Rienench
| Rienench (Rienenche) | |
|---|---|
| Spoken in: |  Bavaria Helvetia EU  FR  IT  SX
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| Total speakers: | 39.1 million |
| Language family: | Indo-European Italic |
| Extra information | |
| Author: | Peter Collier | ✎ |
Rienench (Rienenche, /rɪːnɛnxə/) is a Northern Romance language spoken in Bavaria and Helvetia.
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Geographic Distribution
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History
Rienench is descended from the Latin of the Roman Empire, as are languages such as French, Italian, and Romanian. Its development was also influenced by the earlier Celtic and Germanic languages of Roman Germania Transrhenania and by the languages of the post-Roman Germanic invaders.
The history of Rienench as separate language from other Romance languages begins in the early Middle Ages with the Northern Romance Sound Shift. Old Rienench, Middle Rienench and Early Modern Rienench span the duration of the Holy Roman Empire. The 19th and 20th centuries saw the rise of Standard Rienench and a decrease of dialectal variety.
Old Rienench (ca. 500 - 1050 CE)
The Northern Romance Sound Shift takes place in 4 stages beginning in the late 5th / early 6th century, drastically reordering the consonant system of Northern Romance.
The earliest testimonies of Old Rienench are from scattered 6th century inscriptions, especially in Rhine Franconian, the earliest glosses date to the 8th century and the oldest coherent texts, such as the Stratkarter Oaths, to the 9th century.
Middle Rienench (ca 1050 - 1350 CE)
Middle Rienench is the term used for the period in the history of the Rienench language between approximately 1050 and 1350. This period is marked by the full development of i-mutation and by an extensive weakening of unstressed syllables, which brought all but the last vestiges of the Latin case system to an end.
By the middle of the 14th century the language had evolved into what is now called Early Modern Rienench.
Early Modern Rienench (ca. 1350 - 1650 CE)
The Early Modern Rinench period saw many changes to long vowels and diphthongs, and the loss of many unstressed vowels. The period is also marked by the beginning of the standardisation of written Rienench.
When Merten Luter translated the Bible in the 16th century he based his translation mainly on this already developed language, which was the most widely understood language at this time. This language was based on northern (i.e. Franconian) dialects and preserved much of the grammatical system of Middle Rienench. In the beginning, copies of the Bible had a long list for each region, which translated words unknown in the region into the regional dialect. It took until the beginning of the 18th century to create a standard that was widely accepted, thus ending the period of Early Modern Rienench.
Modern Rienench (from ca. 1650 CE)
The Modern Rienench Period is marked by a gradual standardisation of orthography and codification of grammar. These developments are brought about by the emergence of a standardised language and a consequent reduction in dialectal varience. This standardisation was due in no small part to the role the Rienench language played in the Bavaro-Hungarian Empire.
19th century and beyond
Rienench was the language of commerce and government in the Bavaro-Hungarian Empire, which encompassed a large area of Central and Eastern Europe until the early 20th century. Before the mid-19th century Rienench was essentially the language of townspeople throughout most of the Empire. It indicated that the speaker was a merchant, an urbanite, rather than his nationality. A few cities excepted, such as Milan, most cities were primarily Rienench-speaking during the imperial period, though they were surrounded by territory where other languages were spoken. Some cities, such as Prague and Budapest, were gradually Rienenched in the years after their abssorption into the Thalkarten lands. Others, such as Bratislava, were originally settled during the Thalkarten period and thus were primarily Rienench-speaking from the beginning.
Until about 1800, standard Rienench was almost solely a written language. At this time, people from region to region spoke dialects very different from standard Rienench and learnt it almost as a foreign language, trying to pronounce it as close to the spelling as possible. Prescriptive pronunciation guides of that time considered Viennese pronunciation to be the standard. However, the actual pronunciation of standard Rienench varied from region to region.
Today, media and written works are almost all produced in standard Rienench, which is understood in all Rienench-speaking areas (except by pre-school children in areas where only dialect is spoken, for example in central Helvetia).
Classification
Rienench is a member of the northern branch of the Romance language family, which in turn is part of the Indo-European language family.
Official status
Standard Rienench is the only official language in Bavaria; and it shares official status in Helvetia (with French, Italian and Romansch). It is used as a local official language in Rienench-speaking regions of France, Italy and Saxony. It is one of the 24 official languages of the European Union.
It is also a minority language in Canada, Croatia, the Czech Republic, Hungary, Romania, Slovakia, Slovenia and the United States.
Rienench was once the lingua franca of Central and Eastern Europe and remains one of the most popular foreign languages in Europe.
Phonology & Orthography
Vowels
Rienench vowels (excluding diphthongs; see below) can be short or long, as detailed in the following table:
| A | Ä | E | I | O | Ö | U | Ü | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| short | /a/ | /ɛ/ | /ɛ/, /ǝ/ | /ɪ/ | /ɔ/ | /œ/ | /ʊ/ | /ʏ/ |
| long | /aː/ | /ɛː/ | /eː/ | /iː/ | /oː/ | /øː/ | /uː/ | /yː/ |
Short /ɛ/ is realised as [ɛ] in stressed syllables (including secondary stress), but as [ǝ] in unstressed syllables. Note that stressed short /ɛ/ can be spelled either with e or with ä. In general, the short vowels are open and the long vowels are closed. The one exception is the open /ɛː/ sound of long Ä; in some varieties of standard German, /ɛː/ and /eː/ have merged into [eː], removing this anomaly.
In many varieties of standard Rienench, an unstressed /ɛr/ is not pronounced as [ər], but vocalised to [ɐ].
Whether any particular vowel letter represents the long or short phoneme is not completely predictable, although the following regularities exist:
- If a vowel (other than i) is at the end of a syllable or followed by a single consonant, it is usually pronounced long.
- If the vowel is followed by a double consonant (e.g. ff, ss or tt), ck, tz or a consonant cluster (e.g. st or nd), it is nearly always short. Double consonants are used only for this function of marking preciding vowels as short; the consonant itself is never pronounced lengthened or doubled.
- For an i that is neither in the combination ie (making it long) nor followed by a double consonant or cluster (making it short), there is no general rule.
Rienench vowels can form the following digraphs (in writing) and diphthongs (in pronunciation); note that the pronunciation of some of them (ei, äu, eu) is very different from what one would expect when considering the component letters:
| spelling | ai, ei, ay, ey | au | äu, eu |
|---|---|---|---|
| pronunciation | /aɪ̯/ | /aʊ̯/ | /ɔʏ̯/ |
Additionally, the digraph ie generally represents the phoneme /iː/, which is not a diphthong. In many varieties, a /r/ at the end of a syllable is vocalised. However, a sequence of a vowel followed by such a vocalised /r/ is not considered a diphthong.
In many varieties of standard Rienench, word stems that begin with a vowel are preceded by a glottal stop [ʔ].
Consonants
- C standing by itself is not a Rienench letter. In borrowed words, it is usually pronounced [ʦ] (before ä, äu, e, i, ö, ü, y) or [k] (before a, o, u, or other consonants).
- Ch occurs most often and is pronounced either [ç] (after ä, ai, äu, e, ei, eu, i, ö, ü and other consonants) or [x] (after a, au, o, u). Ch never occurs at the beginning of a Rienench word. In borrowed words with initial Ch there is no single agreement on the pronunciation. For example, the word Chemie (chemistry) can be pronounced [keːˈmiː] or [çeːˈmiː], depending on dialect.
- H is pronounced [h] like in "Home" at the beginning of a syllable. After a vowel it is silent and serves only to lengthen the vowel.
- W is pronounced [v] like in "Vacation".
- S is pronounced [z] (as in "Zebra") if it forms the syllable onset), otherwise [s]. ss and ß are used in cases where [s] forms the syllable onset. St and sp at the beginning of words of Rienench origin are pronounced [ʃt] and [ʃp], respectively.
- Sch is pronounced [ʃ] (like "sh" in "Shine").
- Dsch is pronounced ʤ (like j in Jungle).
- Z is always pronounced [ʦ].
- F is pronounced [f] as in "Father".
- V is pronounced [f] in words of Rienench origin and [v] in other words.
- ß is never used at the beginning of a word. It is always pronounced [s].
