Roman Germanech

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Germanech
Spoken in: Germany
Timeline/Universe: League of Lost Languages
Total speakers: ca. 5,000
Genealogical classification: Indo-European

 Italic
  Romance
   Western Romance
    Germanech

Basic word order: SVO (V2), SOV in subclauses
Morphological type: fusional
Morphosyntactic alignment: accusative
Created by:
Jörg Rhiemeier 2001

Germanech ([ʒɛʀ'manɛç], also known as Mosel Romance) is a conlang invented by Jörg Rhiemeier. It is a Romance language of Germany which was inspired by Andrew Smith's Brithenig. In the world of the League of Lost Languages, it is spoken in a few villages in the vicinity of Trier, Germany.

Germanech has undergone certain sound changes similar to the ones of German, including the High German consonant shift and i-umlaut. Otherwise, it is a pretty normal Romance language without any "cool" features.

Phonology

Consonants

Germanech has the following consonant phonemes:

Labial Alveolar Postalveolar Palatal Velar
Voiceless stops /p/ /t/ /k/
Voiced stops /b/ /d/ /g/
Voiceless affricates /pf/ /ts/ /tʃ/
Voiced affricates /dʒ/
Voiceless fricatives /f/ /s/ /ʃ/ /ç/ [x]
Voiced fricatives /v/ [z] /ʒ/
Nasals /m/ /n/ /ŋ/
Lateral /l/
Trill /ʀ/ (uvular)
Semivowel /j/

[x] is an allophine of /ç/ that occurs after back vowels. [z] is an allophone of /s/ that occurs between vowels.

Vowels

Germanech has the vowels /a ɛ i ɔ u/ (spelled a e i o u) plus the front rounded vowels /œ y/ (spelled ö ü). The letter ä represents the same vowel as e; it is used where the vowel represents an umlauted /a/.

Alphabet and pronunciation

The consonants are pronounced as in English, with the following exceptions:

c like sh before front vowels, like k elsewhere
ch as in German
cj always like sh
dj like j in job
g like s in measure before front vowels, like g in good elsewhere
gj like s in measure
gu as in guitar before front vowels
h very lightly pronounced if at all
j like y in yes (but see cj, dj, gj and tj)
qu like k before front vowels
r uvular r as in French
s always as in sing
tj like ch in chin
x the same as s
z the same as s

The vowels are pronounced as in German.

Accent

Accent falls on the last non-e vowel, unless there is an e with an acute accent (é), in which case the latter is stressed.