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.
The dal'qörian language and basic history
Dalcurian (Dalcurian spelling: Dal'qörian) is the language of Dalcuria (Dal'qöria),a small group of islands approx 300 miles south-westerly off the southwest coast of Ireland. Stylistically, it's full of Indo-European traits, with strong influences from English, German, Welsh, Latin, plus Finnish and Cornish.
The Dalcurian language was first developed as a religious tongue by a pagan king called Thadæus Thadurac (Dalcurian: þadæös þadörac) around 200 BC. The religion was a breakaway form of Paganism that was practiced throughout Europe around that time, and had thousands of followers, divided up into fellowships. Thadurac’s main fellowship resided on the Dal’qörian islands (at that time known as þadöria-Thaduria), and at the time of his reign, numbered around 10,000. The main language was a form of early Latin, which was spreading throughout Europe as the Romans conquered more regions. The writing system however, resembled a form of Hebrew and Aramaic (though it can’t be substantiated that it was derived at all from these), thought to have been created by middle-eastern nomads who resided on the island over 1000 years previously. It’s also not quite clear exactly how the first pagans came to be on the island, but the fact that the writing system was adopted by them points to at least some kind of coexistence between the pagans and the nomads.
Early Thaduracian pagan lifestyle was mainly pastoral: raising livestock and farming the lands. The Thaduracians had become prolific in the utilisation of hemp, and grew many acres, producing high quality cloths and clothes, and even medicines. They were exporting trade in their hemp products to Ireland and southern England, and had managed to open up a trade link to the Mediterranean, where their ware was bought by merchants of leaders and councillors in and around Greece.
Thadurac, who was an eccentric leader, had studied language in Greece as a young scholar of a prominent Greek philosopher called ‘Adaikos’ in 210 BC. He had learned many things whilst there, including skills in economics and governing. When he came to power, he put these into practice and brought stability and order to the society, and radicalized the then worshipped religion with his own ideals and philosophies. He created a form of language in order to individualize the fellowship, and imposed it on the people to be used in worship and prayer, religious literacy(using a now adapted version of the scribal writing system) and rituals (although it was, at the time, met with much distain among the inhabitants). It was a very basic language of around 500 words, but highly inflected, and even to the point of inflections which carried a modal force.
As the years of Thadurac’s reign went by, his religious language matured, and as it became more widely accepted, it became more advanced, even forming small pockets of colloquial speech in many villages and towns. It spread out into the fellowships of Western Europe, becoming ever more present in every day speech. The European factions of the fellowship would ultimately form their own dialects, which eventually crossed into the islands own dialect during the Pagan exodus of the 3rd and 4th centuries.
From the mid 3rd century, thousands of European pagans, not just Thaduracian pagans, migrated out of their homelands running from persecution, after the Roman Emperor Constans decreed that all pagan worship and sacrifice (even though Thaduracian Paganism didn’t practice sacrifice) should cease; warning those who still persisted in the practice of paganism with the threat of the death penalty. Many more found their way to Thaduracia, after Theodosus I officially declared Christianity as the official religion of the Roman Empire.
By this time, the Thaduarcian tongue had long been accepted as the main language of the island (although it wasn’t official), and having knowledge of Thaduracian meant integration into society was relatively easy for this new influx of Europeans. This exodus inevitably produced a myriad of dialects across the island, and brought into the language many loan words from the Germanic languages. Regional village dialects formed, though not drastically, as the settlers from various European regions tended to stick together in the same village or town.
Not only did the language take on new traits, but also Thaduracian society became more highly developed. Many large towns rose up across the island, and its first city was officially named as Calmania (dal: Qal’mánia) in 467. The main port in the southwest region of Halcarnia (Hal'qánia) became increasingly busier, largely due to the island’s geographical position. Ships coming from Africa would often make port there where goods would be bought, sold and bartered for. The then leader, king Heldoch d’Calba II (dal: Heldø d’Qalba), established its first form of government with the aid of Roman defectors, which created a more centralized control over the towns, villages, and of course the economy.
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 |
