by Max Barry

Latest Forum Topics

Advertisement

1

DispatchFactbookMiscellaneous

by Garania. . 9 reads.

the Garanian Language

The Garanian language is a Germanic language spoken as the official language throughout most of Garania. It is a development from 21st-century German that evolved as a result of the influence of North Germanic languages such as Swedish, Norwegian, Danish, and Icelandic on German. These languages came back into contact with German due to the migrations of survivors within northern Europe and Scandinavia in the wake of Ragnarok, and later from migrants from Iceland making it across the sea and settling on the North Sea coasts in the later decades of the first century post-apocalypse.

Garanian ("Garaanisch") differs from German in a number of key ways. First, it underwent some significant phonological shifts. The /t/ and /d/ phonemes underwent lenition and became /θ/ and /ð/. Additionally, the German /ç/ phoneme was suppleted by the Swedish /ɕ/ phoneme. To maintain an easily perceptible difference between /ɕ/ and /ʃ/, the latter was pushed back to become /ʂ/. Additionally, the German short formerly low-mid vowels raised to match the quality of their long counterparts, so the length distinction is defined only through length rather than length and quality.

The next changes are grammatical - the language has 3 cases (nominative, accusative, and dative) and a remnant of a genitive case as opposed to German having 4 (nominative, accusative, dative, and a full genitive). It has 2 genders (common and neuter) instead of German's 3 (masculine, feminine, neuter). Garanian nouns decline for case, number, and gender but only by marking their articles rather than marking the nouns themselves (the only exception being the use of the genitive clitic, though this doesn't necessarily attach to the head noun). All noun inflection is marked on articles and pronouns rather than on the nouns themselves. Adjectives inflect for the gender of the noun they modify by changing their endings and their accent. Garanian verbs conjugate for tense and person by changing their wordforms, and additionally for number by changing the vowel in their conjugated endings, as well as changing accent.

Garanian is a pitch-accent language rather than stress-accent (like German). Pitch-accent can carry nuances of lexical meaning for nouns, and carries grammatical meaning on verbs and adjectives. The other major grammatical change from German is a shift in word order convention. In German, verb-second (V2) word order is used only in main clauses, with embedded clauses using verb-final word order. Garanian, however, allows V2 word order in both main and embedded clauses (similarly to Icelandic and Yiddish).

The other notable shifts from German are orthographic. Most notably, Garanian uses the characters ð and þ to represent voiced and unvoiced "th" sounds (like the th in "this" and the th in "think" respectively) rather than representing them with the digraph "th" like German does, and it repurposes ß to represent a retroflex "sh" sound. Its Latinate writing system is otherwise quite similar to that of modern-day German. Lastly, Garanian also uses a Runic orthography that is only used in official or religious contexts, i.e prophecies, written records of religious ceremonies, or records of royal succession. The two alphabets are shown below.
Latinate: Aa Ää Bb Cc ß Ðð Ee Ff Gg Hh Ii Jj Kk Ll Mm Nn Oo Öö Pp Qq Rr Ss Þþ Uu Üü Vv Ww Xx Yy Zz
Runic: ᚨ ᚪ ᛒ ᚳ ᛊ ᚧ ᛖ ᚠ ᚷ ᚼ ᛁ ᛄ ᚲ ᛚ ᛗ ᚾ ᛟ ᛝ ᛈ ᛩ ᚱ ᛋ ᚦ ᚢ ᚤ ᚡ ᚹ ᛉ ᚣ ᛣ

Some written samples of the language are shown below.

The Lord's Prayer:
"Unser Faar im himmel,
Geheiligen wehrðe ðein naam.
Ðein resje komme.
Ðein wille hänðe,
Wie im himmel so auf Erðe.

Unser ðaglig bröðþe gehf uns heuþe.
Och vergehf uns unsere tjulþe,
Wie auch wihr vergehfa ðehse mensje, ðie tjalðþa gegen uns.

Och lieþ uns nisjþe versöhsjung,
Sönðern räþ uns von ðem önðe.
Ðenn ðein isþ ðas resje och ðie krafþe
Och ðie ðierþ nu och auf ehwig.
Amen."

In English:

"Our Father in heaven,
hallowed be your name.
your kingdom come.
Your will be done,
As in heaven so on Earth.

Our daily bread give us today.
Forgive us our debts
as we forgive the people who owe against us.

And lead us not into temptation,
but deliver us from evil.
For yours are the kingdom and the power
and the glory now and forever.
Amen."

The North Wind and the Sun:
Garanian:
"Ðie Norþwinðe och ðie Sol sþrehðþan, wem von ihr beiþ war ðie sþaakar, als ein wanþere, ðer haþes gewihken in warma maanþa, ðem wäches ging enlangs. Sie ensþas, ðaß wer brangþes sie aus seiner maanþa, ðie sþaakar wäre.

Ðie Norþwinðe fing an, so sþaak konþes ðe zu bläsen. Ðoch je mehr blies ðe, umsö fasþar wihkþes sich ðie wanþere in seinen maanþa och so ðie Norþwinðe mussþes enlisch aufgehfen.

Nün fing an ðie Sol leusjen och es wurðe waarme, soðas zog aus ðie wanþere seinen maanþa soförþ. Ða mussþes ðie Norþwinðe zugehfen, ðaß ðie Sol war sþaakar als ðe."

English:
"The north wind and the sun were arguing about which of the two was stronger when a wanderer wrapped in a warm coat walked along their way. They agreed that who brought them out of their coat the stronger would be.

The north wind began to blow as hard as they could. However, the harder they blew, the tighter the wanderer wrapped themself in their coat and so the north wind finally gave up.

Then the sun began to shine and it got warm so that the wanderer took off their coat immediately. Then the north wind had to admit that the sun was stronger than them."

Garania

RawReport