Zompist Bboard Again

Vinlandic or Vínlenzka (conservative spelling, IPA: [ˈwɑ̃j.lẽt.skɑ]) is the majority language of Vinland [ˈwɑ̃j.lɑ̃t], a sovereign nation east of the Republic of Quebec in North America. Beginning with the Norse exploration of North America in the 11th century, the Norse language there became a Lingua Franca among many peoples, including the Abenaki, Basques, Beothuk, Inuktitut, Mi'kmaq, Montagnais, Naskapi, and of course the Norse. It would continue to act as a Lingua Franca until the Danish colonization of Vinland during the 17th century, where it was supplanted by Danish. However, growing nationalist agitation from the Vinlanders saw the Vinlandic language once again bounce back after Vinland was granted independence. Today, the Vinlandic language is a native language of 450,000 Vinlanders.

Diachronic History

The diachronic history of Vinlandic starts with Old Norse. This is the Old Norse phonology, for reference:



From Old West Norse to Old Vinlandic

• The voiceless dental fricative, /θ/, fortifies to a plosive /t/
• The voiceless labiodental fricative, /f/, is debucalized to /h/.
• The Old Norse nasal vowels merge with their oral equivalents.
• Voiced plosive consonants are devoiced.
• The long front low unrounded vowel, /aː/, merges with /ɔː/ like in Icelandic.

Giving us the resulting phonology:

/m n (ŋ)/
/pʰ p tʰ t kʰ k/
/(v) (ð) (ɣ) h/
/r l/
/j w/

/i iː y yː u uː/
/e eː ø øː o oː/
/ɛ ɛː œ œː ɔ ɔː/
/a/

From Old Vinlandic to Middle Vinlandic:

• The long vowels /ɛː eː aː øː yː oː uː/ break to /ja je wa ew iw wo aw/ respectively.
• The Old Norse diphthongs /au ei ey/ shift to /ow aj oj/ respectively.
• The low mid vowels /ɛ œ ɔ/ are merged with the high mid vowels /e ø o/.
• /u/ lowers to /o/, while /o/ fronts to /ɵ/.
• The rounded vowels /ɵ ø̞ y/ deround to /ə e i/ respectively.
• The liquid consonants /r l/ are deleted in syllable coda, lengthening the preceding vowel.
• The nasal consonants /m n ŋ/ are deleted in syllable coda, leaving a trace of nasalization on the preceding vowel.
• Before other consonants, the fricatives /v ð ɣ/ are deleted.
• The fricatives /v ð ɣ/ are lenited to /j/ before a front vowel like /e/ or /i/, and to /w/ before a back vowel like /ɑ/ or /o/.
• Old Norse /r/ and /l/ merge into a single phoneme, the tikk-l or "thick l".

Giving us the resulting phonology:

/m n/
/pʰ p tʰ t kʰ k/
/s h/
/r l/
/j w/

/i iː ĩ ĩː/
/e eː ẽ ẽː ə əː ə̃ ə̃ː o oː õ õː/
/a aː ã ãː/
/aw ow ew iw ja je jo wa wo aj oj/


From Middle Vinlandic to Modern Vinlandic:

• Aspirated consonants merge with their non-aspirated equivalents, except when geminated where they yield a cluster of /hC/.
• The cluster /sk/ palatalizes to /ʃ/ before a front vowel or /j/.
• The phoneme /k/ palatalizes to /tʃ/ before a front vowel or /j/.
• /a/ and its equivalents move further back in the vowel space.
• Middle Vinlandic /ɽ/ becomes /l/ in most dialects, however not all.

Giving us a final phonology of:

/m n/ <m n>
/p t tʃ k/ <p t č k>
/s ʃ h/ <s š h>
/l/ <l>
/j w/ <j w>

/i iː ĩ ĩː/
/e eː ẽ ẽː ə əː ə̃ ə̃ː o oː õ õː/
/a aː ã ãː/
/aw ow ew iw ja je jo wa wo aj oj/

Nasal vowels are indicated by an ogonek, and long vowels by a macron. Schwa is written <ø>. Out of the sheer pain of trying to combine all the characters, I'm not going to do that here.

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I finish this post off with a translation from an Old Faroese poem, originally translated by Moose-tache into the first version of this conlang and gone under several revisions. Unfortunately I cannot find the source of this poem in Old Norse, so I have to work from what I originally got. Hence this is probably riddled with errors. Nonetheless, it is a good example of what I want the language to look and sound like, even though I haven't work on the grammar yet and are still fine tuning the sound changes.

Nili ītʃeknǫ hā lyetalānī hąka øk ētį pīyayi
Lø̨kli nili
Hā tlyemānī tlāla
Opahtō tyawpari
ǫtī styenonǫ hā plįto yelōnā hāta tī
Hayani kǫ han
Hlamječis lekst han ī četonǫ
Ii hlakanǫ sǫ loktā aw sikā ok yēsemi
Hāsala hakla pǫša ǫkamanaląt
Hit čitnasta ī okala pwokmętǫ
Takānī wolo palaklahā Natōnā ō
Hįklā klektī ǫ leklō
Mewą ayrī pikto plī ǫ waī
Laisti han plī milǫ lø̨t
Ii hǫtla wā
Loką hiwa įtelektwelo elitoni
Wǫčapsholō, hwaluholō, etątiholō
Aysini a kālyeka tī sīt mwowōmwal
Loktolį wa yęsemi øk sikā
Lekst hlamyečis ī četonǫ

I don't know about the Inuit languages, but the language gives off a faint touch of Maori