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 þadöracia-Thaduracia after he renamed the islands), 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 with a recipricol economy. The Thaduracians had become prolific in the utilisation of hemp, and grew many acres, producing high quality cloths and clothes, paper, fuel, soaps 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. It was a very basic language of around 500 words, but highly inflected; 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.
In 512AD, Dalæth Curan (Dal’qörian: DalæÞ Qöran) became Thaduracia’s youngest king at only 22 years of age. Like his great predecessor Thadurac, he was a very astute scholar. He had studied language and history, was fluent in Latin and Old English, and had studied the Celtic languages (by this time, a strong Irish Celtic society had formed in the northern region). He was extremely ambitious, and one of the first things he sought to do was to re-open the Mediterranean trade link that had been lost 150 years previously. The Mediterranean was a trade link that Thaduracia had followed for over 800 years, and the bulk of its hemp trade came from there. Even when the Romans captured the Carthaginian trading colonies along its coast (roughly 210 BC) trade only dwindled slightly. However, with the onset of Christianity into the Roman Empire, trade was banned by the Romans at the beginning of the 4th century after Theodosius I established Nicene Christianity as the official and, except for Judaism, only legal religion in the Roman Empire. He declared that Thaduracian Paganism, which by now had been dwindling In Europe for some years, was merely a cult, denouncing the Christian religion. Even though Thaduracia wasn’t part of the Roman Empire, he conceived the notion that it could once again infiltrate Roman society. (The idea that the Thaduracians were merely a cult was of course ludicrous, since the population stood at around 300,000)
By the mid 5th century, the Roman Empire had ceased to function and was dissolving rapidly, although Christianity survived. At the same time, the Thaduracian religion on the island was falling out of favour, since the previous king, d’Calba declared that the free will of the Thaduracian people was not so free if they were bound to one religion. Though he never laid any laws or constitutions over this, the people heeded his philosophy-albeit slowly! With this in mind, Christianity was beginning to spread across the face of Thaduracian Paganism, and they were beginning to see their religion as being 'outdated'. This was something that Curan made no attempt to change when he succeeded the throne; he desperately wanted to make friends in this new Europe, and saw d’Calba’s philosophy as a way to shaking hands with the new leaders of the deceased Roman Empire. In 523, he decreed that Thaduracian Paganism was indeed an 'outdated' religion for his countrymen, and no longer the force by which people should live their lives; citing that Thaduracia was now the only place left still practicing the religion, and that the only way to evolve as a race into a world that was changing rapidly, was to follow the path of Europe. Although he never officially banned it, the majority of Thaduracians followed his reasoning, with only a small faction carrying on with their paganistic beliefs. The following year, he went across to Europe and successfully re-opened trading with the Mediterranean, and forged new relations in England, Italy and Germany. The hemp trade became a major force once again in Thaduracia’s economy, and would eventually stretch up as far as Scandinavia and Finland.
During Curan’s 50-year reign, he managed to turn Thaduracia into an even more prosperous and modern land. He divided the island up into 7 provinces, each with their own provincial councils; all answering to a central government. He created Thaduracia’s first university, and each province had its own school. He kept taxes low, so as to allow those who worked the farms and hemp fields a 'decent' income, falling inline with his philosophy that Thaduracia should be a classless soceity (though this didn't happen till many years later).
In 550, he declared Thaduracian as the official language, and introduced formal and political elements. Up until now, the scribal writing system was still in use, but as Thaduracian became more highly developed, it became harder to utilise. In a move that proved to be as eccentric as Thadurac himself, Curan sought to revolutionize Thaduracia by announcing an alphabet reform, with the intention of creating a modern, unique alphabet. However, this was met with much distain among the provincial councils, citing that if any reform of the alphabet should take place, then it should simply be latinized. Curan’s persuasion was that, looking back over Thaduracian history, the spirit of the island and its people had always thrived on its individuality as a nation, and although during his reign had made many moves that had ultimately ‘de-individualised’ certain aspects of Thaduracian life, this was something that would retain original Thaduracian values and character. It would take a further 3 years of political bartering among the provinces before an agreement, and legislation was passed in 553. Curan promptly gave this task to his finest language scholars in the university, one of which was his son Ciaren (Qæran), who would eventually form an alphabet from Greek and Latin characters. Unfortunately, this move didn’t work out as Curan had anticipated. This new reform only managed to filter into political, religious and middle society (middle society were those who ran business' and were employed by any agency under the control of the king, his respective councils and their divisions). The rural society refused to use the new system, even after it had been introduced into education, and it wasn’t until Curan threatened (reluctantly) to raise taxes on livestock, that they relented. Rather inevitably, this would lead to non-standardized forms of the new system arising in small colloquial pockets in many rural villages.
When Curan I died in 562, his oldest son Ciaren became his successor. It was only during the first years of his reign that the new writing system, officially named as the Dalcurian alphabet, would infiltrate its way into all classes of Thaduracian society. But Thaduracians far and wide eventually came to realise the legacy of Curan, and the freedom and individuality that he had tried so hard to empower his people with.
During Curan II reign, he continued to shape the modern society that his father had created, and at the end of his reign in 588, the island was renamed Dalcuria (Dal’qöria) in recognition of Curan I legacy, although bizarrely, it would be some 100 years later before the language was officially termed Dal’qörian.
The Dalcurian of today is remarkably similar to its ancestor (unlike many languages which are almost completely different to their old origins), although it has undergone various spelling and pronunciation progressions. The biggest changes are, with then exception of the Halcarnian dialect, the loss of the noun and modal cases, and the most recent spelling reform in 1879, in which capitalisation was implemented at the beginning of sentences and the omission of the double full stop.
The ancient nomadic writing system was also studied, revived and modernized by an agency set up by the Government in the mid 90's. The history of both the ancient script and the Dalcurian alphabet was introduced into education at the beginnig of 2000, and there are now many courses outside of school where people can learn how to write with them. In fact, there are even some societies who produce their letters in Dal'qöristræÞ and the Dalcurian alphabet.
Dal'qöriádn-Standard Dalcurian
Standard Dalcurian is much more related in style and grammar to Indo-European and Germanic than Halcarnian, and is spoken by all Dalcurians 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 Thaduracs time, through the gradual loss of a true objective case (click here for an explanation). However, the younger generation seem to have 'relaxed' this rule and you will often hear prepositional phrases falling after a verb-though this is NEVER taught. 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, and 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.
Hal'qánian-Eastern Dalcurian
The eastern dialect, or officially Halcánian, is for the most part, a spoken language. It is only written in a few of the Halcarnian villages, which reside on the valley slopes, in local publications such as announcements and some local newspapers. It is also used in personal letters and e-mails, though again, only within the Halcarnian borders. The Dalcurian alphabet also survived in the region, and is still used today (though there are no fonts available) again being used by a few local publications. You can even see some restaraunt menu's written like this. (In fact, there is a soceity in Halcarnia dedicated to reviving the old script and alphabet, and the Halcarnian provincial council endorse weekly lessons).
Being a dialect, there is no common standard on how to write it, and it's never used with tourists or, for the most part, Dalcurian's in general. The percentage of dialectal differences in the province stands at around 85% in Halcarnian favour.
There are no less than 12 noun cases (derived from Finnish), and word order can be varied due to the absence of the prepositional phrase rule as in standard Dalcurian. In fact, compared with standard Dalcurian, which is much more strict, Halcarnian word order is (written and spoken) a lot more unrestricted, although there is a trend to still follow a prepositional phrase rule (the inflected noun acting as this). Pronouns are also different, again being derived directly from Finnish. Consider these examples:
Standard:
Binä, máriÞ di parenöj qve binöra, te qaƒéj, göria.
Halcánian:
Minä guria qaƒijle parenojne. OR Minä, qaƒijle parenojne, guria (for emphasis)
Both read: I am going to the shop with my father.
Note: One must be careful when translating from Halcarnian to standard: minä in standard 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 Halcarnian does not use possessive structure when refering to their own kith and kin)
Halcarnian origins
During King d’Qalba’s reign, 465-512, nomadic pagans from Finland began arriving on the island. At first they were merchants and fishermen-extremely good fishermen, but over the next few decades many hundreds more would come to join them in the port town of Halcarnia. These fins became prolific merchants in the area, which helped the economy thrive. It’s from this era that the Halcarnian dialect was born.
The Finns became a strong inhabitational force in Halcarnia, although the province was still under the control of dal’qörian policy. This didn’t seem to pose any real threat to the dal’qörians at that time, (although the kings council had to step in at one point to stop a monopoly of trade that was forming under the province's first non-dalcurian governor, a Finn called Albert Hælgasson), and a healthy relationship between Dalcurians and the newly termed Finno-dalcurians developed. Over the next few centuries, a Finno-dalcurian dialect emerged, becoming inflected with many Finnish grammatical traits, including several noun cases. As the population of Halcarnia grew, this dialect would eventually cover the face of the standard Dalcurian spoken in and around the province, and became so prominent that it had to be introduced into education in the 16th century. However, the use of standard Dalcurian was made law in the mid 17th century in all aspects of business, trade, education and literacy, demoting Finno-dalcurian (which by now had officially been named as Halcarnian) back to being a spoken dialect. However, the Halcarnian dialect survived in colloquial speech, and in many of the suburban and woodland villages, continued to be the norm for its inhabitants, as it is today.
For more on Halcarnian grammar click here.
Sample texts
The first text above text is typical of the printing style and spelling of around the 16th century (see the example below). In formal texts, diacritics were'nt used, therefore words were spelled differently. The second text is it's modern counterpart. Both read:
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. (1st article of the Declaration of Human Rights).
The Lord's Prayer
Below is a well kept example of a 16th century wedding announcement. This would have been to announce the intention of marriage by someone who worked in the royal council. It would have been displayed in notice boards in and around the royal courts and offices. It's main purpose was to bring forward anyone who had reason to be against the marriage. It translates as follows:
King Caduc VIII
Announcement of Marriage:
Here is found the proposal of marriage between Lathinian Gath & Amareta Cusel.
The event be on the day 14th January 1634. If there exists a person who has reason against the marriage,
then they must come forth before the above day and stand before the King's Council.
May God bless this marriage with virtue.
Style
Dalcurian is a 'rhotic' language; the letter 'r' is pronounced after every vowel. It's pronounciation is very deliberate. In fact, by and large, Dalcurian 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.
Modern 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 |
| ß | alv | v as in 'have'; replaces 'v' after a vowel but only formal literacy |
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, Dalcurian 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 |
