Danan

The Danan language is an imaginary language made by Francesco Bravin as part of the setting of the role playing game Madatarn, where it is spoken by the Danan people (Dananes).

The Danan is an ancient western Indoeuropean language. Its phonology, lexicon, grammar and syntax are all derived from those of the reconstructed Proto-Indo-European [1] language (PIE). Amongst the Indoeuropean family, Danan is closest to the ancient Italic [2] languages, with some minor similarities with Celtic [3]languages. In some features, Danan is very close to Archaic Latin[4], even if they have some important differences, and even closer to ancient Venetic[5].

The Danan is an inflectional language, having a noun inflection and a verbal inflection, similar to those of the other Indoeuropean languages. The order of the words is quite free, thanks to the inflection, but the non-marked order is SOV (Subject-Object-Verb) for the sentences and AN (Adjective-Noun) for the nominal syntagmata. Other orders can be used for expressive reasons, especially in rhetoric and poetic contexts.

The Danan shows some varieties: Classic Danan is the standard language, Archaic Danan is an older, literate and more aulic variety, Folkish Danan is the variety spoken by common people. Folkish Danan also can show some dialects, grouped by area: western, eastern, northern and southern dialects. Actually, every spoken dialect can show some features from a main group and some from another: for example, a north-western dialect will show both some northern and some western features.

Danan Alphabet, Script and Phonology

The Danan language has its own alphabet, made by 20 letters. This alphabet is very similar to the Lepontic, that derived from the Etruscan.

Danan Alphabet Roman Script Notes

                  A
                  B
                  G             always "hard", as in German
                  D
                  E
                  F             not used in Archaic Danan
                  H
                  Z             not common, used only for foreign words
                  I             used also for Y
                  K
                  L
                  M
                  N
                  O
                  P
                  R
                  S             used also for Z in Danan words
                  T
                  U/W           in Archaic Danan it's only U, in Classic Danan also W before another vowel
                  V             in Archaic Danan, used both for V and F, in Classic Danan only for V, later also instead of U for W

Vowels

Danan vocalism is quite conservative, generally keeping the same vowels of PIE and just losing the vowel lenght perception. A new vowel lenght perception can come from the contraction of diphthongs; furthermore, the closed syllables are considered long ones for metric reasons, but contracted vowels are seen as longer than closed syllables.

PIE --> Danan

*a --> a

*e --> e

*o --> o

*i/y --> i

*u/w --> u/w ("w" is still pronounced as "u" in Archaic Danan, but it is pronounced as "v" in Classic Danan, and in Folkish Danan it is often written as "v"). For example: watis "bard" is pronounced "uatis" in AD and "vatis" in both CD and FD, but in the last one it is written vatis.

*ai --> ai

*ei --> i

*oi --> oi

*au/aw --> au/aw

*eu/ew --> u/ew

*ou/ow --> ou/ow (where "ou" is pronounced "û" since Classic Danan)

*Ə --> a

Improper diphthongs, still open in Archaic Danan, get contracted in Classic Danan, giving new long vowels. The same happens with double vowels. The vowel E always loses its timber in favour of A and O, while when these ones are together, the first one prevails.

ae --> â ao --> â aa --> â oe --> ô oo --> ô oa --> ô ee --> ê eo --> ô ea --> â ii --> î uu --> û

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