#teutonic

Kaiser Wilhelm der Grosse x Teutonic ✨

A little sketch about this unlikely but adorable couple.

Teutonic, or Thiodanisc (/ˈθjoðanisk/) is an old Germanic language created to be an artificial (but still plausible) sister language to Old English, Old Saxon, Old Dutch, and Old High German (OHG). It was spoken by the Teutons, a group of people who lived in modern-day Jutland in Denmark who first emerged during the early Medieval period. Their modern descendants still live in Jutland, albeit in the northern areas closer to the North Sea.

Phonology (Consonants)

While its phonology is similar to modern-day English, there are some notable differences:

The velar fricative /x/ is a fully realized sound, whereas in modern English it is mostly restricted to loanwords like Bach or in Scottish English dialects. Its voiced counterpart [ɣ] is only found as an allophone of /g/ between vowels, or /x/ before voiced consonants.

[ç] is found in English words like hue.

/θ/ is very common, and is always pronounced like the in Thor and never like the in that. For example, the neutral definite article (equivalent to English the) is pronounced as /θat/ rather than English /ðæt/. However, the latter sound [ð] is used as an intervocalic variant of /d/.

is always pronounced like Spanish perro and never like the English .

Further information about its consonants:

All consonants except /j h/ can be geminated.

/ŋ/ is an allophone of /n/ before velar stops /k g/.

Before front vowels and /j/, phonemes /x h/ are realized as /ç/.

Voiceless fricatives /f s x/ adopt allophonic qualities of /v z ɣ/ before voiced pairs and between vowels, and vice-versa.

Voiced consonants are always devoiced word-finally.

Stops /p t k/ are aspirated to /pʰ, tʰ, kʰ/ at the beginning of words, but are unaspirated in initial consonant clusters.

/g k/ becomes /j ts/ before /e i/; /k: g:/ remain “hard” (unpalatalized).

Phonology (Vowels)

Teutonic has a six vowel system - vowels /a e i o u/ are pronounced as in Spanish, and like Spanish they are not reduced outside of stressed position. However, Teutonic has an additional vowel /y/ which appears in French tu /ty/ or in surfer English dude /dyd/. This vowel emerges as the result of umlaut, where historically the vowel /u/ becomes /y/ when followed by /i j/ in the next syllable. This will be covered further in the grammatical section.

There are two diphthongs: ae /ej/ and ou /ow/. /ej/ is only found in stressed syllables, reducing to /e/ elsewhere.

Stress

Nouns, verbs, pronouns, adjectives, and adverbs derived from adjectives are all stressed on the root syllable of a word. Adding prefixes does not change stress, but the second element of compound words accept secondary stress.

Orthography:

Teutonic uses the Latin alphabet, and specifically writing conventions used for writing the Latin language because it was initially written down by Latin monks. This includes using <v> for /w/ rather than /v/, and using a silent <h> to represent unfamiliar sounds for Latin speakers, such as /θ x/ (<th ch> respectively). <ch> can also represent /kh/ as the result of suffixation. And like in Latin, <c> represents /k/. Classical Latin lacked palatalization, but modern Ecclesiastical Latin has /tʃ/ and so do its modern Romance descendants; <c> before /e i/ represents /ts/.

mirc "dark" -> mirched "darkness" /ˈmirkçet/; not */ˈmirçet/

Generally <v> represents /w/ after a consonant, except for /kw/ which is written with the Latinate <qu> digraph.

Zamek Golubski, Golub-Dobrzyń, Poland

zamek krzyżacki w Malborku

At night the long journey comes to an end... The railway station is the first showcase of the city, which for centuries was the largest and richest port on the Baltic Sea. Welcome to Gdańsk :)