Wenedyk

Wenedyk
Created by Jan van Steenbergen
Date 2002
Setting and usage A thought experiment in the alternate history, Ill Bethisad, if Latin had replaced Polish's ancestor.
Purpose
Sources constructed languages
 a posteriori languages
(Romance language based on Polish)
Language codes
ISO 639-3 None (mis)
Glottolog None

Wenedyk (in English: Venedic) is a naturalistic constructed language, created by the Dutch translator Jan van Steenbergen (who also co-created the international auxiliary language Slovianski). It is used in the fictional Republic of the Two Crowns (based on the Republic of Two Nations), in the alternate timeline of Ill Bethisad. Officially, Wenedyk is a descendant of Vulgar Latin with a strong Slavic admixture, based on the premise that the Roman Empire incorporated the ancestors of the Poles in their territory. Less officially, it tries to show what Polish would have looked like if it had been a Romance instead of a Slavic language. On the Internet, it is well-recognized as an example of the altlang genre, much like Brithenig and Breathanach.

The idea for the language was inspired by such languages as Brithenig and Breathanach, languages that bear a similar relationship to the Celtic languages as Wenedyk does to Polish. The language itself is based entirely on (Vulgar) Latin and Polish: all phonological, morphological, and syntactic changes that made Polish develop from Common Slavic are applied to Vulgar Latin. As a result, vocabulary and morphology are predominantly Romance in nature, whereas phonology, orthography and syntax are essentially the same as in Polish. Wenedyk uses the modern standard Polish orthography, including (for instance) ⟨w⟩ for /v/ and ⟨ł⟩ for /w/.

Wenedyk plays a role in the alternate history of Ill Bethisad, where it is one of the official languages of the Republic of the Two Crowns. In 2005 Wenedyk underwent a major revision due to a better understanding of Latin and Slavic sound and grammar changes. In the process, the author was assisted by the Polish linguist Grzegorz Jagodziński.

The dictionary on the WWW page linked below contains over 4000 entries.

The language has acquired some media attention in Poland, including a few online news articles and an article in the monthly Wiedza i Życie ("Knowledge and Life").

Spelling and pronunciation

Wenedyk uses the Polish alphabet, which consists of the following 32 letters :

A Ą B C Ć D E Ę F G H I J K L Ł M N Ń O Ó P R S Ś T U W Y Z Ź Ż

Also, there are seven digraphs, representing five phonemes (ch being identical with h, and rz with ż):

Ch Cz Dz Dź Dż Rz Sz

Pronunciation is exactly as in Polish. Stress almost always falls on the penultimate syllable. A preposition and a pronoun are generally treated as one word, and therefore, when the pronoun has only one syllable, the preposition is stressed.

(In theory, the construction of Wenedyk enables relatively easy construction of other "Slavo-Romance" languages. The Romance "mirror" for Czech, for example, is called "Šležan"; another for Slovak, although somewhat looser than the other two as it uses a partially Hungarian orthography, is called "Slevan". )

Grammar

Nouns and adjectives

Wenedyk does not have articles. This is a feature that distinguishes Wenedyk from all natural Romance languages and also from other Romance-based constructed languages like Esperanto and Ido. The reason for this is that Vulgar Latin showed only a rudimentary tendency toward the formation of articles, whereas they are absent in Polish and most other Slavic languages.

Nouns, pronouns and adjectives can have three genders (masculine, feminine, neuter), two numbers (singular, plural), and three cases:

Wenedyk also has a vocative case. In most cases it has the same form as the direct case, but there are exceptions: O potrze! "Oh father!"

Noun can be subdivided into four declensions. They are similar to the declension system in Latin:

Adjectives always agree in gender, number and case with the noun they modify. They can be placed both before and after it.

Pronouns

Unlike nouns, adjectives and other pronouns, personal pronouns do not use the direct case, but preserve the distinction between the nominative and accusative instead. They are displayed in the following chart:

Pronouns
singular plural
first person second person third person first person second person third person
masculine feminine neuter masculine feminine neuter
Nom.
Acc.
Gen.
Dat.		 jo
mie
miej
mi		 ty
cie
ciej
ci		 ił
łu
łu
li		 ła
łą
lej
lej		 łu
łu
łu
li		 nu
nosz
nosz
nów		 wu
wosz
wosz
wów		 li
łosz
łór
lew		 le
łasz
łar
lew		 le
le
łór
lew
English I
me
mine
to me		 thou, you
thee, you
thine, yours
to thee, to you		 he
him
his
to him		 she
her
hers
to her		 it
it
its
to it		 we
us
ours
to us		 you
you
yours
to you		 they
them
theirs
to them

Verbs

Verbs are inflected for person, number, mood and tense. The forms in the present tense are:

1 sg. – jemu "I love"
2 sg. – jemasz "you love"
3 sg. – jema "he/she loves"
1 pl. – jemamy "we love"
2 pl. – jemacie "you love"
3 pl. – jemą "they love"

Interestingly, because Latin and Proto-Slavonic had virtually identical person/number inflections, Wenedyk and Polish do also.

Wenedyk verbs have the following moods and tenses:

infinitive – jemar "to love"
present tense – jemu "I love, I am loving"
imperfect – jemawa "I loved"
perfect – jemie " I have loved"
future tense (imperfective) – joru jemar "I will love, I will be loving"
future tense (perfective) – jemaru "I will have loved"
conditional mood – jemarsi "I would love, I would have loved"
imperative mood – jem "love!"
present active participle – jemęć "loving"
perfect passive participle – jematy "beloved"

Word list

Wenedyk vocabulary as published on the internet consists of over 4000 words. Because of how it was developed from Vulgar Latin, Wenedyk words are closest to Italian, but with phonologic differences from Italian which may be compared to those distinguishing Portuguese from Spanish. The following charts of 30 shows what Wenedyk looks like in comparison to a number of other Romance languages; note that unlike Brithenig, where one-quarter of the words resembled Welsh words, only four Wenedyk words (not counting szkoła, borrowed into Polish from Latin) resemble Polish words, due to the Slavic languages' greater distance from the Romance languages compared to the Celtic languages:

Romance languages compared
English Latin Portuguese Spanish Catalan Occitan French Italian Rhaeto-Romance Romanian Brithenig Wenedyk Polish
arm brachium braço brazo braç braç bras braccio bratsch braţ breich brocz (ramię)
black nĭger, nĭgrum negro negro negre negre noir nero nair negru nîr niegry (czarny)
city, town cīvĭtās, cīvĭtātem cidade ciudad ciutat ciutat cité città citad oraş, cetate ciwdad czytać (miasto)
death mŏrs, mŏrtem morte muerte mort mòrt mort morte mort moarte morth mroć (śmierć)
dog canis cão perro gos gos, can chien cane chaun câine can kań (pies)
ear auris, aurĭcŭla orelha oreja orella aurelha oreille orecchio ureglia ureche origl urzykła ucho
egg ovum ovo huevo ou uòu œuf uovo ov ou ew ów jajko
eye ŏcŭlus olho ojo ull uèlh œil occhio egl ochi ogl okieł oko
father pater, patrem pai padre pare paire père padre bab tată padr poterz (ojciec)
fire ignis, fŏcus fogo fuego foc fuòc feu fuoco fieu foc ffog fok (ogień)
fish pĭscis peixe pez, pescado peix peis poisson pesce pesch peşte pisc pieszcz (ryba)
foot pĕs, pĕdem pé pie peu pè pied piede pe picior pedd piedź (stopa)
friend amīcus amigo amigo amic amic ami amico ami amic efig omik (przyjaciel)
green vĭrĭdis verde verde verd verd vert verde verd verde gwirdd wierdzi (zielony)
horse ĕquus, cabăllus cavalo caballo cavall caval cheval cavallo chaval cal cafall kawał (koń)
I ĕgo eu yo jo ieu je io jau eu eo jo ja
island īnsŭla ilha isla illa illa île isola insla insulă ysl izła (wyspa)
language, tongue lĭngua língua lengua llengua lenga langue lingua linguatg, lieunga limbă llinghedig, llingw lęgwa język
life vīta vida vida vida vida vie vita vita viaţă gwid wita życie
milk lac, lactis leite leche llet lach lait latte latg lapte llaeth łoc mleko
name nōmen nome nombre nom nom nom nome num nume nôn numię imię
night nŏx, nŏctis noite noche nit nuèch nuit notte notg noapte noeth noc noc
old vĕtus, vetulus velho viejo vell vièlh vieux vecchio vegl vechi gwegl wiekły (stary)
school schŏla escola escuela escola escòla école scuola scola şcoală yscol szkoła szkoła
sky caelum céu cielo cel cèl ciel cielo tschiel cer cel czał (niebo)
star stēlla estrela estrella estrella estela étoile stella staila stea ystuil ścioła (gwiazda)
tooth dĕns, dĕntem dente diente dent dent dent dente dent dinte dent dzięć (ząb)
voice vōx, vōcem voz voz veu votz voix voce vusch voce gwg wucz (głos)
water aqua água agua aigua aiga eau acqua aua apă ag jekwa (woda)
wind vĕntus vento viento vent vent vent vento vent vânt gwent więt wiatr

Example

The Lord's Prayer:

Potrze nostry, kwały jesz en czałór, sąciewkaty si twej numię.
Owień twej rzeń.
Foca si twa włątać, komód en czału szyk i sur cierze.
Da nów odzej nostry pań kocidzany.
I dziemieć nów nostrze dziewta, komód i nu dziemiećmy świew dziewtorzew.
I nie endycz nosz en ciętaceń, uta liwra nosz dzie mału.
Nąk twie są rzeń i pociestać i głurza, o siąprz. Amen.

Universal Declaration of Human Rights, Article I

Tuci ludzie noską sie liwrzy i jekwali z rześpiece świej dzińtacie i swór drzecór. Li są dotaci ku rocenie i koszczęce i dziewię ocar piara wyniałtru en jenie frotrzeńtacie.

Similar languages

In the Ill Bethisad universe, there are two other languages which are related to Wenedyk: Slevan, which is spoken in that universe's counterpart of Slovakia; and Šležan, or Silesian, spoken in Silesia. Šležan mirrors Czech in much the same way Wenedyk does Polish, whereas Slevan, despite being located in Slovakia, is more similar to Hungarian and Croatian in its orthography. (The Romance "mirror" of Slovak is a dialect of Slevan spoken in Moravia called Moravľaňec.) (As if in compensation, Croatian in Ill Bethisad is forced to be noticeably different from Serbian by being made to resemble the now-virtually-missing Czech and Slovak. )

Additionally, in the famous The Adventures of Tintin series, the fictional language Syldavian may be thought of as the Germanic counterpart of Wenedyk, showing what Polish might have looked like if it were a Germanic and not a Slavic language. Interestingly, the nearly extinct Wymysorys language provides another real-life example of this. Ill Bethisad also has such a "Slavo-Germanic" language: Bohemian, spoken in that universe's Czech Republic, developed by amateur Czech linguist Jan Havliš.

References

This article is issued from Wikipedia - version of the 4/14/2016. The text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution/Share Alike but additional terms may apply for the media files.