)
Conditions
to /ʃ/ before e, i, y, æ, œ
to /ʃ/ after a (notá), e, i, y, æ, œ, or a consonant
/sk/ in all other conditions
Examples
skíne "to shine" /ˈʃeːnɛ/
fisk "fish" /ˈfɪʃː/
busk "bush" /ˈbʊsːk/
The use of h to represent /ʃ/ is more or less confined to native Erish vocabulary. Sk is far more common in loanwords.
Similarly to s, h may also soften before lj and nj, as in hnjóse "to sneeze" /ˈʃɲuːse/
Soft non-initial k is confined to native Erish vocabulary, as Eastern dialects failed to palatalize it in those conditions. Instead, c and zk are used in loanwords.
The behavior of sk palatalizing after a but not á is because sk palatalized non-initially unless a back vowel preceded (or, technically, followed). Though in Old Erish they were phonemically /a,aː/, /a/ was not a back vowel (most likely being [ä]), but /aː/ was, being either [ɒː] or [ɔː].
Erish used to be far more inconsistent in representing when exceptions to these conditions occurred, but modern spelling is extremely regular in this regard. Soft consonants in instances where a hard consonant is expected are represented in different ways depending upon if they are initial, non-initial and short, or non-initial and long.
Desired soft consonant
Location and length
Grapheme(s)
Example
h /ʃ/
Initial
hj
hjarte "heart" /ˈʃɑrːtɛ/
Non-initial and short
N/A
Non-initial and long
hj (singular instance)
hlæhje "to laugh" /ˈxlæʃːɛ/
k /t͡ʃ/
Initial
kj
kjúe "to chew" /ˈt͡ʃoːɣɛ/
Non-initial and short
c
koc "coach" /ˈkoːt͡ʃ/
Non-initial and long
zk, rarely kj
þækje "to think" /ˈsæt͡ʃːɛ/
sk /ʃ/
Initial
skj
skjá "cloud" /ˈʃoː/
Non-initial and short
N/A
Non-initial and long
sc
broscyre "brochure" /ˈbrɔʃːʏ
The use of non-initial hj, kj is, similar to the strong consonants, a signal that the verb's conjugation is irregular and involves hardening.
Hj is an etymological grapheme that mostly occurs in native Erish vocabulary. Hlæhje "to laugh", is the only example in Erish of a non-initial hj.
Hard consonants are represented with similar treatments, with the grapheme depending upon whether the instance is word-initial, non-initial and short, or non-initial and long:
Desired hard consonant
Location and length
Grapheme(s)
Example
h /x/
Initial
hv
hvint "hint" /ˈxɪnːt/
Non-initial and short
x
exo "echo" /ˈeːxɔ/
Non-initial and long
hh, rarely hv
sehve "to see" /ˈsɛxːɛ/
k /k/
Initial
qu
quinne "woman" /ˈkɪnːɛ/
Non-initial and short
qu
kliqu "clique" /ˈkliːk/
Non-initial and long
kk, rarely kv
republikk "republic" /rɛpʊbˈlɪkː/
sk /sk/
Initial
squ
squeìt "(ice/roller) skate" /ˈskeːt/
Non-initial and short
N/A
Non-initial and long
squ
fresque "fresco" /ˈɸrɛsːkɛ/
Hv is irregularly used before a in native Erish vocabulary, such as in hval "whale" /ˈxɑːl/
Medial hv, kv have similar uses to the consonant plus j digraphs, indicating that the verb's conjugation is irregular and may result in softening.
The hv, kv, qu spellings are rooted in how Old Erish, in contrast to the rest of the West Germanic languages, never resolved labiovelars into /Kw/ sequences. Instead, these were preserved into Old Erish, and failed to palatalize. When they were lost as phonemes, they simply delabialized from /Kʷ/ to /K/, helping phonemicize the palatal allophones.
G-Consonants The letter g is not the only consonant grapheme of the last group of Erish consonants, but the set is essentially used to indicate hardness and softness not unlike h, k, and sk. It is grouped by itself because it represents six phonemes and has less consistency in which graphemes are used to represent hardness and softness for those phonemes. In principle, g is just the voiced counter part to h, k, and sk, with the addendum that before nasals it has a nasal pronunciation that can be hard or soft; the fricativization it experiences is expectable because it is voiced.
Letter(s)
Conditions or example
Softens initially
Softens elsewhere
Hard
g (short), cg (long)
Regular conditions
to /ʝ/ before e, i, y, æ, or œ, and another vowel
to /ʝ/ after e, i, y, æ, or œ, and another vowel
/ɣ/ in all other regular conditions
Regular examples
gæst "guest" /ˈʝæsːt/
weges "ways" /ˈɣeːʝɛs/
gá "to go" /ˈɣoː/
Fricative conditions
N/A
to /ʃ/ between the vowels e, i, y, æ, and œ, and the end of a word or the consonants d, s, or t
to /x/ between all other vowels or l or r, and the end of a word or the consonants d, s, or t
Fricative examples
N/A
ig "I" /ˈiːʃ/
dag "day" /ˈdɑːx/
Nasal conditions
N/A
to /ɲ/ between the vowels e, i, y, æ, and œ, and n
to /ŋ/ between all other vowels or l or r, and n
Nasal examples
N/A
regn "rain" /ˈrɛɲːn/
Ragnar /ˈraŋːnɑ
cg softens only if there is a preceding i or y, similar to k and ck.
Ideally, g should have a regular distribution of "soft in hard contexts" graphemes and "hard in soft contexts" graphemes, but the reality is that etymology means different graphemes are used in what should be regular contexts. Nonetheless, there aren't so many graphemes in use:
Desired consonants
Location and length
Grapheme(s)
Example
Soft g (/ʝ/, /ʃ/, /ɲ/)
Initial
j, gj (less common)
jorþ "earth" /ˈʝɔrːs/, gjos "they (f.)" /ˈʝoːs/
Non-initial and short
j
garaj "garage" /ɣaˈrɑːʃ/
Non-initial and long
zg, gj (rare)
brizg "bridge (game)" /ˈbrɪʝː/
Hard g (/ɣ/, /x/, /ŋ/)
Initial
w, gv
gvad "what" /ˈɣɑː/, west "west" /ˈɣɛsːt/
Non-initial and short
w
intriw "intrigue" /ɪnˈtriːx/
Non-initial and long
gg
rigg "rig" /ˈrɪɣː/
Gj is mostly confined to native Erish vocabulary, and is not particularly common initially, and even more so non-initially. As with other Cj graphemes, non-initial gj indicates irregular conjugation.
J is the main grapheme for representing soft-g in hard contexts, and g for representing regular soft-g, but there exceptions like Jesu "Jesus".
In native Erish vocabulary, gv is restricted to wh-words such as gvad "what", but it is regularly used in loanwords when the donor language has g, such as gverilja "guerrilla" /ɣɛˈrɪʎːa/.
The wh-words in Erish were originally /xʷ/, but underwent the same vocalization as the third-person and demonstrative pronouns, making Old Erish have /ɣʷ/ as a marginal phoneme, until it delabialized during Middle Erish.
W is the main consonant used to represent initial hard-g in native Erish vocabulary, and is more rare with loanwords. However, it is mandatory in non-initial, short contexts, much like j.
W was originally /w/ in Old Erish. It merged with /ɣ/ as a consequence of the fricative leniting to an approximant, effectively making /w/ first merge with /ɣʷ/, and then delabialize /ɣ/.
Similar to the situation with k, long /ɣː/ failed to palatalize in Eastern dialects, and so zg is used, even though the grapheme is redundant in Hamnstead Erish.
Feedback Questions Questions I personally have are:
Does the type of spelling I have decently blend etymological orthographies like Icelandic and more phonemic ones? I recognize this is more an aesthetic question, but I'm interested in opinions.
One area I wonder about in particular is whether j and w should be used for representing non-initial /ʝ/ and /ɣ/. In my mind, they make sense since they are representing approximants, but w strikes me as rather... odd.
Do the phonological developments seem like a good mixture of sharing some of the innovations that occurred in Norwegian and Swedish and Erish following its own path?
I know a sibilant like [ʐ] (the likely realization of Proto-West Germanic *z, if not Proto-Germanic *z) devoicing to /ʂ/ isn't abnormal. However, given how universal the change of /z/ to / was throughout the surviving Germanic languages, how plausible is it to have Erish do this?
Resources
This last section is dedicated to the resources I think have been most useful in the creation of Erish, and that are valuable to people looking to make a Germanic language, or even a conlang in general. I'm certain some of these sources will be familiar to many members of this sub, but they're there for those to whom they aren't:
Agee, A Glottometric Subgrouping of the Early Germanic Languages - This thesis provides a pretty good overview of how the Germanic languages developed at their earliest stages after Proto-Germanic. Even if you're not trying to make a Germanic language, I can't imagine that this wouldn't give you at least some ideas.
Index Diachronica - Index Diachronica is a good site in concept and mostly in implementation. If you want to search for a general to sometimes comprehensive idea of the phonological histories of languages, or how certain phonemes tend to change over time, this is a good place to stop by.
I got a history of Proto-Norse to Old West Norse here, although I wound up having to directly go and sift through the """""human-readable""""" source because ID wasn't clear at times (and apparently misinterpreting at points). That's the major problem with ID - its sources or interpretation of those sources may be "sketch" or incomplete, to say the least.
Jackson Crawford - It's one thing to read internet articles, or even textbooks about old Germanic languages. It's another to have some sort of access on demand to somebody who can actually explain to laypeople an old Germanic language, much less its culture. I cannot recommend his channel enough as a starting and reference point for somebody interested in Germanic conlanging, especially if you're going for a (sort-of-)North Germanic language.
Ringe, A Linguistic History of English, vols. 1 & 2 - If you are looking for information about old Germanic languages, these are some of the best materials to look through for vocabulary, morphology, and phonology. Erish would not exist as it does without Ringe's reconstruction of Proto-West Germanic in Vol. 2, much less the far more consistent account of the phonological history of Northwest and West Germanic than is available on Wikipedia.
Simon Roper - Though I can't say Simon has been as much a resource for me as Dr. Crawford - and as Simon himself acknowledges, his field is archaeology, not linguistics - he still provides good material about the phonological history of English, and information about Old English.
Wikipedia - Wikipedia has articles about all manner of languages and their phonology, grammar, vocabulary, orthography, and so on (much less articles about those in and of themselves). Although obviously I've mainly relied on Germanic languages, I would be remiss to say that one should look exclusively at a particular family. Case in point, /d,ʝ/ devoicing and spirantizing to /s,ʃ/ was a feature inspired by Nahuatl.
Wiktionary - Wiktionary has multiple features which are extremely useful. Beyond a Proto-Germanic category and Germanic Swadesh list appendix, Wiktionary has an immensely handy feature where translations are often provided through individual senses of English words - anybody wanting to reduce relexing should take note.
Conclusion
It's been a long post, so I won't take up so much more space. Seeing as how it's a common enough translation in initial posts, though, I would like to provide the Lord's Prayer in Erish: Written Erish:
Faþern osren, Hlárden gwen bez í Hjomn, Be namen zín werþe heligende; Be ríked zítt kome; Be wiljo zí skehe pá jorþo zí som í Hjomn; Be geve til oss í dag ossert daglige brod, end forláte oss skuldostos osros sá som wid forláte osros skuldos; End be bringe ick pá oss í fresnos, men frælse pá oss frá yvel. Zítt bez ríked, end mahten end ero í œighedo. Amen.
father-the.m.sg our.incl-m.sg lord-the.m.sg who.m.sg.dir be.fut.sg inHeaven be.fut.sbjv name-the.m.sg thy.m.sg become-inf sanctify-ptcp.prs.m.sg be.fut.sbjv realm-the.n.sg thy.n.sg come-inf be.fut.sbjv will-the.f.sg thy.f.sg happen-inf onearth-the.f.sg thy.f.sg asinHeaven be.fut.sbjv give-inf tous.incl.dat indayour.incl-n.sg daily-def.n.sg bread andforgive-inf us.incl.dat guilt-the.f.pl our.incl-f.pl so as we.excl forgive-inf our.incl-f.pl guilt-pl and be.fut.sbjv bring-inf not acc us.incl.acc in temptation but free-inf acc us.incl.acc from evil thine be.fut.sg realm-the.n.sg and power-the.m.sg and glory-the.f.sg in eternity-the.f.sg amen
English translation:
Our father, the Lord who will always be in Heaven, May it always be that thy name sanctifies itself; May it always be that thy kingdom comes; May it always be that thy will comes upon your Earth as in Heaven; May it always be that thou givest us our daily bread, and forgive our guilts for us, as we forgive our guilts; And may it always be that thou dost not bring us into temptation but free us from evil. Thine will always be the kingdom, and the power and the glory in eternity. Amen.
Notes about the translation:
In essence, bez in this Prayer is used for "(will always) be...", and be for "(may it always be that)...". Bez and be are the future tense forms of weze ("to be") (the only verb with them), but this tense is often gnomic, indicating a timelessness and fundamental-fact-of-the-universeness.
Be is used here as a relic subjunctive with optative mood. In Erish, it is often used in prayers - Christian, Ardist (the native Erish religion), or otherwise - as a sort of "polite asking".
Hjomn "(Christian) Heaven" in lines 1 and 4 is, similar to many Erish terms relating to Christianity, a loanword from Old Anglic (English) heofon, and is a doublet of Erish himmel ("sky")
Werþe heligende (lit. "become sanctifying") in line 2 is an analytic mediopassive voice construction, similar in function to the -s suffix of North Germanic languages.
When the consistently inclusive "we" (Christians and non-Christians) throughout the prayer changes to the exclusive wid in line 6, it indicates that Christians forgive everybody's guilts.
Christianity never really took off in Erishland beyond the Allamunnic minority, and "wasn't particularly cared for" until recently.
Pá "(up)on" is used here as a direct object marker for "us" in line 7. In Erish, pá is used for animate direct objects.
I spent 2 months learning French as fast as possible while working full-time. Here are my 9 best tips (which help for any language and level)
Earlier this year, I did two months of immersive French and went from the least-qualified student in my class to skipping a level and being at the top — while working a full-time job in a different continent. I wrote a post that explains every single tactic I took to learn the language as fast as I could (and even used these tips to learn Chinese years ago). If you don't want to click, no worries: I posted a summary of my 9 tips below and how they can help regardless of your language level. :-) (If you do want to see the full article with screenshots, more examples, and links to resources, here’s the link.) 1. Use the “Bruce Lee Hack” to speak better RIGHT NOW Language experts always want you to have conversations with people. But what if you can’t speak well? What if you only know a few words and can’t speak at all? Then treat your words like Bruce Lee treats his kicks.
I fear not the man who has practiced 10,000 kicks once, but I fear the man who has practiced one kick 10,000 times. -Bruce Lee
Let’s say you’re interested in French but know absolutely NOTHING except for “bonjour.” Own it! Master it! Make it the best damn “bonjour” you can possibly say. Make the accent sound AMAZING. Make it sound smooth when you say it. If you know a couple of sentences and phrases, do the same thing. Take ownership of those words. Practice them. You can always switch back to English when you run out. As you do this, you’ll be able to relax, let your words come out naturally, and sound so much better. (And you won’t speak… like… this… because… you’re… thinking… so… much.) It takes no additional knowledge. It’s just maximizing what you ALREADY have. Using the Bruce Lee hack, you’ll talk more skillfully without learning anything different. You’ll be able to trust yourself and that’s how you sound amazing. 2. Talk to your FUTURE self (no time machine needed) When you study a foreign language, you’ll regularly learn something new. So, in a sense, you’ll regularly feel… like an idiot. The problem is, if you continually feel like you’re falling short, you can hurt your confidence, motivation, and persistence, especially when things get hard. But the trick to confidence isn’t to look forward toward your goals; the trick is to periodically look backwards at the starting point. Once every two weeks, write letter to yourself in a foreign language about what you did that week and try to use everything that you know. It doesn’t have to be long, but try to flex your muscles. Then read it again in two weeks.
You can use FutureMe to email a letter to yourself at a specific time in the future.
If you only know a couple of words, feel free to write 95% in English and sub in the few words you do know. Or if that’s too hard, just write down all the vocabulary you know in a list even if it’s as basic as “hello, dog, cat, thanks, etc.” (It’s even more striking to see your achievements!)
If you feel comfortable, you can also record a video of yourself speaking for two or three minutes using the same concept.
Then, every two weeks, review the previous video, letter, etc. and see how far you’ve come. Prove to yourself how much you have learned and accomplished.
This gives you REAL confidence. That way, even if you’re having tough moments with the language, you’ll see that you are achieving and are growing. 3. Immerse yourself in the culture — without leaving your home! You don’t have to sell everything and move to a foreign country. Instead, find ways to change up the environment you have right in front of you to dive headfirst — here are some ideas: 1) Buy a stack of sticky notes and put them all around your home, labeling household items in your target language so you’re constantly thinking about it. 2) Go to an international supermarket and buy foods, candies, snacks, sauces, etc. from that country. Not only do you get to learn about the culture and the language from the food itself, but you’re also behaving in new ways, which will change your identity through what’s called “self signaling.” 3) If you like to cook, try cooking a tasty dish from that nation. Try a bomb Spanish paella, Korean tofu soup (love!), Russian stroganoff, Swedish meatballs… use your imagination. Try peeking at the recipe in the native language and learn as you go. 4) For intermediate and advanced: Switch your phone settings to your target language. I’ve seen people do this and I was impressed with how much they picked up by necessity. (If it’s too hard, switch one app and try it out.) Whatever you choose, have fun with it! Within a few days, you’ll be surprised with how much you remember. 4. Hack your MINDSET about the language Ever had a moment when you thought, “Argh! Why is this language so hard?!” We all have. But these seemingly innocuous thoughts can actually be extremely dangerous for language learning. You’re basically traumatizing yourself and getting stuck. Psychologically, you’re actually making it harder to learn and you’re reinforcing and empowering the challenges and difficulties you’re facing. Don’t fight the language. Instead, shift your mentality about the language by taking a deep breath, exhaling, and saying out loud:
If other people have learned [this language], so can I.
Remind yourself that you’re not alone. There are plenty of other people out there trying to learn the language too and, if millions of people out there can speak it, you can do it too. Here’s another tip: Focus on the part about the language that’s the easiest. For example, French can be complex and difficult. But as an English speaker, there are a lot of similarities. Many verbs, nouns, and adjectives are the same, just with a French accent, and I had times where I just guessed the word and was right. Remind yourself about the things with your foreign language that make it EASY — the more you think about why the language is easier, the easier it gets to you. 5. Stop reading the news (and what to do instead) People often say to “read the news” in a foreign language to get more practice, but I actually don’t think it’s a great way to improve reading comprehension:
You have to learn new words and vocabulary that aren’t really applicable to daily life.
Unless you really like the news, you won’t be motivated to read it all the time
If you do talk to locals, you don’t really want to talk like a news reporter
Truth be told, I don’t even like watching the news in English, let alone another language. But I love sports. (Fortunately, so does the rest of France.) Here’s the thing: It’s the exact same grammar. It’s the exact same language. But it’s way more fun! Think about it: You’ve learned a ton of vocabulary IN ENGLISH just from your own hobbies — all the vocabulary, terms, phrases, brands, acronyms, etc. It’s like it’s own language! You can channel that power to learn ANY foreign language. If you like fashion, try to find fashion bloggers in your target language. If you like video games, find gaming blogs in that language. Because it’s something you’re passionate and interested about, it’ll be so much easier for you to learn new vocabulary, persist when it’s difficult, and immerse yourself — which speeds up your learning. If you’re ready, you can also watch YouTube videos from native speakers about your hobbies and interests. (Read the comments too because you’ll see how people talk with each other informally and pick up things you’ll never get on a language app.) 6. Go to warp speed (this tip only works if you’re willing to be wrong) This tip will help train your ability to think faster, but it only works if you give yourself permission to be wrong. The key to learn a language is to constantly break out of your comfort zone and use language for its true goal: Communication. So it helps to practice that urgency so you can communicate in real speeds. Once a week, try to take a quiz, exam, etc. as fast as you can (while still trying to be correct). It should feel like you’re going “warp speed;” like you don’t have enough time to think.
If you’re doing a progress check in a language app, occasionally do it as fast as possible.
If there’s a quiz in your study book, do half of it in a normal speed, and do the other half in “warp speed.”
If you’re doing a language exchange or talking to a teacher, try to talk as fast as you can.
If you’re writing or texting, try to do it in 50% less time than normal
It’s going to feel weird at first, but the more you do it, the better you’ll get and you’ll start sounding better and more natural! This tip is about taking what you already have and putting it under higher and higher stress. That’s how you force yourself to give 110% and make big leaps. Take your time to learn a skill — vocabulary, sentences, grammar, etc. — but once you tried it a few times, do it faster and faster. For this tip, it’s OK to be wrong; just make sure you’re doing it fast. 7. Level up and reap the rewards All languages have some sort of standard progression on “moving up.” For example, in French, there are levels of A1, A2, B1, B2, C1, C2. Each level has a certain amount of “estimated hours” it takes to move from one to another. Traditionally, you slowly make incremental gains by following the prescribed path. But the problem with this approach is you’re only going to learn language slowly. You’re following everyone else’s speed, not the speed that’s designed to give you lightning fast improvements. Instead, level up before you’re ready. Rather than waiting until you’re “ready,” put yourself in a higher level and adapt to it. Repeat the process and you’ll progress WAY faster than if you waited until you “felt” ready. Take an online exam that’s at a level a little higher. Skip ahead in your study book. In a language app, occasionally try to jump levels. Try to “skip grades.” (Oh, and you can always come back down if it really is “too hard.”) You might worry, if you’re not ready and you jump a level, you won’t know a lot of things. That’s true. But now, you’ll go and learn them immediately rather than following the traditional path and waiting for the prescribed time to learn it. Force your own hand. 8. Once you’re able to, start speaking to the RIGHT people It’s always ideal to speak with natives. By doing this, you can improve MUCH FASTER because you have to use all your skills to hang with a native-speaker AND you’ll learn things you can’t get anywhere else. Here are some language sites where you can speak with natives:
Italki (I used this site and enjoyed it)
Preply
Verbling
My Language Exchange (I used this site over 10 years ago to learn Chinese… and it still looks the exact same)
Conversation Exchange
Meetup (you can join a language meetup in your city)
As soon as you have a few sentences and words down, I highly recommend you chat with a native speaker as soon as possible, even if it’s just a brief online class. If you don’t still feel comfortable speaking, no problem! You can also try HelloTalk, an app where you can chat with regular people by texting (which is often less stressful) and have them help you in real-time so you can get feedback in a more relaxing and comfortable setting. That way you can remove the fear and focus on interacting with native speakers. 9. Learn the foundations with the right resources Have you heard about the 80/20 Rule? With languages, this refers to how 20% of words are used 80% of the time (or more), 20% of verbs are used 80% of the time, etc. To learn a foreign language faster, focus your efforts on the 20% — the most common verbs, most common adjectives, etc. — to get the most from the effort and time you put in. For example, with French, I spent a disproportional amount of time learning the present tense because it affects other tenses. (If I didn’t learn it, everything else would be hard.) To learn that 20%, however, I needed to take the time to memorize it. I also had to memorize ALL the (many) conjugations of verbs. Fortunately, there’s a lot of resources to help you learn foundational elements. I took a page from Scott Young, author of Ultralearning, who’s knows his stuff — and knows how to learn well — so I’m going to share what he advises:
Pimsleur. ...This is exactly the training you need to give yourself that beginner foundation.
Teach Yourself. These offer a decent overview of the language. ...they do provide enough information to start having basic conversations where the real work can begin.
Flashcards. A final strategy is to just use flashcards, from an app such as Memrise or Anki... the main advantage they have over DuoLingo is that you must produce the whole answer in your head, rather than select them as multiple-choice or from a word bank.
Wrap Up In just seven weeks, I was able to go from barely being able to string together some sentences to having conversations with locals that lasted hours. (I even used a lot of these tips to rapidly learn Chinese 10 years ago too! I went from entering a class 3 months behind everyone else to setting the curve on all the exams.) I hope these tactics inspire and encourage you on your journey, and I hope they help you master the foreign language you want. If you have any hacks, I’d love to hear it too! :-) Would you mind sharing them below? Also, I'll be more-than-happy to answer any questions and give more details in the comments as well. P.S. If you want to read the article and see the images, extra examples, links, etc., here’s the link.
Добродошли - This week's language of the week: Serbian!
Serbian (Serbian Cyrillic: српски, Latin: srpski, pronounced [sr̩̂pskiː]) is the standardized variety of the Serbo-Croatian language used chiefly by Serbs in Serbia, Montenegro, and Bosnia and Herzegovina. In addition, it is a recognized minority language in Croatia, Macedonia, Romania, Hungary, Slovakia, the Czech Republic, Albania and Greece.
Linguistics
Serbian is an Slavic language and, as such, is closely related to Croatian/Bosnian/Montenegrin (and is often considered the same language), as well as Russian and Slovenian. It is more distantly related to English, Hindi and Ancient Hittite. Classification Indo-European > Balto-Slavic > Slavic > South Slavic > Western > Serbo-Croatian > Serbiana Morphophonemics Serbian has five vowel phonemes, /a, e, i, o, u/, which are also distinguished on length, giving a total of 10 phonemic vowel contrasts. The consonant system of Serbo-Croatian has 25 phonemes. One peculiarity is a presence of both post-alveolar and palatal affricates, but a lack of corresponding palatal fricatives. Unlike most other Slavic languages such as Russian, there is no palatalized versus non-palatalized (hard–soft) contrast for most consonants. Morphology and Syntax Serbian is a highly inflected language, with grammatical morphology for nouns, pronouns and adjectives as well as verbs. Serbian nouns are classified into three declensional types, denoted largely by their nominative case endings as "-a" type, "-i" and "-e" type. Into each of these declensional types may fall nouns of any of three genders: masculine, feminine or neuter. Each noun may be inflected to represent the noun's grammatical case, of which Serbian has seven: nominative, genitive, dative, accusative, vocative, instrumental and locative. Nouns are further inflected to represent the noun's number, singular or plural. Pronouns, when used, are inflected along the same case and number morphology as nouns. Serbian is a pro-drop language, meaning that pronouns may be omitted from a sentence when their meaning is easily inferred from the text. In cases where pronouns may be dropped, they may also be used to add emphasis. Serbian verbs are conjugated in four past forms—perfect, aorist, imperfect, and pluperfect—of which the last two have a very limited use (imperfect is still used in some dialects, but the majority of native Serbian speakers consider it archaic), one future tense (also known as the first future tense, as opposed to the second future tense or the future exact, which is considered a tense of the conditional mood by some contemporary linguists), and one present tense. These are the tenses of the indicative mood. Apart from the indicative mood, there is also the imperative mood. The conditional mood has two more tenses: the first conditional (commonly used in conditional clauses, both for possible and impossible conditional clauses) and the second conditional (without use in the spoken language—it should be used for impossible conditional clauses). Serbian has active and passive voice. As for the non-finite verb forms, Serbian has one infinitive, two adjectival participles (the active and the passive), and two adverbial participles (the present and the past). Orthography Standard Serbian language uses both Cyrillic (ћирилица, ćirilica) and Latin script (latinica, латиница). Serbian is a rare example of synchronic digraphia, a situation where all literate members of a society have two interchangeable writing systems available to them. Media and publishers typically select one alphabet or the other. Although standard Serbian uses both scripts, the Cyrillic script is the current official script of the language in Serbia. Written sample Sjeverni ledeni vjetar i Sunce su se prepirali o svojoj snazi. Spoken samples Djokovic press conference (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PvX5Hxy4Zys) Lullaby (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G3fdqj1P3Ns) Sources & Further reading Wikipedia articles on Serbian What now? This thread is foremost a place for discussion. Are you a native speaker? Share your culture with us. Learning the language? Tell us why you chose it and what you like about it. Thinking of learning? Ask a native a question. Interested in linguistics? Tell us what's interesting about it, or ask other people. Discussion is week-long, so don't worry about post age, as long as it's this week's language.
Здравейте – This week’s language of the week: Bulgarian!
Bulgarian (Български език) is a Southern Slavic language with about 12 million speakers mainly in Bulgaria, but also in Ukraine, North Macedonia, Serbia, Turkey, Greece, Romania, Canada, USA, Australia, Germany and Spain. Bulgarian is mutually intelligible with Macedonian, and is fairly closely related to Serbian, Croatian, Bosnian and Slovenian. Along with the Macedonian language (collectively forming the East South Slavic languages), it is a member of the Balkan sprachbund. The two languages have several characteristics that set them apart from all other Slavic languages: changes include the elimination of case declension, the development of a suffixed definite article and the lack of a verb infinitive, but it retains and has further developed the Proto-Slavic verb system. One such major development is the innovation of evidential verb forms to encode for the source of information: witnessed, inferred, or reported. Bulgarian was the first Slavic language to be written: it start to appear in writing during the 9th century in the Glagolitic alphabet, which was gradually replaced by an early version of the Cyrillic alphabet over the following centuries.
History
The history of Bulgarian language can be divided into three periods: 9th–11th centuries: Old Bulgarian is only attested as Old Church Slavonic, a highly inflected literary language employed to translate religious texts from Greek, in the First Kingdom of Bulgaria. 12th–15th centuries: Middle Bulgarian experienced radical phonological and morphological changes (e.g. loss of noun declension). It is attested in many literary works. 15th c.-present: Modern Bulgarian. From the early 15th century until 1878, Bulgaria was under Turk Ottoman domination when the language was neglected. Afterwards, it experienced a revival when it was purged from many Old Church Slavonic, Russian, and other foreign words. Bulgarian emerged more than a millennium ago when the Slavs, who had arrived in the middle of the 1st millennium AD to the eastern Balkan Peninsula, were conquered by the Bulgars. The newcomers established the First Bulgarian Kingdom (681-1018) and, even if they were ethnically Turkic, adopted the language of their Slavic subjects. The geographical and political isolation from other Slavs led these Southern Slavs to develop their own dialects. Bulgarian was first attested in the late 9th century as a literary language, known as Old Church Slavonic, developed by the monks Cyril and Methodius to translate religious texts from Greek. It was based on different local dialects and, hence, had two varieties: the Eastern one is considered to be Old Bulgarian while the western one is considered to be Old Macedonian. In the Medieval period, from the 12th to 15th centuries, the language experienced radical changes, particularly the loss of noun declension, which paved the way to Modern Bulgarian. The modern language is very close to Macedonian, both have (almost completely) lost all case declensions, and both have been influenced by Balkan non-Slavic languages, like Greek, Albanian and Romanian, as shown by certain features found in them but not in other Slavic languages. For example, Bulgarian, like Romanian and Albanian, has a schwa-like central vowel in stressed syllables, a postposed definite article, and lacks an infinitive which is replaced by a subordinate clause (this also happens in Modern Greek).
Phonology
Vowels
Bulgarian vowels may be grouped in three pairs according to their backness: the front vowels е (/ɛ/) and и (/i/), the central vowels а (/a/) and ъ (/ɤ/) and the back vowels о (/ɔ/) and у ().
Front
Central
Back
High
i
u
Mid
ɛ
ɤ
ɔ
Low
a
In stressed syllables, six vowels are phonemic. Unstressed vowels tend to be shorter and weaker compared to their stressed counterparts, and the corresponding pairs of open and closed vowels approach each other with a tendency to merge, above all as low (open and open-mid) vowels are raised and shift towards the high (close and close-mid) ones. However, the coalescence is not always complete. The vowels are often distinguished in emphatic or deliberately distinct pronunciation, and reduction is strongest in colloquial speech. Besides that, some linguists distinguish two degrees of reduction, as they have found that a clearer distinction tends to be maintained in the syllable immediately preceding the stressed one. The complete merger of the pair /a/ – /ɤ/ is regarded as most common, while the status of /ɔ/ vs is less clear. The coalescence of /ɛ/ and /i/ is not allowed in formal speech and is regarded as a provincial (East Bulgarian) dialectal feature; instead, unstressed /ɛ/ is both raised and centralized, approaching [ɤ]. The /ɤ/ vowel itself does not exist as a phoneme in other Slavic languages, though a similar reduced vowel transcribed as [ə] does occur.
Consonants
Labial
Dental
Palatal
Velar
Stop
voiceless
p pʲ
t tʲ
k kʲ
Stop
voiced
b bʲ
d dʲ
ɡ ɡʲ
Affricate
voiceless
ts tsʲ
tʃ
Affricate
voiced
dʒ
Fricative
voiceless
f fʲ
s sʲ
ʃ
x
Fricative
voiced
v vʲ
z zʲ
ʒ
Nasal
m mʲ
n nʲ
Trill
r rʲ
Lateral
l lʲ
Glide
j
Bulgarian has a total of 36 consonant phonemes (see table above). Three additional phonemes can also be found ([xʲ], [dz], and [dzʲ]), but only in foreign proper names such as Хюстън /xʲustɤn/ ('Houston'), Дзержински /dzɛrʒinski/ ('Dzerzhinsky'), and Ядзя /jadzʲa/, ('Jadzia'). They are, however, normally not considered part of the phonemic inventory of the Bulgarian language. The Bulgarian obstruent consonants are divided into 12 pairs of voiced and voiceless consonants. The only obstruent without a counterpart is the voiceless velar fricative /x/. The voicing contrast is neutralized in word-final position, where all obstruents are voiceless, at least with regard to the official orthoepy of the contemporary Bulgarian spoken language (word-final devoicing is a common feature in Slavic languages); this neutralization is, however, not reflected in the spelling.
Grammar
Bulgarian shares several grammatical innovations with Balkan languages that set it apart from most other Slavic languages, even other South Slavic languages. Among these are a sharp reduction in noun inflections—Bulgarian has lost the noun cases but has developed a definite article, which is suffixed at the end of words. In its verbal system, Bulgarian is set apart from most Slavic languages by the loss of the infinitive, the preservation of most of the complexities of the older conjugation system (including the opposition between aorist and imperfect) and the development of a complex evidential system to distinguish between witnessed and several kinds of non-witnessed information.
Nouns
Bulgarian nouns have the categories grammatical gender, number, case (only vocative) and definiteness. A noun has one of three specific grammatical genders (masculine, feminine, neuter) and two numbers (singular and plural). The plural is formed by adding to or replacing the singular ending. With cardinal numbers and some adverbs, masculine nouns use a separate numerical plural form бройна множествена форма. It is a remnant of the grammatical dual number, which disappeared from the language in the Middle Ages. The numerical form is used in the masculine whenever there is a precise amount of something, regardless of the actual number. Definiteness is expressed by a definite article which is postfixed to the noun.
Case system
Old Bulgarian had a system of seven cases, but only three remain intact: the accusative, dative, and nominative; and only in personal and some other pronouns.
the accusative and the dative have mostly merged as an oblique case. The distinction between the two cases is preserved.
the genitive had become involved in restructuring already in late Proto-Slavic, where it replaced the accusative of animate masculine singulars. This form, in -а, was not adopted in Standard Bulgarian. However, the grammarians who standardised the language in the 19th century specified an identical form as the incomplete definite article suffix (непълен член), contrasting with the complete definite article in -ът; this distinction was artificially invented and did not occur in any Bulgarian dialect of the time. The incomplete definite article is used with definite masculine singular nouns which are not the subject of a sentence, including as objects of verbs and prepositions. Adnominal uses of the genitive have been lost.
Adjectives
A Bulgarian adjective agrees in gender, number and definiteness with the noun it is appended to and is put usually before it. The comparative and the superlative form are formed analytically.
Pronouns
Bulgarian pronouns vary in gender, number, definiteness and case. The distinguishable types of pronouns include personal, possessive, interrogative, demonstrative, reflexive, summative, negative, indefinite and relative.
Verbs
Bulgarian verbs are the most complicated part of Bulgarian grammar. They are inflected for person, number and sometimes gender. They also have lexical aspect (perfective and imperfective), voice, nine tenses, five moods and six non-finite verbal forms. Bulgarian verbs are divided into three conjugations.
Voice
The voice in Bulgarian verbs is presented by the ending on the past participle; the auxiliary remains съм ("to be"):
Active - ударил съм... - I have hit...
Passive - ударен съм - I have been hit
Mood
Mood in Bulgarian is expressed not through verb endings, but through the auxiliary particles че and да (which both translate as the relative pronoun that). The verbs remain unchanged. Thus:
Indicative - че -
e.g. знам, че си тук - I know that you are here;
Subjunctive - да -
e.g. искам да си тук - I want that you are here, I want you to be here
The inferential is formed in exactly the same way as the perfect, but with the omission of the auxiliary:
Perfect - той е бил - he has been
Inferential - той бил - he (reportedly) was
The imperative has its own conjugation - usually by adding -и or -ай to the root of the verb:
e.g. sit - сядам → сядай (imperfective), or седна → седни (perfective).
Negative instructions - either не сядай or недей да сядаш - "don't sit down".
Word order
Although Bulgarian has almost no noun cases its word order is rather free. It is even freer than the word order of some languages that have cases, for example German. This is due to the agreement between the subject and the verb of a sentence.
Orthography
In 886 AD, the Bulgarian Empire introduced the Glagolitic alphabet which was devised by the Saints Cyril and Methodius in the 850s. The Glagolitic alphabet was gradually superseded in later centuries by the Cyrillic script, developed around the Preslav Literary School, Bulgaria in the 9th century. At the end of the 18th century the Russian version of Cyrillic or the "civil script" of Peter the Great (1672-1725) was adapated to write Bulgarian as a result of the influence of printed books from Russia. During the 19th century a number of versions of this alphabet containing between 28 and 44 letters were used. In the 1870s a version of the alphabet with 32 letters proposed by Marin Drinov became widely used. This version remained in use until the orthographic reform of 1945 when the letters yat (Ѣ ѣ), and yus (Ѫ ѫ) were removed from the alphabet. With the accession of Bulgaria to the European Union on 1 January 2007, Cyrillic became the third official script of the European Union, following the Latin and Greek scripts.
Text sample
(The Lord's Prayer in Bulgarian)
Отче наш Отче наш, Който си на небесата! Да се свети Твоето име, да дойде Твоето Царство, да бъде Твоята воля, както на небето, тъй и на земята; насъщния ни хляб дай ни днес, и прости нам дълговете ни, както и ние прощаваме на нашите длъжници, и не въведи нас в изкушение, но избави ни от лукавия; защото Твое е царството, и силата, и славата вовеки. Амин.
Often I will see "I'll" and "I am/I" translated the same. How do you distinguish between them? Ie: Jag ringer dig seems like it could equally be translated as I'll call you and as I am calling you/I call you.
Why are verbs conjugated in many Western languages?
I originally posted this in AskReddit but I guess here is more suitable. Of course it sounds ridiculous to say “I are” or “you am”, but I was hoping someone could shed some light on the social or historical factors that caused these differences to arise in the first place. Would any problems arise from a language which used the same verb form for each subject?
Marhaba - This week's language of the week: Sylheti!
Sylheti (Sylheti Nagri: ꠍꠤꠟꠐꠤ Silôṭi, Bengali: সিলেটি, romanized: Sileti) is an Indo-Aryan language primarily spoken in the Sylhet Division of Bangladesh, Barak Valley of the Indian state of Assam and Northern part of the Tripura state. There is also a substantial number of Sylheti speakers in the Indian states of Meghalaya, Manipur, and Nagaland. It also has a large diaspora in the United Kingdom, the United States and the Middle East.
Linguistics
Sylheti is an Indo-Aryan language, which means it's closely related to languages such as Hindi, Punjabi and more distantly related to languages such as English, Welsh and Ancient Hittite. Classification Indo-European> Indo-Iranian > Indo-Aryan > Eastern > Bengali–Assamese > Bengali > Sylheti Morphophonemics Sylheti has five phonemic vowels and 24 phonemic consonants. Unlike most Indo-Aryan (and, indeed, Indo-European) languages, Sylheti is a tonal language (Punjabi is another Indo-Aryan tonal language). While there is no direct evidence that tonogenesis in Sylheti arose due to contact with Tibeto-Burman languages, there has been extensive contact between them so it is possible that tone is an areal feature between the languages. Morphology and Syntax Sylheti does not have any articles. The default word order is Subject-Object-Verb. The language is a pro-drop language as well. Sylheti nouns do not distinguish gender and only sometimes distinguishes between singular and plural nouns. Adjectives precede the noun, and adverbs precede the verbs as well. Sylheti nouns include a locative case and use postpositions. To make a sentence interrogative, you can add the particle ni after it. Sylheti has several different nominative pronouns, and the second person pronoun distinguishes between very familiar, familiar and polite. Likewise, there is a polite form of the third person pronoun. The nominative pronouns can be seen in the table below.
Sylheti
Meaning
ami
I
tui
You (very familiar)
tumi
You (familiar)
afne
You (polite)
igu/ogu
he/she
he
he
tai
she
tain/hein/ein
he/she (polite)
amra
we
tura
you (very familiar)
tumra
you (familiar)
afnara
you (polite)
iguin/oguin
they
tara
they (he pl., she pl., polite plural)
Sylheti pronouns also come in possessive forms, as well as an object case. Sylheti verbs can be conjugated for several tenses: present, present continuous,future, conditional, simple past, perfect, past perfect, and there are present participles, conditional participles and conjunctive participles as well. Verbal nouns can also be created from the verb stems, as can passives. Infinitives and imperatives exist as well; so does a request form using the conditional tense. Orthography The language is primarily written in the Eastern Nagari script however an alternative script was also founded in the Sylhet region known as Sylheti Nagri. During the British colonial period, Moulvi Abdul Karim spent several years in London learning the printing trade. After returning home in the 1870s, he designed a woodblock type for Sylheti Nagri and founded the Islamia Press in Sylhet town. The written form of Sylheti which was used to write puthis was identical to those written in the Dobhashi dialect due to both lacking the use of tatsama and using Perso-Arabic vocabulary as a replacement. Similar to Dobhashi, many Sylheti Nagri texts were paginated from right to left Written sample ꠗꠣꠞꠣ ১: ꠢꠇꠟ ꠝꠣꠘꠥꠡ ꠡꠣꠗꠤꠘꠜꠣꠛꠦ ꠢꠝꠣꠘ ꠁꠎ꠆ꠎꠔ ꠀꠞ ꠢꠇ ꠟꠁꠀ ꠙꠄꠖꠣ ‘ꠅꠄ। ꠔꠣꠞꠣꠞ ꠛꠤꠛꠦꠇ ꠀꠞ ꠀꠇꠟ ꠀꠍꠦ। ꠄꠞ ꠟꠣꠉꠤ ꠢꠇꠟꠞ ꠃꠌꠤꠔ ꠄꠇꠎꠘꠦ ꠀꠞꠇꠎꠘꠞ ꠟꠉꠦ ꠛꠤꠞꠣꠖꠞꠤꠞ ꠝꠘ ꠟꠁꠀ ꠀꠌꠞꠘ ꠇꠞꠣ। Spoken samples https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wP7LAvWsA9U (Rap Song) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M1Kxrm6WrO4 (Foreigner speaking Sylheti) Sources & Further reading Wikipedia articles on Sylheti What now? This thread is foremost a place for discussion. Are you a native speaker? Share your culture with us. Learning the language? Tell us why you chose it and what you like about it. Thinking of learning? Ask a native a question. Interested in linguistics? Tell us what's interesting about it, or ask other people. Discussion is week-long, so don't worry about post age, as long as it's this week's language.
The Alþak language (pronounced Althak) is a conlang I've been working on with my bother. It is very inspired by Germanic languages, mostly Swedish, German and English. We chose to make a simple grammar and conjugation. This is my first ever conlang, and I don't have a linguistic background or anything, so please be constructive ;) We're using latin alphabet, with a few letters in addition :
à : /ɛ/
ò : /oə/
ì : /ai/
þ : /θ/
ø : /ø/
ð : /ð/
ç : /ʂ/
Here is all the pronouns in Alþak.
Subject Pronouns
Object Pronouns
Possessive Pronouns
1st pers. sing
Jak
Mið
Min
2nd pers. sing
Duk
Dið
Din
3rd pers. sing, masculine
Huk
Sið
Sin
3rd pers. sing, feminine
Hok
Sið
Sin
3rd pers. sing, neutral (can be used for talking about someone)
Dek
Sið
Sin
1st pers. plur
Vik
Ooð (/uð/)
Vin
2nd pers. plur
Nik
Nið
Nin
3rd pers. plur
Dak
Danð
Dan
As in Swedish, every noun in Alþak has 4 declensions :
Singular indefinite, the form found in dictionaries ;
Singular definite, removing the pronoun and adding the suffix -n ;
Plural indefinite, adding the suffix -r ;
Plural definite, removing the pronoun and adding the suffix -rn.
The word child (smàlmìne (smàl : small, mìne : human)) declined with the four forms ("en" meaning "a", and "flet" meaning "several"):
A child : En smàlmìne ;
The child : Smàlmìnen ;
Several children : Flet smàlmìner ;
The children : Smàlmìnern.
The conjugation is pretty simple. Every infinitive verb ends with "aa". To conjugate it to present, remove one "a" and add a "r". The conjugation is the same for every pronoun. Example : To drink : Trikaa. I drink : Jak trikar. For now there is only 3 other tenses : past, future, and conditional. These 3 tenses work using auxiliaries, respectively "Sva", "Sna", "Sko". To conjugate in those tenses, juste remove one "a" and add the auxiliary before the verb. Example : To have : Haa. I had : Jak sva ha. I will have : Jak sna ha. I should have : Jak sko ha. But there is a few irregular verbs :
Translation
Infinitive
Present
Past, Future, Conditional
Be
Vàraa
Àr
Vàra
Go
Goaa
Gor
Go
Say
Sàjaa
Sàj
Sàja
Like
Mòraa
Mòr
Mòra
Can
Kanaa
Kan
Kana
Want
Millaa
Mill
Milla
Must
Mòstaa
Mòste
Mòsta
The syntax is similar to English, with a Subject-Verb-Object formation.
The vast majority of Swedish verbs are conjugated by these factors: tense - Swedish has three basic present ('jag har', meaning 'I have'), past ('jag hada', i.e. 'I had), future ('jag ska ha' - 'I will have') tenses, and a perfective ('jag har haft', 'jag hade haft', 'jag ska ha haft') version of each of these three. This Swedish verb conjugator tool allows you to conjugate Swedish verbs. Simply type in the verb you wish to conjugate and hit the Conjugate! button. Try it out with any of the top Swedish verbs listed below: vara (to be) få (to get) gå (to go) springa (to run) se (to see) prata (to speak) ha (to have) Swedish verbs only inflect for different tenses, and as such have four different forms: the infinitive form (the base form), the present tense, the past tense and the past participle form. Swedish verbs are divided into four conjugation categories: Group 1 Most Swedish verbs belong into this group. Conjugate Swedish verbs and find the right Swedish conjugation with the bab.la verb conjugator. Includes conjugation for irregular Swedish verbs. Once you identify which group the verb you are using belongs to, you can begin the process of conjugation. When conjugating Swedish verbs, you take the stem of the verb and change the suffix depending on the tense and voice. Most verbs, over eighty percent, are included in the regular –ar category. 'se' conjugation - Swedish verbs conjugated in all tenses with the bab.la verb conjugator. Conjugate Swedish verbs on-line. Swedish is the national language of Sweden. It is spoken by 9 million native speakers in Sweden and Finland. The infinitive of the verb to be in Swedish is vara, and the conjugated present tense form is är and the past tense is var. The infinitive of the verb to have is ha, and the conjugated present tense form is har and the past tense is hade. att vara - to be. att ha - to have. I am. Infinitives in Swedish end in -a. When conjugating verbs, the same form is used for all subject pronouns, whether singular or plural. To form the present tense of verbs, either add -r to the infinitive or remove the -a and add -er. tala - to speak (-ar verb) and stänga - to close (-er verb) Present Tense. Past Tense. What are the most common Swedish verbs, how do you conjugate them, and how do you use them? We've created a guide for you.