User:OtherGuy1/Anglesch

Anglesch /aŋ.ləʃ/ is my Altlang, assuming that William the Conquerer lost and Harald III of Norway won the invasion of England. The result is a much more Germanic language, with less Romance and Greek vocabulary.

Classification and related languages

Anglesch, along with Frisian, is part of the Anglo-Frisian languages. Scotts only exists as a minor accent of Anglesch. Anglesch belongs to the West Germanic branch of the Germanic languages, but it has been heavily influenced by the North Germanic language Old Norse.

History

Harold Hadrada made a deal with the Welsh and Cornish: he promised them independent nations in exchange for co-operation. They were able to warn the Vikings about the incoming English army while they were at Stamford bridge. The Vikings set an ambush and slaughtered them. The Viking army met up with the Celtic armies and attacked the Normans from two sides, and William was killed.

The mixing of Old Norse and Old Anglesch made a mixed language. England later conquered Scotland, and the mixing of Middle Anglesch and Old Scots further mixed the language.

Phonological Changes

• (w) changed to (v) and (ʍ) changed to (f)
• /ng/ becomes /ŋ/
• /mb/ becomes /m/
• θ merged with (t) and ð with (d)
• ēo becomes /i:/

Phonology

Consonants

	labial	alveolar	post- alveolar	palatal	velar	uvular	glottal
nasal	m	n			ŋ
plosive	p  b	t  d			k  g	q¹	ʔ²
affricate		ts3	tʃ
fricative	f  v	s	ʃ	ç	x	h
approximant/trill		r  r̥		j
lateral approximant		l

1. The Glottal Stop only exists between vowels and is not phonemic.
2. /ts/ is usually only found in loandwords from Latin and German, and is sometimes considered two separate phonemes.

The consonant set is vaguely similar to the other Germanic languages.

Final voiced obstruents are partially devoiced, and voiceless stops are always aspirated. The rhotics are approximants when followed by consonants.

Vowels

Monophthongs

	front	near front	central	near back	back
close	iː  yː				uː
near close		ɪ  ʏ		ʊ
close-mid	e(ː)  ø(ː)				o(ː)
central			ə
open mid	æ(ː)		ɐ		ɔ(ː)
close			a		ɑː

Notes:

(ə) is an allophone of (ɪ) and (ɛ) when unstressed

(ɐ) is an allophone of (a) when unstressed.

Stress

Like other Germanic languages, Anglisch has the primary stress on the first syllable of words. Exceptions to this rule include recent loanwords (like Spanish cañón became kanjón), especially names, and words starting with these prefixes (that is why they have the è):

jè

bè

à

Grammar

Compared to other West Germanic languages, the grammar of Anglisch is very simple.

Nouns

Nouns inflect for number only. To make a plural out of a singular, add an -e.

Verbs

Verbs in the present inflect for three forms: first person e, second person (e)st, and third person et. Anglisch also has a number of irregulars.

Regular past tense uses -t, or -et (depending on the final consonant). Others use vowel changes.

Like other Germanic languages, Anglisch uses a V2 word order.

Vocabulary

The vast majority of Anglisch words are Germanic in origin, but from which language is a little more tricky to figure out. Many words related to the sea and shipware are from Dutch, while many recent loanwords are from German.

Due to the mixed history of being a West Germanic language but being influenced by the North Germanic languages, there are often many words from the same Germanic root meaning similar things but sounding different. For instance Jarn (native Anglisch) means yarn, but Garn (Old Norse) means string.

Technical words and scientific vocabulary are generally Latin and Greek (enzyklopædi for encyclopædia), but they are sometimes calqued such as using Væterstuff instead of Hydrogen and Seurstuff instead of Oxygen.