Viteberger

Viteberger is a Scandinavian language with SOV word order.

Author: Rpiereck [[1]]

Alphabet and Pronunciation - Tékenrol ok Utal

Viteberger uses an alphabet similar to English, but missing the letters c, j, q, w, x, and z. The letters ä and ö are added, following a and o respectively on the alphabet order. The vowels marked with diacritic accents, á, é, í, ó, and ú are not considered separate letters in the alphabet but just a variation of the original vowels because all they do is mark the stressed syllable (or syllables) of a word.

On foreign words and names the letters c, j, q, w, x, and z are used, but not in any Viteberger words.

• [a] = a – on the vast majority of words it is pronounced short, like a in the Spanish casa, on a few rare words it is pronounced long, as the letter a in the English far.

• [ɛː] = ä – pronounced similar to the ai in fair, the same as a German ä.

• [b] - b – pronounced the same as in English.

• [d] - d – same as English.

• [ɛ] - e – pronounced as the e in deck, never as the e in deep.

• [f] - f – same as in English.

• [g] - g – always pronounced as the g in game with all vowels, never as the g in gesture.

• [h] - h – same as in English.

• [i] - i – always as the e in be.

• [k] - k – same as in English.

• [l] - l – similar to English, but the sound is made with a flat tongue, not with its tip curled back as in English.

• [ʎ] - ly – pronounced as the Portuguese digraph lh as in baralho.

• [m] - m – same as in English.

• [n] - n – same as in English.

• [ɔ] - o – always as the o in forward.

• [œ] - ö – same as a German ö.

• [p] – p - same as in English.

• [ɾ] - r – pronounced like an English r but with a single strong thrill, similar to a Brazilian Portuguese r as in prato.

• [s] - s – always as the s in same, never as the s in Asian.

• [ʃ] - sy – pronounced as the sh in sheet, always followed by a vowel.

• [t] - t - similar to English, but the sound is not retroflex, which means it is done with a flat tongue, not with it curled back.

• [ʧ] - ty – always pronounced as the ch in chili pepper.

• [dv] - tv – the t is pronounced as a d, and the v is fully pronounced.

• [ʧ] - ty - pronounced as the ch in chili pepper, always followed by a vowel.

• [u] - U – similar to the oo in boot but pronounced shorter.

• [v] - v - same as in English

• [j] - y – pronounced as the y in yellow, semi-vocalic.

Viteberger vowels are divided in two groups: back vowels (a, o, u), and front vowels (e, i, y, ä, ö). The soft vowels influence the pronunciation of the letters G, K, T and D, making them slightly more aspirated than when pronounced with back vowels.

The following digraphs are pronounced differently when used with back or front vowels:

• sk - when used with a back vowel it is pronounced as the sc in scar, when used with a front vowel it is pronounced as the sh in shoot.

• Skotör – leap year, pronounced [skotœɾ] /skotör/

• Sköl – bowl, pronounced [ʃœl] /shöl/

• gn - pronounced as gn in agnostic when used with back vowels, pronounced as a long n when used with front vowels.

• Gnat – gnat, pronounced as a hard g sound followed by the word not: [gnot] /g-not/

• Bignid – building, pronounced as [binnid] /bin-nid/

When the letter k appears on the end of a syllable following a front vowel it sounds like a g:

• Försíktig - careful, pronounced [fœrsigtig] /försigtig/

Marking of syllable stress - Stavélsestrésenus Märkar

The syllabic stress of a Viteberger root word that has no diacritic markers falls by default on the syllable next to the last. On the examples below the stressed syllable is bolded:

• Morgon - morning

• Gulfisk - goldfish

• Somer - summer

If the stress of a root word’s syllable does not fall in the next to the last syllable, it is marked by an acute diacritic marker used over the stressed syllable:

• Banán - banana

• bákan - to bake

When a root word becomes longer due to any grammatical feature (e.g. pluralization, compounding, etc), the acute diacritic stress marker must be taken into consideration. A word that had no acute diacritic stress marker will require one, while a word that had a diacritic stress marker may drop it:

• Mórgondug - morning dew (the word became longer due to compounding with Dug dew but the stress still falls on the first syllable of Morgon, so that syllable is now marked)

• Gúlfisken - goldfishes (word is now pluralized but stress still falls on the same syllable so it must be marked)

• Sómerende - summer’s end (the word was compounded but stress stays on the same syllable and it must be marked)

• ey bak - I bake (the infinitive suffix was dropped on the conjugated verb, and now the stressed syllable is on the default position, so the diacritic can be removed).

When a compound word is formed and two consonants meet, sometimes there is a need to insert a vowel in between the root words to rebuild a vowel that used to be there in ancient Viteberger. This vowel, most often an e, forms a new syllable, and then the diacrritic marker of a word may still be written because the stress still falls outside of the default position:

• Banánebred - banana bread (the new compound word maintains the stress on the second syllable of the original word, so the diacritic can be dropped)

• Yárdeberetört - strawberry pie (compound made from Yárdeber, and Tört. Yárdeber itself is a compound made of Yárd and Ber)

On long compound word where the main stressed syllable is more than two syllables away from the word’s end, there is a tendency to not pronounce the very last syllable, for example on the word Sómerende the last -e ends up not being pronounced, and the word ends up being pronounced /Sómerend/. For that reason, there are times when the secondary stress of a word is also marked, to maintain full pronunciation of he entire word.

The Viteberger word for /syllable stresses/ itself is marked twice: once at the first and main stressed syllable, and a second time under the secondary stressed syllable:

• Stavélsestrésen

The first stress is the vél syllable, while the secondary stress is on the strés syllable. If the secondary syllable were not marked then the plural marker, the -en at the very end of the word, wouldn’t be fully pronounced.

If a word contains a syllable with an umlauted vowel outside of the default stress position, then the stress will fall on that umlauted syllable:

• födselan - to be born

• Skotör - leap year

If however there is a syllable with an umlauted vowel outside the default position and that syllable is not the stressed syllable, then the stressed syllable, even if on the default position, will be marked with the diacritic:

• Bíör - beer (notice how the diacritic is used over the í because the last syllable contains an umlauted ö)

• Bróköl - broccoli

• Kírkyörd - cemetery

On words where all syllables are umlauted, the stress will always fall on the default position:

• Tönköt - tooth gum

• Söspön - sauce pan

• Työnör - teenager

Finally, on words where there are two umlauted syllables, but none of them fall on the default position, the stress will fall with the first umlauted syllable:

• Hövednäs - headache

Word order - Ord Ordnin

The word order in Viteberger is SOV: subject, object, verb:

ey han vet - I know her

The only exception to the word order is when forming questions, where the word order becomes VSO:

vet du han? - do you know her?

Nouns and grammatical cases - Substantiven ok gramatisk Falen

As in German all nouns are always capitalized.

Cases - Falen

Cases are denoted simply by the ending of a noun. In Viteberger most nouns are declined. There are 3 genders (masculine, feminine and neuter) and 4 strong cases (nominative, accusative, dative and genitive), and one weak case (locative). There are also three grammatical articles: unspecified, indefinite and definite. Each noun gets declensed according to gender, case, article and number.

Viteberger is not largely a grammatical language, but instead a lexical language. This means that is it is verbs and prepositions which govern cases, rather than sentence position. If there is both a verb and preposition in the sentence it will be the preposition rather than the verb which decides the case.

Masculine noun:

Vater - father

Feminine noun:

Moder – mother

Neuter:

Hund – dog

Hus - house

Case table, click on the picture below for a larger version:

IMAGE PENDING

Váterur - father (accusative, unspecified, singular)

Váterun - a father (accusative, indefinite, singular)

Váterut - the father (accusative, definite, singular)

Móderant - the mothers (accusative, definite, plural)

Móderist - the mothers’ (genitive, definite, plural)

Móderet - the mother (nominative, definite, singular)

Hundus - dog’s, the dog’s (genitive, unspecified or definite, singular)

Hundur - dogs’, some dogs’ (genitive, unspecified or indefinite, plural)

Hundnet - the dogs (accusative, definite, plural)

The Viteberger locative case is called a weak case because it is used only when used for the English equivalent preposition in for all other prepositions used for location (near, at, on top of, etc) the locative case is not used. The locative case is also the only case that is also added to another case, so that a noun in the locative case may also be in the nominative, accusative, dative or genitive case:

Váteris Naveneti - in the name of the father

In the above sentence the word Váteris is on the genitive, definite, singular (Vater+is), while the word Naveneti is on the accusative, definite, singular, locative (Naven+et+i).

Vowel shift plural - Vokál skifin Flörtal

On nouns ending in -en there is usually a vowel shift on the syllable preceding the last.

a > ä

e or i > no change

o > ö

u > ü

Example of a vowel shift plural:

Vapen - weapon

Väpen - weapons

Marten - marten

Märten - martens

Personal Pronouns - Persónlisk Förnáven

There are two grammatical numbers, singular and plural; and two grammatical genders: human and neuter.

The human gender is used to denote any human, the neuter gender is used for everything else.

Viteberger has an unique personal pronoun on the third person singular called the Blankpérson “blank person”, that is used in situations where the gender of the third person is yet unknown, or when it is used in a generic sense. That is similar to when in English the word “one” is used to substitute a pronoun in the third person singular. For simplification purposes this pronoun will be translated as “one” henceforth.

Personal pronouns, nominative case

ey - I

du - you

han – he/she

en - it

min - one (the blank person, aka Tömperson)

vi - we

ni - you

dey - they

Personal pronouns, accusative case

mi - me

du - you

hon – him/her

sin - it

min - one

os - us

nin - you

din - them

Personal pronouns, dative case

mir - to me

dir - to you

her - to him/her

sir - to it

miner - to one

vir - to us

nir - to you

der - to them

Personal pronouns, genitive case

men - my, mine

din - your, yours

hans - her, hers

sin - its

vin - our, ours

nin - your, yours

der - their, theirs

Regular Verbs - Régelbúnden Verber

Infinitive - Infínitiv

The infinitive of all verbs is marked with the suffix -an following the verbal root:

verkan - to work

hopan - to jump

ritan - to draw

regnan - to rain

Participles - Participer

Viteberger has different participles for past, present and future, which are used to form the perfect aspect for each tense. The past participle is the verb root plus -et suffix. The present tense is the root plus -ar. The future participle is the root plus -érei.

Past participle: verket

Present participle: verkar

Future participle: verkérei

Simple Present - Énkelnúutidspänt

The present tense is marked by the verb root used by the singular and the root plus the suffix -en for the plural:

ey verk - I work

du verk - you work

er verk - he works

zi verk - she works

en verk - it works

min verk - one works

vey verken - we work

ney verken - you work

dey verken - they work

Present Perfect - Fulkómignúutidspänt

The present perfect is formed by the use of the auxiliary verb haban "to have", followed by the present participle:

ey hav verkar - I have worked

du hav verkar - you have worked

er hav verkar - he has worked

zi hav verkear - she has werked

en hav verket - it has worked

vey haven verkar - we have worked

ney haven verkar - you have worked

dey haven verkar - they have worked

Simple Past - Énkelfórtidspänt

The past tense is formed by the verb root plus suffix -et:

ey verket - I worked

du verket - you worked

er verket - he worked

zi verket - she worked

en verket - it worked

vey verketen - we worked

ney verketen - you worked

dey verketen - they worked

Past Perfect - Fulkómigfóstidspänt

Formed by using the auxiliary verb haban in the past tense, plus the present participle:

ey hat verket - I had worked

du hat verket - you had worked

er hat verket - he had worked

zi hat verket - she had worked

en hat verket - it had worked

vey haten verket - we had worked

ney haten verket - you had worked

dey haten verket - they had worked

Simple Future - Énkelfrámtidspänt

Formed by adding the suffix -éra to the singular forms, and -éran to the plural forms. Notice how the syllable stress moves with the future tense.

ey vérkera - I will work

du vérkera - you will work

er vérkera - he will work

zi vérkera - she will work

en vérkera - it will work

vey vérkeran - we will work

ney vérkeran - you will work

dey vérkeran - they will work

Future Perfect - Fulkómigfrámtidspänt

Formed by using the auxiliary verb haban plus the future participle:

ey hátera verkérei - I will have worked

du hátera verkérei - you will have worked

er hátera verkérei - he will have worked

zi hátera verkérei - she will have worked

en hátera verkérei - it will have worked

vey háteran verkérei - we will have worked

ney háteran verkérei - you will have worked

dey háteran verkérei - they will have worked

Conditional mood - Vilkórligskap

Formed by using the suffix -erat after the verb root:

ey vérkerat - I would work

du vérkerat - you would work

er vérkerat - he would work

zi vérkerat - she would work

en vérkerat - it would work

min vérkerat - one would work

vey vérkeraten - we would work

ney vérkeraten - you would work

dey vérkeraten - they would work

Past conditional mood - Fórstidvilkórligskap

Formed by the use of the conditional form of the auxiliary verb haban with the past participle:

ey háterat verket - I would have worked

du háterat verket - you would have worked

er háterat verket - he would have worked

zi háterat verket - she would have worked

en háterat verket - it would have worked

vey háteraten verket - we would have worked

ney háteraten verket - you would have worked

dey háteraten verket - they would have worked

Suggestive - Fórslagskap

The suggestive is formed by using the present tense with the auxiliary verb skud:

ey skud verk - I should work

du skud verk - you should work

er skud verk - he should work

zi skud verk - she should work

en skud verk - it should work

min skud verk - one should work

vey skud verken - we should work

ney skud verken - you should work

dey skud verken - they should work

Imperative mood - Imperativskap

The imperative is formed by using the suffix -e attached to the root:

verke - work

The verbal prefix tig- - tig- vérbalisk Forskeytet

When making requests or wishes the verbal prefix tig- is used in conjunction with the imperative:

vaknan - to wake up

vakne! - wake up!

tigvakne - please wake up

Note: the prefix tig- comes from the verb tigan “to beg”.

Prepositions and the dative case - Forméninger ok dátiv Falet

In general, the dative is used to mark the indirect object of a Viteberger sentence. In the following example Man is in the dative:

Ey Manit Boket sendet - I sent the book to the man

In English, the same sentence may be rendered: “I sent the man the book.” The indirect object here is marked by standing in front of the direct object. The normal word order in Viteberger is also to put the dative in front of the accusative (as in the example above). However, since the Viteberger dative is marked in form, it can also be put after the accusative: Ey Boket Manit sendet.

Certain Viteberger prepositions require the dative: fra, nem, mot, med, efter, seden, av, fyer. Other prepositions (til, ö, bak, i, darauk, um, under, för, mil) may be used with dative (indicating current location), or accusative (indicating direction toward something). Boket ö Bordit li (dative: the book is lying on the table), but Ey Boket ö Bordet set (accusative: I put the book onto the table).

In addition, the four prepositions vegne (“because of”), trots (“in spite of”), anstät (“instead of”) and vid (“during”), which require the genitive in formal language, are most commonly used with the dative in colloquial Viteberger. For example, “because of the weather” is expressed as vegne Väterit instead of the formally correct vegen Väterus.

Note that the concept of an indirect object may be rendered by a prepositional phrase. In this case, the noun’s or pronoun’s case is determined by the preposition, NOT by its function in the sentence.

Some Viteberger verbs require the dative for their direct objects. Common examples include folgan, hyalpan, and svaran. In each case, the direct object of the verb is rendered in dative. For example:

Men Viner mir hyalp. - My friends help me.

W Words - V Order

In Viteberger the so-called V Order (V words) are the six W Words in English, plus how:

Var - What

Varfor - Why

Ven - When

Vard - Where

Vilk - Which

Vem - Who

Vor - How

Example phrases

Var gör du? - What are you doing?

Varfor är du her? - Why are you here?

Ven komt hen Hemi? - When did she come home?

Ken du, vard är meyn Níkeler? - Where are my keys?

Vilk är Kvina Sandra? - Which woman is Sandra?

Vem etet Blódkeyknit? - Who ate the blood cakes?

Vor betalet du for Benzinet? - How did you pay for the gasoline?

Telling time - Tídmätar

Days of the week

Monsdag - monday

Tinsdag - tuesday

Vensdag - wednesday

Torsdag - thursday

Frisdag - friday

Lörsdag - saturday

Sonsdag - Sunday

Months

The Vitebergers have a unique calendar that was developed in the 16th century by Viteberger astronomer Yan af Grönäng Äskílsone, based on local culture. The calendar was designed to start at the winter solstice, but errors in calculation means the year actually starts three days after the solstice. The calendar has thirteen 28-day long months, and is followed by a day, mistakenly called a month, that is just called Örende: Year’s End. The thirteen months plus one day equal 365 days like the Gregorian calendar. On leap years the Örende is two days long.

Yulmond – 25 December - 21 January (Yule month)

Kertmond – 22 January - 18 February (candle month)

Vormond – 19 February - 18 March (spring month)

Óstermond – 19 March - 15 April (month of the Nordic godess Oestra, also Easter month)

Blómenmond – 16 April - 13 May (blooming month)

Sonmond – 14 May - 10 June (month of sun)

Hetmond – 11 June - 8 July (heat month)

Gródamond – 9 July - 5 August (crop month)

Härfestmond - 6 August - 2 September (harvest month)

Gulmond – 3 September - 30 September (amber month)

Kaltmond – 1 October - 28 October (cold month)

Frostmond – 29 October - 25 November (frost month)

Víntermond – 26 November - 23 December (winter month)

Örénde – 24 December (year’s end)

Here is a chart showing the months of the Viteberger and Gregorian calendars side by side. Click on the picture for a larger size:

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Time, Manner, Place - Tid, Hat, Stat

Viteberger puts adpositional phrases together using a Time, Manner, Place order, which is different from English, which uses a Place, Manner, Time order:

• Ey yästern med Bili til Hemi komt.

• /I yesterday by car to home came./

• I came home by car yesterday

Notice also how yesterday is considered an adverb in Viteberger (as are most temporal words) and do not get capitalized like nouns, and are not declensed for case.

How to start a conversation in Viteberger

Informal Greetings - Uformlik Hälsinger

Here are a few informal ways of starting a conversation in Viteberger. Below are the phrases in Viteberger with the literal English translation, and the equivalent English phrase between parenthesis if needed.

Var gör di? - What are you doing?

Var gör? (slang) - What are you doing? (What’s up?)

Vor käna di? - How are you feeling? (How are you?)

Var händ núu? - What’s happening now? (What’s going on?)

Hey! - Hey! Hi!

Formal Greetings - Formlik Hälsinger

The following greetings are used when meeting someone, not when saying goodbye.

God Morgon - Good morning (used from sunrise until noon)

God Dag - Good day (used from noon until sunset)

God Väl - Good evening (used from sunset until about 10 or 11 pm)

God Nat - Good night (used from 10 or 11 pm until sunrise)

Saying Goodbye - Farvel Sigin

These are informal greetings for saying goodbye:

Vey möder - We meet (we will meet again)

Senar - Later

Snart - Soon

Ö Mórgoni - In the morning

The following formal greetings are suitable for saying goodbye:

Farvel - Farewell

Vey aftur möderan - We will meet again

Short texts - Kort Texter

Short texts in Viteberger can be found here: Viteberger short texts

Viteberger Culture - Viteberger Mening

Go to this page for: Viteberger Culture