Northian language

Northian
lowatungus (tongue of the people)
Native to	Northern States
Native speakers	17,420,000 (2010)
Language family	Erani-Eracuran
Official status
Official language in	Northern States
Language codes
ISO 639-3	–

Northian or Northian language is an Indo-European language in the Gothic sub-family. The language is attested first in several forms of Epic Northian, through the corpus of ancient Northian cultic formulae, parts of which date to as early as the 20th century BCE, by some authorities.

Genealogy

The majority view is that the Northian languages form the Peripheral-Gothic branch within the Gothic family of languages, while all other Gothic languages are considered to form the Central-Gothic or True-Gothic branch. This classification is based on the observation that many texts in the oldest stratum of Epic Northian show features that are "quite wayward" compared to the innovations common to the other Gothic languages, such as the absence of Grimm's law and Verner's law and retention of vowels dropped in them. However, Northian languages of all strata are affected by the same epenthesis of /u/ to syllabic resonants and laryngeal evolution, which confirms it as a Gothic language and establishes a lower limit for the differentiation of Northian from other Gothic languages.

Northian is remarkable in the reconstruction of Proto-Erani-Eracuran, the hypothesized, unattested ancestral language to many major families of languages, as it preserves with "stunning accuracy" archaic formations of many nouns, which have clarified reconstructions of PEE ablaut and accent. Its verbal system is generally thought to be secondarily evolved to a great extent from the ancestral language and is of little value in its reconstruction, though it is nevertheless informative of the development of the EE verbal system in the Nordic family.

It was the prevailing belief in the mid-19th century that Northian was a Baltic or Slavic language, on the basis of similarity with the Satemized phonology of those languages and the proximity of Silua, which spoke a Baltic language. This was strengthened by the sentiment in the Northern States that they were a distinct people from the Nordics. However, it was noted as early as 1870 by Sir Kilby Tapper that real cognates between Northian and Siluan are impossible to find, and he proposed Northian to be an independent branch of the Erani-Eracura family. Northian's affinity with the Nordic languages was not discovered in part because they were considered united through Grimm's law, which Northian did not exhibit. As reconstruction of Proto-Erani-Eracuran advanced, it was realized that a number of sound changes must have occurred prior to Grimm's law, which, according to Mme. Caron's widely accepted 1903 thesis, identify Northian with Nordic languages.

Forms and stages of development

• Galic Northian (c. 1500 – 500 BCE)—survives as "gales" (spells and ritualistic songs) interspersed in Epic poetry, rarely longer than a few lines, but set phrases often appear as quotations in younger texts. The upper bound Galic Northian is hard to set down because it would represent the speech of bronze-age migrants to the west, and their speech may or may not have been significantly different from that of other bronze-age communities in what is now Acrea. The corpus of Galic verse is small, at about 6,000 words, but it is currently the oldest attested Nordic language. Galic verse, noticeably different from the Epic language, is considered an important source for the reconstruction of Proto-Erani-Eracuran, because it possesses such features as a complete dual declension that have been lost in other EE languages. Galic Northian is not the direct predecessor of Epic Northian, but a close relative or dialect; despite its age, Galic is not in all cases the more conservative cousin.
• Epic Northian (c. 500 – 200 BCE)—exists primarily in poetic works that describes the actions of heroes. Epic poetry is of variable length but often thousands of lines. Epics are always set in the distant past but may obliquely reflect the poet's own times through direct or indirect references to places and events. The identities of individual Epic poets have never been discovered, and it is most likely that Epics were composed by multiple poets, adapted for audiences, and continually evolving as bodies of literature. Nevertheless, scholars consider that some Epics may have been composed by the same poetic schools based on similarities in diction and theme. The Epics are probably an oral tradition prior to their codification around 200 BCE, when Acrean scholars interested in Northian legends committed them to writing. The corpus of Epic poetry is large, with over 50 titles and 350,000 lines.
• Runic Northian (300 BCE – 200 CE)—this is the category of the earliest prose writings left by the Northians in their own language, in the Runic alphabet.

Writing system

Runes

The very earliest records of Northian words occur in writings done by Celtic and Syaran travellers who encountered the Northian tribes in the 8th or 7th centuries BCE, though these are typically no longer than a few words, and then most are personal and place names. The corpus of early but complete writings in Northian are done in Old Acrean Runes, which is an Alphabet of 24 letters. The phonetic values of the Northian Runes, however, are at variance with those used in the Acrean language, because the languages' phonologies are different. It is possible that they were subsequently regularized at a later date, since the earliest surviving manuscripts do not predate the 3rd century.

Rune	ᚠ	ᚢ	ᚦ	ᚨ	ᚱ	ᚲ	ᚷ	ᚹ	ᚺ	ᚾ	ᛁ	ᛃ	ᛈ	ᛇ	ᛉ	ᛊ	ᛏ	ᛒ	ᛖ	ᛗ	ᛚ	ᛜ	ᛞ	ᛟ
Transcription	xͮ	u ū	θ	a ā ə ə̄ å	r	k	g ɣ ġ	u̯ v	h ḫ	n	i ī ị	i̯	p	ć	z	s š	t	b v	e ē	m	l	ṇ	d	o ō å
Phoneme	hʷ	u uː	ð	a aː ə əː aʔa	r	k	g ɣ s	w	h s	n	i iː iʔi	j	p	t	s	s š	t	b v	e eː	m	l	ŋ	d	o oː aʔa

The Runic orthography of Northian presents several challenges to understanding of the text, as the alphabet was not designed for Northian phonology. <ᚨ> represents anything of five vowel phonemes, while the sound usually written as <å> in modern editions was, in manuscripts, interchangeable between <ᛟ ~ ᚨ>. The phonetic value of <å> is still debated, and according to some authorities it represented a trimoraic or suspended /ɑ ~ ɒ/. The rune in metre <ᛁ> can occupy three morae instead of two, where it is given the symbol <ị>; this is also interpreted as a suspended /iːʔi/ that corresponds with a dropped reflex of a laryngeal consonant. Trimoraic /o/ also exists, but as a free variant of bimoraic /o/ and not as a reflex of a dropped laryngeal. /s/ in final position has several conditioned allophones: after /i u/ and their long variants it surfaces as <š> which, later, has a different development, and the combination *-ms > <ṇġ>.

Phonology

Vowels

	Front	Mid	Back
Close	i ī ị /i iː iːː/		u ū /u uː/
Mid	e ē /e eː/	ə ə̄ /ə əː/	o ō /o oː/
Open	a ā /a aː/

It has long been noticed that some long vowels occupy three morae in metrical text.

Grammar

Northian inherited a highly synthetic grammar from its parent language Proto-Gothic and Proto-Indo-European, though the evolution from these hypothesized ancestral languages have seen the merger of grammatical categories due to analogy or deflexion by way of periphrasis. Such processes continue after the earliest stage of the language, Epic Northian. Compared to its sister languages, Northian retains some archaicisms by way of its more conservative vowel phonology, wherein evolution has tended to the loss of grammatical forms in sister languages.

Northian retains a visible system of Indo-European ablaut, or vowel variations depending on grammatical form. Ablaut is connected to accent, but their precise interrelationships are actively debated. In general, a given syllable will exhibit a vowel when accented, called full-grade, while the same syllable in unaccented positions will not have a vowel, called zero-grade. Where no vowel is present, a class of sounds known as sonants (*r, *l, *n, *m, and *h in the Indo-European proto-language) functions like vowels. In nouns, the direct cases (nominative, accusative, vocative, and locative) will tend to have full-grade in the root and zero-grade in the ending, and vice versa in the oblique cases. In verbs, the distinction lies between singular and plural numbers. Northian ablaut has considerably degraded via analogy and sound shift and rarely presents a coherent, predictable system.

Also characteristic of PIE morphology is the theme vowel, which interposes between stem and ending and requires a special set of endings in some cases. Because stem and ending tend to blur and fuse over time, the presence of the theme vowel generates new surface-forms even when it merely separates familiar, underlying forms. In Northian, a slightly unusual situation has occurred where endings used without the theme vowel—called "athematic"—have displayed those with, whereas the opposite development is commoner in other Indo-European languages.

Nouns

Nouns in Northian are divided into three genders (masculine, feminine, and neuter) and are marked for three numbers (singular, dual, and plural) and eight cases (nominative, vocative, accusative, locative, genitive, ablative, dative, and instrumental). Adjectives agree with the nouns they modify, and pronouns with the nouns they represent, in gender, number, and case. The genders of most nouns are lexical (i.e. arbitrary), but in some cases they reflect biological gender.  Morphological shape is associated with gender but does not exactly predict it.

The major stems in Epic Northian and their genders and accentual patterns are presented as follows.

	-C	-m	-mn	-n	-r	-os/es	-i	-u	-ī	-ū	-r/n	-ā	-o
Gender	All	F	All	M/F	M/F	N	All	All	F	F	N	F	M/N
Accent	-ō	-ō	-ō	-ō	-ō	-ō	-s	-s	-s	-s	-s	N/A	N/A

Athematic

The underlying endings of the athematic declension are generally reconstructed as follows. Some forms may be insecurely attested or disputed.

	Singular		Dual		Plural
	Masc.-Fem.	Neut.	Masc.	F.-N.	Masc.-Fem.	Neut.
Nominative	-s / -Ø	-Ø	-a / -ē / long	-ī	-es / -is	-a / long
Vocative	-Ø
Accusative	-m / -um				-as / -ūn
Locative	-i		-о̄ / -u		-su
Genitive	-s / -ō / -ōro	-s	-о̄s / -us		-om / -am
Dative	-e / -ē	-i	-mо̄ / -mu		-mus
Instrumental	-t / -a

Within the class of athematic nouns, three classes may be generally distinguished depending on the formation of the oblique (gen. dat. and inst.) stem. The oxytone class are those whose endings are accented; the paroxytone, those whose stems are accented on the last (right-most) syllable; and the static, whose accent is fixed upon the root. The position of the accent is independent of gender and (for the most part) the shape of the stem.

In the singular, nominatives may or may not have an -s ending. In the -i and -u stems, nouns which have -s are always masculine or feminine, while those without, always neuter. In other stems, the presence of the final -s does not predict gender. Where the stem ends in a resonant, a final -s triggered Hock's law, which causes the -s to disappear and the preceding vowel to lengthen. The vocative form never has -s but is otherwise identical to the nominative. The accusative form shows -m where the stem is vocalic, and -um where consonantal.

The dative and locative forms are similar to each other: in the paroxytone class, they are identical, but in the oxytone class, the accent is on the ultima in the dative and the penultima in the locative, the former therefore full-grade -ē < *-ey. The forms of the genitive are to be explained in terms similar to those of the dative, where -os represents full-grade and applies to oxytone words, and -s the zero-grade, to paroxytone words. Where the ultima anomalously takes the full-grade in the genitive in paroxytone words, the ending syllable is regularly weakened to -as prehistorically. Where the ending was zero-grade, Hock's Law may apply and lengthen the preceding vowel. The ending is often then analogically restored as -os prehistorically, but the lengthened vowel is usually left in situ. Where this happens, the accent remains on the penult, and final -os is regularly weakened to -as.

The dual is particularly difficult to describe exactly because it was not obligatory for most nouns. Only natural pairs (eyes, the sun and moon, etc.) are reliably inflected as duals, and even then only when so spoken, e.g. guβōm tās koinimūn θβā́ "two (du.) legs (pl.) of beeves (pl.)". The basic nominative ending in PIE was *-h₁, which is reflected after consonants as -a, yet this is often conflated with the thematic ending in -ā < *o-h₁. Where the ending requires a full-grade, -ē < *-eh₁ appears. Stems in -i and -u are lengthened to -ī and -ō < *-ū due to *-h₁. The neuter nouns in consonant stems apparently take -ī < *ih₁ as an ending, but only sometimes in neuter nouns in -i and -u: both genuī and genū "two knees" is attested, but nothing remains of a putative dual in *-i-ī, instead sokoī < *sokoi-h₁ "companions". The feminine nouns in -e- follow the neuter nouns in the nominative. The accusative and vocative syncretize with the nominative.

The dual genitive like the singular has different proto-forms depending on the accent of the stem. In oxytone words, the full-grade ending was -ōs < *Hows; in paroxytone, it stood in zero-grade as -us < *Hus. After consonant stems the situation is complicated by analogical substitutions, but after vowel stems phonotactic contractions obscure underlying forms to no small extent. The dual locative behaves in the same way as the genitive less the final -s; it appears to Cammer that the dual genitive may have been rebuilt on the locative, plus the -s from the singular.

The dual dative and instrumental are syncretized and share one ending. It is thought the original instrumental ending is preserved in terms like mamβō "by month" < *mh₁nbʰis with some alterations. Otherwise, the full-grade dative ending is -mō < *-moh₁. The zero-grade is not the expected *-ma < *-mh₁ but was either rebuilt from the plural, less the -s ending, or formed on comparison with the locative or genitive, both of which had u-vocalism in the zero-grade.

Thematic

Forms of the thematic declension, with the theme vowel written as part of the ending, follow.

	Singular		Dual		Plural
	Masc.-Fem.	Neut.	Masc.-Fem.	Neut.	Masc.-Fem.	Neut.
Nominative	-ō	-õ	-ā	-о̄ī	-о̄s	-ā
Vocative	-e
Accusative	-õ				-о̄n
Locative	-oi		-о̄o		-oyo
Genitive	-о̄ro		-āо̄s		-ōm
Dative	-о̄i		-о̄ma		-omus
Instrumental	-о̄d

Pronouns

First person

	Singular		Dual		Plural
	Stressed	Enclitic	Stressed	Enclitic	Stressed	Enclitic
Nominative	éɣōn	ig	wḗ	nā	wḗ	nōs
Accusative	mé	mi	unawé		ummé
Genitive	méme	moi	nā́		unsér, unsriḗ
Dative	méɣio	moi	nanā́		ummḗ

Second person

	Singular		Dual		Plural
	Stressed	Enclitic	Stressed	Enclitic	Stressed	Enclitic
Nominative	tū́	ti	yṓ	wā́	yṓs	wōs
Accusative	θβé	te	ūwé		usmé
Genitive	téβe	toi	wā́		yuser, yusriḗ
Dative	téβio	toi	wanā́		usmḗ

Demonstrative

	Singular			Dual			Plural
	Masc.	Neut.	Fem.	Masc.	Neut.	Fem.	Masc.	Neut.	Fem.
Nominative	so	tod	sē	tṓ	tēī	tēī	toi	tē	tēi
Accusative	tom		tēm				tṓm		tā́s
Locative	tosmi		tēsiēi	tṓmōā			toisu		tēsu
Genitive	tosio		tēsiēs	tṓmōǘs			toiom		tēom
Dative	tosmoi		tēsiēē	tṓsemā			toiomus		tēmus
Instrumental	toi		tēsiēi

Adjectives

Numerals

Cardinal numbers one through four are declinable as athematic adjectives of various declensional patterns, agreeing with the nouns (explicit or implicit) they modify in gender, case, and number. Of course, "one" is only inflected in the singular, "two" in the dual, and "three" and "four" in the plural. Numbers five and above are indeclinable.

	"one"			"two"			"three"			"four"
	Masc.	Neut.	Fem.	Masc.	Neut.	Fem.	Masc.	Neut.	Fem.	Masc.	Neut.	Fem.
Nominative	sṓm	som	semei	θβā́	duī	θβóī	trḗis	trī́	trisrés	kweθβóres	kwetūra	kwetusres
Vocative	som		semei
Accusative	sémum		semīm				trī́n		trisérūn	kweθβórūn		kwetusérūn
Locative	sémi		smiēi	duā́		duēi	trēsu		trisersu	kweθβerru		kwetuserru
Genitive	smos		smiēs	duōs		duēs	triom		trisrom	kweturóm		kwetusrom
Dative	smē		smiēi	dumā́		duēi	trimus		trisurmus	kweturmus		kwetusurmus
Instrumental	smed		smiēd			duēd			trisūr			kwetusūr

The nominative of "one" is endingless and shows o-grade in the masculine. The e-grade and zero-grade appear elsewhere. Its declension is otherwise quite regular. In "two", the masculine and feminine forms have spirantized initials, leading to the induction that the pre-form must have had consonantal *-w-, likely *dwo-; if this is true, the neuter may be interpreted as a zero-grade *du-. The neuter nominative shows the regular i-stem ending. The stem in du- appear elsewhere. In "three", the masculine nominative is from PEE *tréyes, regularly > *trḗes > trḗis with the raising of the final unstressed *-e-.

Vocabulary

Northian shares an ancestor with Nordic languages, and much of their vocabulary is cognate. Nevertheless, owing to the time depth of the separation of the two branches, such cognates are difficult for language learners to recognize, and in many cases true cognates may have developed different meanings. The situation is further clouded by the borrowing of Nordic vocabulary on a massive scale and from multiple sources, creating many doublets and triplets of words that have differing meanings.

• Manuš (cognate to Nordic Mens, Mann, man etc.) means "human", of all sexes; a male person is a nā (gen. drō) in Northian. While some u-stem nouns have feminine forms ending in -ō or -wī, manuš is invariant and always grammatically masculine in gender.
• Arɣiš (cognate to Nordic argr etc.) means sexual action forbidden on moral or religious grounds; a sacrilege; incest. However, arɣiš does not connote homosexuality and most often implies a forbidden heterosexual action, because during the Epic age there were far more taboos associated with heterosexual acts than homosexual ones.

See also

• Northern States
• Northian grammar