Modern Gothic

[keenir]

From my observations, the major scripts of the area evolved in generally different ways. Impressionistically, Latin scripts tended to be regularised; Greek letters tended to take on more fluid forms; Cyrillic stayed more or less the same, with a tendency to exaggerate the long strokes of the majuscule script. Gothic could take any of these approaches — or something different entirely.

I once explored a (temporary, visiting?) exhibit about medieval Germans who had traveled to and from the land of Georgia...so maybe also look at one of the scripts for Georgian? ie,https://youtu.be/bUSy13xBPbk?si=wk55yUL79-OChYuY for references.

{I forget which museum in Germany I was visiting at the time, sorry}


Also, maybe combine features, like a little bit of Greek's fluidness, Latin's regularizedness (which appears evenmoreso in one of Georgian's scripts), etc.

My advice would be to get a calligraphy set and play around with it. It’s great fun, and gives a much better idea of how these scripts evolve.

definately do this - its quite very fun indeed, i agree.

[bradrn]

From my observations, the major scripts of the area evolved in generally different ways. Impressionistically, Latin scripts tended to be regularised; Greek letters tended to take on more fluid forms; Cyrillic stayed more or less the same, with a tendency to exaggerate the long strokes of the majuscule script. Gothic could take any of these approaches — or something different entirely.

I once explored a (temporary, visiting?) exhibit about medieval Germans who had traveled to and from the land of Georgia...so maybe also look at one of the scripts for Georgian? ie,https://youtu.be/bUSy13xBPbk?si=wk55yUL79-OChYuY for references.

{I forget which museum in Germany I was visiting at the time, sorry}

As far as I’m aware, Georgian (and Armenian) have had little if any influence on the other European scripts. Even Cyrillic shows no signs of Georgian influence. It would certainly be interesting to see a Georgianised Gothic script, but I leave it to Emily to decide if that’s plausible or not — I don’t know the history of these Goths.

(The converse isn’t necessarily true: Armenian in particular has obvious European influence, up to adopting lettercase. I’m not sure why Georgian never went down that path, but it hasn’t. Nuskhuri does have similarities to blackletter (oddly enough, a Western European style!), but Mkhedruli looks quite different to any other neighbouring script.)

[gupdoo3]

All this work is very nice Might give this thread a second read when I have the spoons to actually process more of the technical details but I'm a fan so far

I don't have a lot of conlang experience and I'm not the best at making them sounds naturalistic so I am DEFINITELY taking notes on how you used palatalization for the gentive

[Emily]

thank you that's the kind of detail that can go a long way: a coincidence creates something that's almost a pattern, so the speakers turn it into an actual pattern. but i may need to do some more tests with it to see how feasible it is to retain it by the end of phase 3, where the palatal consonants have largely merged and, say, /ʃ/ could be the palatal form for any number of sounds. would the potential ambiguity be so great that speakers would ditch it? only precision laboratory testing will tell

[Emily]

month names
got the final versions of the month names worked out! i had come up with the original names a while back, but only recently have i worked out the details (including inflections) through the last phase

the only possibly attested month names in gothic are naubaimbair (november) and jiuleis ("yule"), both of which are problematic. (the word "jiuleis" appears in something that may be a phrase "fruma jiuleis", that is "before yule", or alternatively may be a compound word "frumajiuleis".) i ended up deciding that "frumajiuleis" would be a compound word used for november. i set jiuleis as december and "aftumajiuleis" as january. in retrospect i think it probably would have been more accurate to have frumajiuleis as november and aftumajiuleis as december, and then form a different compound for january. but for the time being that stands

at least three early germanic languages had their own calendar of months, but they may or may not line up with julian/gregorian months and at any rate are not at all consistent between each other. so i used them more for inspiration than exact derivation. in addition to early germanic calendars, i also looked to slavic month names (the ones not derived from latin, obviously). again, they aren't necessarily consistent between languages, but they do have more overlap than the extant germanic ones seem to. the final list i came up with:

• yule months:
  • november: frumajiuleis "before yule" → þrumajais /ðrúmajɛs/ → ðrumjes /ðrúmjɛs/ → ðrumjes /ðrúmjɨs/
  • december: jiuleis "yule" → iujais /jájɛs/ → jejmalz /jéjmælz/ (month element "-malz" added) → jimus /jéməs/
  • january: aftumajiuleis "after yule" → aftaumjais /áftɔmjɛs/ → aftojes /æftójɛs/ → aftojes /æftɒ́jɨs/
• word + "mēnōþs" (month) compounds:
  • february: haírutmēnōþs "deer month, stag month" → hairaudmenþs /hɛ́rɔdmenðz/ → erunbalz /ɛrúnbælz/ → erundus /ɛrúndəs/
  • march: grasmēnōþs "grass month" → grasmenþs /grázmenðz/ → granbalz /gránbælz/ → grandus /grándəs/
  • april: áustrōmēnōþs "Easter month"** → ausdromenþs /ɔ́ʊzdromenðz/ → ozdrumalz /ɔzdrúmælz/ → ozdrumus /ɔzdróməs/
  • may: áikmēnōþs "oak month" → aigmenþs /ɛ́ʊgmenðz/ → engbalz /éŋbælz/ → engus /jéŋgəs/
  • june: falgōmēnōþs "fallow month" → falgomenþs /fálgomenðz/ → falgumalz /fælgúmælz/ → fogumus /góməs/ (in careful speech /vgóməs/)
  • july: hawimēnōþs "hay month" → hawaumenþs /hávɔmenðz/ → awmalz /ávmælz/ → awmus /wávməs/
  • august: asanmēnōþs "harvest month" → asanmenþs /ásanmenðz/ → azomalz /æzómælz/ → azomus /æzɒ́məs/
  • september: triumēnōþs "wood month" → ddjiumenþs /ʤjámenðz/ → zjamalz /ʒámælz/ → djamus /ʒáuməs/
  • october: weinamēnōþs "wine month" → wonamenþs /vwánamenðz/ → wonmalz /vónmælz/ → womus /vɒ́məs/

**(if there was an actual gothic cognate to english "easter" it didn't survive into any existing texts, and at least in the christian sense had been replaced by greek "paskha")

coming up with this list necessitated figuring out the words for deer/stag, oak, fallow, and easter, which were all derived from proto-germanic. the element /menoþ/ had been reduced by phase 2 to /mal/, which was further mangled to /bal/ after some consonants; the one-two punch of phase 3's loss of /l/ in the syllable coda and unstressed vowel reduction in final syllables led to the reinterpretation of everything after that element's initial consonant (/m/, in some cases changed to /b/ or /d/ or /g/!) as a case ending. however, the dative singular ("in July") and genitive singular ("the 14th of March") are possibly the most commonly used forms for any month name, and their endings begin with vowels, meaning the /l/ deletion wasn't triggered. so in these two positions only, i've retained the -al- ending (which is rendered /-áulɨ/ <-ale> in dat sg and /-áʒɨs/ <-eljes> in gen sg)

conversely, as noted above, the word for december added the -mal element, as it was shorter than all the other month names and would have otherwise been the phonetically rather indistinced /jéjɛs/. but of course this element went through the same reduction as described in the last paragraph

i want to link to the dictionary entries i have on anthologi.ca but i'm having permissions issues so as a consolation prize i'll include a sound change development chart explaining the singular forms for "march" (numbers refer to specific sound changes; see the relevant post):

More: show

Nom Sg grasmēnōþs	Acc Sg grasmēnōþ	Dat Sg grasmēnōþ	Gen Sg grasmēnōþis	change
grásmēnþs	grásmēnþ	grásmēnþ	grásmēnþis	loss of -ō- in stem (irregular change)
↓	↓	↓	grásmēɲʃis	1.13: palatalization
↓	↓	↓	grásmēɲʃɛs	1.14: unstressed /i u/ → /ɛ ɔ/
grásmenþs	grásmenþ	grásmenþ	grásmeɲʃɛs	1.16: unstressed long vowels shorten
grázmenðz	grázmenð	grázmenð	grázmeɲʒɛs	1.18: consonant voice leveling
grázmenðz	grázmenð	grázmenð	grázmeɲʒɛs	phase 1 final state
grázmẽnðz	grázmẽnð	grázmẽnð	grázmẽɲʒɛs	2.8: vowel nasalization
gránmẽnðz	gránmẽnð	gránmẽnð	gránmẽɲʒɛs	2.8: consonant nasalization (VCN → VNN)
↓	↓	↓	gránmẽjʒɛs	2.8: /ɲ/ → /j/
gránmẽðz	gránmẽð	gránmẽð	↓	2.8: nasal C deleted after nasal V
gránbẽðz	gránbẽð	gránbẽð	gránbẽjʒɛs	2.8: nasal C dissimilates after other nasal C
↓	↓	gránbẽða	↓	declension change
gránbɛ̃ðz	gránbɛ̃ð	gránbɛ̃ða	gránbɛ̃jʒɛs	2.11: nasal vowels lower
gránbɛ̃z	↓	↓	↓	2.12: fricatives deleted before fricatives
↓	↓	gránbɛ̃lá	↓	2.13: intervocalic lenition
gránbɜ̃z	gránbɜ̃ð	gránbɜ̃lə	gránbɜ̃jʒəs	2.14: unstressed vowel reduction
↓	↓	gránbɛlə	↓	2.15: unstressed nasal vowel becomes oral in position VC_CV
gránbãz	gránbãð	gránbɛlɛ	gránbãjʒɛs	2.19: reduced vowels harden
↓	↓	granbɛ́lɛ	granbã́jʒɛs	2.20: stress shifts to penultimate
gránbaz	gránbað	↓	granbájʒɛs	2.21: vowel denasalization
gránbæz	gránbæð	grænbélɛ	grænbájʒɛs	2.22: vowel merger
↓	↓	grænbálɛ	↓	DatSg vowel becomes /a/ based on rest of paradigm, as well as other month names that already have /a/
gránbælz	gránbæl	↓	↓	DatSg -bal- extends to all non-genitive
gránbælz	gránbæl	grænbálɛ	grænbájʒɛs	phase 2 final state
gránbæʊz	gránbæʊ	↓	↓	3.2: loss of /l/ V_ or V#
gránbɔz	gránbɔ	↓	grænbéʒɛs	3.3: reduction of certain diphthongs
grándɔz	grándɔ	grændálɛ	grændéʒɛs	3.8: post-nasal stop assimilates to nasal POA
grándəz	grándə	grændálɨ	grændéʒɨs	3.11: unstressed vowel in final syllable reduces
↓	↓	grændáulɨ	grændáʒɨs	3.12: vowel shift in stressed open syllables
grándəs	↓	↓	↓	3.14: word-final devoicing
grándəs	grándə	grændáulɨ	grændáʒɨs	phase 3 final state