Avantimannish (The World)
| Auntimoanian Avantimanisc Spreihhô | |
| Spoken in: | Empire of Auntimoanye |
| Timeline/Universe: | The World |
| Total speakers: | c. 8 million |
| Genealogical classification: | Thietish, East Aryan, Puntic |
| Basic word order: | SVO |
| Morphological type: | inflecting |
| Created by: | |
| Padraic Brown | late 1980s, revisited in 2010s |
Avantimannish is the language spoken in Auntimoany of the Eastlands. It is a Thêtish language, which name serves as the umbrella term for all the Teutonic dialects spoken in the Eastlands. Historically there have been three great branches: the eastern, now represented by Avantimannish; the western, represented by Oswaldmannic (the language of the Men of old Hoopelle as well as modern Codeis and several other lands around), Osmannic (the language of the Men of Osmand) and Westmarcher (the language of the Daine of old Hoopelle as well as of modern Westmarche); and finally the northern, which was represented by Markomannic and is no longer spoken.
The three branches of Thêtish are very close in terms of overall shape and form, the grammar is very similar, and they all share many words in common. The primary differences were in minor points of accidence and in vocabulary — the Avantimannish always had more borrowings from Rumelian languages; the Marccomannic retained a stronger, fuller accidence; the Oswaldmannic tended to retain older forms of words and resisted borrowing to a greater extent, but severely reduced its nominal and verbal morphology.
Thietish languages all descend from Asvaric which in turn is an early descendant from the ancient Aryan language of the Farther West. The other kindreds descending from the Aryan are the Illyro-Remic, the Helladic, the Umbro-Rumic, the Hindo-Ehranian. The Anatolian and the Telaryan branches are sister languages of the Aryan. It is thus the case that Avantimannish is rather closely related to Rumeliard and Iconian, but more distantly related to Talarian and Yllurian.
Yet, Aryan is not the earliest ancestral language of the Avantimen. If we examine an example of Avantimannish and then look at its ancestral forms through past ages: the verb pair qenen and qanen. The one means to create or publish or introduce; the other means to know or can. First we look backwards towards the Old Avantimannish pair: qenien / qonen, which would have been spoken around the 1000s of the present age; and then the Old Thietish pair: caunyenen / cunnen which was spoken in the 600s. This in turn harkens back to the pre-Thietish Asvaric period: kanniyenan / kunnan. The Asvaric period occured between the 100s and 400s of the present age, and is also known to be the time of the Great Migration, which brought many kindreds of Rum, Hellades, Asvares and Kemeteians into the Eastlands.
We note how the now fully absorbed pre-Thietish verb kekennan has been assumed into the morphing kanniyenan, and results in a single new verb with meanings as diverse as “fashion, make, create” and “get to know, become familiar with”. And then we look even further back into the remote days of the Aryan wanderings, after the Great Flood and the break-up of the Puntish realm, whose language came to be spoken some 5000 years before the present age. At this point, the root words in question were genâ- and gegene-. Before the Aryans and their distant cousins, the Shemans, took to wandering away from their ruined ancestral realms, we meet the archaic empire of the Punt. Their words, if we can but locate and then decypher the submerged petroglyphs, were: HoJaaN and GheGHeeNG.
It is here we must rest in our journey for many thousands of years, for the Punt inhabited the lush regions of the Inland Sea since at least fifteen thousand years before the present age, and in that time a mighty empire arose in which much wisdom and lore was learned and preserved and much new knowledge was discovered. The Puntish era is about as far back as we can go, philologically speaking, with any certain reliability. For they had written records, some of which may still be read by the Wise. Otherwise, the few words that are known from external sources have been a great help to the philologers of the West, at least.
Beyond that horizon of the distant past lies the mists of legend and the fog of myth, for even Punt had their origins with a scion of the Tlatlan, a race of Atelanteans who on the one hand gave rise to mighty Kemet and also intermarried with an ancient seafaring empire known only as Tettuz, and it is their descendants that gave rise to the Punt. Now, the modern dynasty of Abyssinian emperors claims an Israelite descent, it is truly the Tettuz originating some twenty thousand years ago that are their earliest ancestors. And it is from a very ancient Tettuzian magial name that the Loucarian personal name Niningus appears, meaning “Mighty in Art”. Those wandering Tettuzan mages who came up to Kemeteia from the destruction and break-up of their homeland some three thousand years before the present age were known by their ancient name, Dnê Dnê, or “He Who Creates”.
Before this time, all is obscured and shrouded by myth and legend, lost to the probings and researches of historiographers. All that is known by the Daine and Teor is that in the fifteen thousand years before the rise of Punt, Atelante and Tettuz, Men were inhabiting the eastern vales of Vandashanno — those lands that would some day become Kemeteia-Misser — and were practicing a very archaic form of agriculture. Before that time, very primitive Men, thought by the Daine who met them to be little more than clever beasts, had begun to come out of Lybia and undertook the first great migration into the wastrel stretches of southern Eosphora, now the lands of Ehran and the Hindish empires. Nothing at all is known, or truly can be known, of what manner tongue these ancient people spoke, for they left no records of their own and none others thought to record and preserve what might have been recorded of their ancient speech.
Texts
Two fables of Hasopas, here rendered into Avantimannish by the 19th century scrivner, Willard Caskton:
Se Fohhs ande se Hravenaz
Waron on te than daye this fohhs that hehôte Rahhnhard ande this hravenaz that hehôte Teselam ande they biden on thon lyttel rihhdôme ye-clepet Gattenburgon. Nuw, Teselam was canful ande te menô weyes wisful; ande with happe, he under-him-flahhe thona huses on Ourohhsbrycge ande ye-him-fande summe qeyson ande he up-hit-name on hys blaowe bylle ande he him settellet on yaan treowe.
Ande ther on he ongan te conuerset under himselfe yn thenwise: la, min gôden ravendales qeyson!, hwa yeumisse tha be, swo delyciouso! Sôthelihh swo, ihh nafer befornes taxet suwyhh gôdnesse!
Ande then cwame Rahhnhardo se fohhs ande he behaset alle se hravenes word; ande he uplôcket ande ther thon hravene sahhwe; ande he dezythret te begobben thon qeyson. Swo he cleret his throwte ande swotelihh cgayoelet te thon Teselo on thenwise: la, min qyire Teselam! – tha that be se allernobellen of alle hravenô! Ihh wel qane huw tuwellemant tha senges, ande ey lang synes wônete wollet te thih hese, swoten singund!
Swo bemouwt was he of se allercanwisen fohhe that he ongan te senge: and huw he dydet te cawen ande huw he dydet te crawen! Suwyhh clammere ande suwyhh blowhehauwe he maket that nauhht alles colltet be ye-hesen. But la! Ther nethes-hit-fefele that gobe of qeyson ande beforon that Teselam hit kennet, se cuwycken Rahhnhard up-hit-name, nethes-hit-gobbet ande dydet on waye him rene.
Ande thaan scrâye se hravenaz, wepend ande gryend ande he seyet: “wâ! waye ande nevermares! Never mar on warthes wellem ihh swo comfeye with mun flaterundum that swo ye-franget ande breket min troste!” For swo sayet they wisfulle: livet se flaterund meth penninge of mon that wellet him behasen.
Bouream ande Souwelô
Waron on te than daye s’ein ongeynes th’anther strîdende se north wyndaz he that hâtt Bouream ande se sunnô ho that hâtt Souwelô; ande this mun sayet em ey se stranger ande that mun sayet naye for that em ey se stranger. Ande mun farfarundum cwame under te walcknen. They dedettun asgrête s’ein that môte te undermacknen than farfarendum te doffen his clôcke, that mun es se stranger.
Than mahhtylihh Bouream blablôwe but se farfarendez dedt on his hode ande he om-him-ynwande under his clôcke; and he framwardes-him-suwarfe ongeynes that Bouream. Then he stoppet te blawen on thang the farfarendez him underlayet. Than warmlihh Souwelô scâne ande se farfarendez besôhhet him that eiktrewnons scadu, dedt off his hode ande nethes-hit-cast adouwn his clôcke ande he yngane te nappen. Than ho stoppet te warmlihh scînen on thang ho thon farfarende underlayet.
Swo this Bouream môte underscrîven that Souwelô es se stranger; ande allswo sayet they wisfulle: that geontillness out-doet vehouwlevent.
A sample of the writing:
Here we have the Auntimoanian entry from the 2012 Conlang card exchange, a Yeoltide greeting card. This is a greeting card typical for this time of year, Yuletide, in the Eastlands of the World. In Auntimoany, and indeed in many parts of the Eastlands, such greeting cards are printed on either side of a piece of stiff paper, not folded like ours. This card comes from the great empire of Auntimoany and depicts the Yeolafadêr or Yeolfather seated in his solar sledge being drawn by the nine fierce & hellish luhhos or yeolcats. If you hang up a pair of new mittens at Yeol, one of the Yolamen, or perhaps even Yeolfather himself, will leave you a goody — but only if you leave your window open a crack, otherwise he’ll have to smash in the glass in order to gain entrance! No new mittens you say? Well, then, be prepared! Naughty girls and boys that don’t hang up a pair of new mittens are liable to be snatched away and torn limb from limb by the yeolcats! Invariably, off in the distant countryside, of a Yeoltide evening, one can hear the screams . . .
There’s nothing terribly difficult about the text itself. The text reads YAAH! YAAH! YAAH! WE ONYEOWONXSYEN EN MYRÞFULLE YEOLE & TOSTE SUNNES TOCWEMUND! Which in English reads: "Ho! Ho! Ho! We wish you a merry Yule & swift return of the Sun!" Of interest to note is the Yeolfather’s trademark call: a merry and hearty “YAAH! YAAH! YAAH!” The word has several different meanings in Avantimannish, two of which are applicable to this festal season: one is the simple exclamation of joy, very much like Father Christmas’s “ho ho ho!”; the other is a call used by hunters to speed their hounds after the fleet-footed stag. In the case of Yeol, it was once a more savage feast, in the youth of Man, involving the ritual hunt and slaying of a young man sacrificed in order help the Sun return from her long sojourn in the Southlands. Presumably his blood would assuage that ever hungry tyrant, the Winter Queen, and once well and truly toped up, she would be left too weak to fight off the Sun’s warriors as they began to move in and clear out all the snow.
The card is produced by the Ymperiall Scrivners, a publishing firm located at Wharf 31, in the City, should anyone be interested in obtaining a catalog of their products. Just be sure to affix postage sufficient to get your letter across the Gap!
