Dalcurian Language Homepage

Overview

First of all, through my own experiences, I have purposely used only basic grammar terminology in this article, and I have also included brief descriptions of grammatical words and expressions in each respective sections. This is because I want newcomers to language study not to feel intimidated by heavy terminology and explanations. As I can remember when I first began to study German, I was very confused with 'intense, grammatical explanations'. Of course, when studying or creating a language, one must have some understanding of grammar to begin with, however, for the above reasons I have written this article in simple English.
I should also state that most of the examples and references here are based in comparison to the English language.

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The dal'qörian language and basic history

dal'qörian (pronounced: dal-koo-ree-yan) is the language of dal'qöria-a small group of islands approx 300 miles south-westerly off the southwest coast of Ireland, the main island roughly the size of Cornwall in southwest England. Stylistically, it's full of Indo-European traits, with strong influences from English, German, Welsh, Latin, plus Finnish and Cornish.

The exact origins of the language can only be guessed. We know that the first settlers on the island were European nomadic tribes, mainly from the western region of Germany, the Slavic regions and also from Finland, around the beginning of the 3rd century. The variety of languages would have created a miriad of dialects, and over the next 100 years or so, the language gradually mutated into the early form of dal'qörian
Midway through the 4th century, Cornish Tin merchants set out with geologists on an expedition to dal'qöria to do a geographical study. They were quickly refused entry onto the main island by the tribes, so redirected to one of the smaller islands that had not been inhabited. After discovering significent amounts of tin deposits, they eventually struck a deal with the tribes of the main island, allowing them to conduct more research. In return, the merchants would later return to dal'qöria with a workforce, establishing 3 mines on the main island and one on the smaller eastern isle. This was the begining of the celtic influence into the language, and by the beginning of the 5th century, the islands inhabitants numbered around 7000-around 30% of those being Cornish. With the introduction of the tin mines and the Cornish migration, came education and stability among the newly created villages. Now, the language had undergone a variety of inflections.

During 5th century struggles for power among British Celts that broke out when Roman colonial troops were withdrawn, a significant body of Germanic settlers in England had been hired as mercenaries by the British Prince Vortigern. After a falling-out with their employer, these Germanic warriors seized British territory in the south of England for themselves and brought their families over the English Channel to settle it.
Fierce revolts took place in Devon and Cornwall after these new 'rulers' had tried to sieze control of the Tin mines. The mercinaries were eventually driven back into England. However, a small flotila of around 200 found their way to the eastern isle, which was poorly defended, and took it over. They brought over more mercinaries from southern England, and established an occupation which lasted for around 14 months. The dal'qörians eventually musted up a small army, with the help of the Cornish tribe Dumnonii and reclaimed the isle, keeping the mercinaries prisoners and forcing them into slave labour at the mines and on the farms. It's thought that through this, the island workers devloped a slight dialect from the main island, through the mercinaries own Old English pronunciations.

The modern language, when spoken, actually sounds like a hybrid of Romance and eastern European languages. There are 2 spoken forms: modern/standard Dal'qörian or Dal'qöriádan, which is the main language, and an eastern dal'qörian dialect, Halcánian. The latter has a different case system, derived from Finnish, plus there are a many spelling and grammatical differences (though the Eastern dialect is not taught in education and not used at all in business or political affairs). This is only spoken around the east coast province of Halcánia and the surrounding valley villages and towns, and in the north east valley region. However, very recently dal'qörian youth (mainly teenagers) seemed to have adopted it as their 'everyday speak', so you will often hear it spoken throughout dal'qöria (though not heavily). Ironically, modern dal'qörian actually sounds slightly archaic by comparison, but is the most widely spoken and used in formal contexts. The two dialects are mutually intelligible but not interchangeable. There are also 2 alphabets associated with the language.

Dal'qörian uses the latin alphabet-especially since English and German have been the second languages for over 200 years. But from the mid 12th century, it used the Cadoc writing system; a system devised by Dalin Cadoc of Cornwall. Previous to that, it used an individualized form of the Gothic alphabet, created by the nomads of the first known occupation. This was 'demoted' by Cadoc after he re-established a corno-dal'qörian connection to the island, and was appointed 'Leader' of the dal'qörians. He promtly introduced a version of the old English alphabet for political, foreign affairs and business purposes. However, out of respect, he decided to retain grammatical influences from the old writing system, which became a large feature of the new one. By decree, he ordered the dal'qörians to learn this new system, and within 5 years was fully embroided into dal'qörian literacy. Over the next 50 years, during Cadoc's leadership, the language was modified through his own influence, and over the next 600 years or so, dal'qörian continued to be influenced by migrators from all over Europe.

dal'qöriádn-Standard dal'qörian

Standard dal'qörian is much more related in style and grammar to Indo-European and Germanic than Halcánian, and is spoken by all dal'qörians in formal conditions. Normal word order is S-V-O, but this is governed by a prepositional rule; a prepositioned phrase will always immediately follow the subject (or a modal verb) eg: binä görøria-I'm going out, but, binä, máriÞ érenöra, görøria-I'm going out with them. In fact, modern word order is quite rigid in comparison to the language spoken around Cadoc's time, through the gradual loss of a true objective case (click here for an explanation). Modal verbs are present, but there are no auxiliaries such as would, shall and will-these are denoted from verbal suffixes (like Latin). Case wise there are 3: subjective, objective (though not a true objective case) and possesive (or genitive). Technically, there is no dative case-this is rendered by use of the preposition to with the subjective pronoun (considered 'lazy' by dal'qörian grammatarians).

One major factor about the language is the absence of the present tense conjugations of the verb 'to be', the simple, perfect and pluperfect tenses was/were, have/had been. The present indicative is ALWAYS indicated by the lack of any 'prefixual-inflection' to a verb, adverb or adjective. Adverbs and adjectives have a unique tense that puts them into the past, denoting the use of was/were/have/had been.

Halcánian-Eastern dal'qörian

Halcánian was established in the fishing villages and ports in the province of Halcánia, by it's Governor, a Finn called Albert Hælgasson, in the mid 16th century. Halcánia was, to some extent, isolated from from its nearest province, the capital Qalmánia. Because Halcánia was the main trading artery for the body of the island, it's governing was paramount. Hælgasson was enticed by the dal'qörian leader, Galeli Cadioc, after learning of his managerial abilities, strong ties with European traders, and his successeful marketing of the Western European hemp trade-something which dal'qöria had long been a world leader in. Hælgasson was himself excited at the prospect of running his own province, especially due to dal'qöria's ancient Finnish heritage
Although dal'qöria had a government, the 7 provinces were mainly self-governed. (The central government, where the leader would reside, took charge of foreign policy and general law; provincial by-laws fell under their own control, and saw to it that the provinces were still governed according to the dal'qörian constitution).

Halcánia had on many occassions in the past been badly ruled, thus creating economic problems, and as dal'qöria had a world market in hemp produce, the province needed to be governed well in order to keep its import and export trade efficient. However, acting against it's own constitution of appointing a non-dal'qörian, Hælgasson was asked to come and govern the province-and did so with gusto, turning Halcánia into a thriving and wealthy province within 5 years. Since the provincial councils were in control of their own education, Hælgasson saw to it that a language reform took place in 1670, after insisting that he needed to refine business and formal literacy. Although not in favour of this (the central government had constitutional powers to veto such reforms) they chose not to 'upset' Hælgasson, who at this point had become quite powerful in the province. The Hælgasson reform introduced (rather selfishly in the eyes of most historians) a new case system directly derived from his native finnish tongue. (It's widely thought that this was also heavily influenced by the many finnish traders and inhabitants, who held various monopolies over the trading posts). This done away with many prepositions, and although intitially, this reform was only introduced to business and formal documentation, within 10 years it had infiltrated every day speech. This in turn had isolated the Halcánians even more, as the other provincial leaders (who were native dal'qörians) did not condone the governments decision: a, to appoint a non-native to run a province and b, to allow his language reform. This created great tension over a period of time, which resulted in a minor civil war in 1685. Fortunately today, Halcánians and Dal'qörians co-exsist peacefully.

The eastern dialect, or officially 'Halcánian', for the most part, is a spoken language. It is only written in a few of the Halcánian villages, which reside on the valley slopes, in local publications such as announcements, council and local authourity leaflets and local newspapers. It is also used in personal letters and e-mails, though again, only within the Halcánian borders. Being a dialect, there is no common standard on how to write it, and it's never used with tourists and, for the most part, dal'qörians in general. The percentage of dialectal differences in the province stands at around 85% in Halcánian favour.

The dialect has no less than 12 noun cases, and word order is different due to the absence of the prepositional phrase rule in standard dal'qörian. In fact, compared with dal'qöriádn, which is much more strict, halcánian word order is (written and spoken) a lot more unrestricted. Pronouns are also different, being derived directly from Finnish. Consider these examples:

Standard:
binä, máriÞ di parenöj qve binöra, te qaƒéj, göria.

Halcánian:
minä göria qaƒijle parenojne.

Both read: I am going to the shop with my father.

Note: One must be careful when translating from halcánian to dal'qöriádn. minä in dal'qöriádn means one/you as in you never know or one can never tell these days. A mistranslation of the example above would be one is going to the shop with a father (a father since halcánian does not use possessive structure when refering to their own kith and kin)

For more on Halcánian grammar click here.

The remainder of this article refers to dal'qöriádn

Sample text

ela mantábel, am gravætas ön jerandel, nämambr eƒragörädn ön equahörädn.
éren Þöldr, máriÞ resæÞámn ön qevésenámn, néba qväombr,, ön, máriÞ ela, am perös qve beröjelperös, agöentr.

All human beings are born free and equal in dignity and rights.
They should be endowed with reason and conscience and act towards one another in a spirit of brotherhood.

Style

dal'qörian is a 'rhotic' language; the letter 'r' is pronounced after every vowel. It's pronounciation is very deliberate. In fact, by and large, dal'qörian is quite formal-largely due to the lack of idiomatic phrasal verbs. There is also no 'slang' form, although there is a small colloquial element to it.

Alphabet and pronunciation

letter	letter name	pronunciation
a	al	as in cat
b	bri	as in bat
c	ca	as in cat
d	da	as in day
e	era	as in end
f	ƒe	as in fall
g	géø	see special pronounciation
h	hal	as in hat
i	il	as in kill
j	öja	as in the French name Jean
l	lá	as in like
m	ma	as in man
n	na	as in not
o	ol	as in top
p	pä	as in pat
q	qöc	as in 'k' in kick
qu	q'qöa	as in quick
r	ræ	see special pronunciation
s	siri	as in sit
t	tø	as in take
v	vála	as in van
x	séca	as in wax
y	yenta	see special pronounciation

special vowels and characters

letter	letter name	pronunciation
ä	äli	as in 'ey' in they (see also special pronunciation)
á	áli	long as in bar
é	éga	long as in feel
ö	öli	long as in cool
ø	ø	as in German doch
æ	æ	as in the 'i' in find
Þ	eÞ	th as in bath but not in the

special pronunciations

g is pronounced hard at the beginning and middle of a word, like g in get but soft at the end of a word,like g in the German word swanzig.
r is an alveolar trill. Its place of articulation is alveolar which means it is articulated with the tip of the tongue against the alveolar ridge (or just behind the top teeth). It can be likened to the way in which a Scottish person with a strong accent would say great, straight, road, etc.
ä is pronounced like the ey in they. However, at the end of a word, or where it is separated by a high apostrophe, it is pronounced 'ey ya'.
y is always pronounced as the English upper case 'y'.
q on its own is only found at the beginning of a word, including words that are separated by a high apostrophe, as in dal’qörian or qatáj-cat, and is always pronounced like an English 'k'.
c only appears in the middle or end of a word such as qurvecsár-to annoy and dörac-through, and is sounded like an English hard 'c'.
x is used only to denote a negative word and attaches to the end of a verb. (see verbs and negatives)

As well as being a 'rhotic' lanuage, dal'qörian is also PHONETIC; its spoken exactly as it is written. Once you have learned to pronounce the letters, speaking and reading dal'qörian should be relatively easy. For example, dal'qörian is pronounced dal-koo-ree-yan. Here are a few more examples, in syllabic form, to give you a flavour of how words sound:

dal'qörian	meaning	phonetic pronunciation
strömi	hot	stroo-mi
binä	I/Iam	bin-Aya
stæcnáÞrädn	thankless	sty-kun-arth-rey-dun
ädiáda	yesterday	ey-dee-ar-da
yenø	immense	why-en-och
ødérämös	steadiness	och-dee-rey-mooss
qsendaréø	scenario	ku-send-a-ree-och
embáragadöraj	puppy	em-bar-ra-gad-oo-raj
siagentöj	aunty	see-a-gent-ooj