Zelandish

Zelandish is a language derived from Old English by Andrew Smith and used as a journal language. At the time of writing I have been using it for several years. These pages will be an attempt to describe and remember the language as I have used it.

The name is derived from New Zealand, the locality in which I write my journal.

Orthography

Zelandish is primarily a written language. There are no hard and fast rules on how it is pronounced. It has an evolving orthography.

Vowels

A, a /a/

E, e /ɛ/

EE, ee /e/ -- Not part of my natural phonology and can be pronounced as a diphthong, also EI, ei

I, i /ɪ/

IE, ie /i/

O, o /ɔ/ -- also written as Á, á, no longer current language

OE, oe /œ/

OU, ou /y/ or /ʉ/ -- also written as Ú, ú no longer current language

U, u /ʊ/

If the second E is marked with a dieresis, ë, it is pronounced as a diphthong with schwa.

A vowel written with a circumflex is pronounced long. It generally indicates a consonant has been elided after it, usually h.

Consonants

The following consonants are pronounced the same as in English, particularly a southern hemispheric Commonwealth dialect:

B, C, CH, D, F, H, K, L, M, N, P, Q, R, S, T, V, W, X, Z

CG, cg is pronounced as 'dg', /dʒ/, in English

G, g is pronounced hard, /g/. In GJ, gj and after a vowel it is silent

J, j /j/

SCH, sch /ʃ/

There is no hard and fast rule on post-vocallic R, r. It can be pronounced as an approximant or elided. The non-rhotic pronunciations of vowels are ar /a:/, or /ɔ:/, ir, er and ur /ɜ/.

Grammar

Pronouns

The possessive pronoun takes a weak adjective ending after a preposition: our erd, our land; in ourn erd, in our land.

Sy is the third person feminine pronoun, 'she'. The objective and possessive form is hir.

Verbs

Infinitive

The most common form of the infinitive is the verb stem plus the ending -e, such as neese, to visit. If the verb stem ends in 'l' this ending is silent, such as tell, to tell.

Subjunctive

The subjunctive verb uses the verb stem after singular subjects in the present; and an ending similar to the infinitive after plural subjects. It is usually used after verbs of communication such as tell, to tell. It may be used as the primary verb in a sentence if the primary verb is conditional or expresses possibility (may, might).

Weak Verbs

A complete paradigm is as follows:

toe loeke, to look

ik loek, I look

dou loekst, thou lookest, you look

hy, sy, hit loekt, he, she, it looks

wy, jy, hylie loekt, we, you, they look

ik, hy, sy, hit loeked, I, he, she, it looked

dou loekedst, thou lookedest, you looked

wy, jy, hylie loeke, we, you, they looked

loekend, looking, present participle

loeked, looked, past participle

loeking, act of looking, verbal noun

To Be

The third person present forms are is and sinde, singular and plural. With the past participle it is used to mark the passive verb. If a verb is intransitive it marks the past perfect verb.

The third person past form is wes, singular. It is used similarly to the present tense of 'to be' to mark the past tense of the passive and the pluperfect intransitive verb.

To Have

This verb is irregular.

The third person singular present form is het.

The past plural form is hedde. It is used as the auxiliary to mark the pluperfect on transitive verbs.

Nouns

Plural nouns end in -s, -n, or sometimes -e.

Articles

The definite article has abandoned grammatical gender and only one form survives in the modern language.

det marks the subject and direct object of a verb in the singular, the plural equivalent is do.

des (sg.) and der (pl.) means 'of the'. It is generally used without the preposition of and comes after the possessed noun.

dom comes after a preposition. After many prepositions it is reduced to -'m. There are also contracted forms such as om, on the, and im, in the.

These forms are used as demonstratives and are qualified by hie and die, reduced forms of the demonstrative adverbs, directly after the article.