Borish language

Borish language
boriske sprake
Pronunciation	[ˈbɔːɾɪɕkə ˈspɾɑːkə]
Native to	parts of Borland
Native speakers	c. 10 million c. 2 million
Language family	Euclean Nordano-Weranic Weranic Borish language
Writing system	Borish alphabet (Solarian script)
Official status
Official language in	Borland Euclean Community
Regulated by	Rÿkshuis Institute for the Borish language (of the Linguistic Faculty of the University of Newstead), advisory
Language codes
ISO 639-1	bo
ISO 639-2	bor
ISO 639-3	bor

The Borish language (/ˈbɔːrɪʃ/; natively: boriske sprake [ˈbɔːɾɪɕkə ˈspɾɑːkə] or just borisk [ˈbɔːɾɪɕ(k)]) is a language belonging to its own branch within the Weranic languages. It is the primary official language of Borland, where it is spoken predominantly in the the Midlands, Maynes, Outhallside and Yord, as well as parts of Hethland and Norland. Outside of Borland, Borish is also spoken by communities in Azmara, Estmere and, to a lesser extent, Werania. It is also one of the official languages of the Euclean Community.

The language has a long written history, dating back to the early mediæval period, although there was a general decline of the language under pressure of the Estmerish language starting in the mid-17th century, with the written language ceasing to be used by the middle of the 18th century. A revival of the Borish language began in the 19th century and continued into the early 20th century. Following the Great War and Borlandʼs subsequent independence from Estmere, Borish became the main official language of Borland.

Borish is generally believed to have fifteen dialects, which differ primarily in their phonology, the occurence or absence of specific grammatical constructions and some region-specific vocabulary. The spoken standard is based on the dialects of Lewen and Outhall, combining features from northern Midlandic and Outhallside dialects.

Classification

Borish is usually classified as belonging to its own branch of the Weranic languages. Historically, it was often seen as belonging to the Estmero-Azmaran branch, although this is disputed due to the absence of some major features shared by all (other) Estmero-Azmaran languages, most prominently the palatalisation of historic /k/ and /ɡ/ (compare Borish dagh [ˈdɑːɣ] with Estmerish day or Borish brigge [ˈbɾɪɡːə] to Estmerish bridge).
An alternative classification of Borish places it alongside German, Aldman and Hennish.

History

The question of where Old Borish, Middle Borish and Modern Borish start and end, is blurry, as the Borish language has remained very conservative since its split from the other Weranic languages, with Old Borish still being largely intelligible to modern speakers, both in its written and reconstructed spoken form. The general consensus is that the Old Borish period spans from before the first written record of Borish until the unification of the Borish Kingdom in the 1020s, as it correlates with an explosion of Borish-language literature which had previously been sparse as well as with the change of certain common spellings through the standardisation of the language. Middle Borish would then go on to be the written standard between around 1050 and the decline of Borish literature and identity during the beginning of the personal union with Estmere, starting around 1650 and being mostly finalised by around 1720. With Modern Borish only being considered a language in its own right again by the early 20^th century, with an official standard only being introduced in 1937, the general time frame between the end of Middle Borish and the beginning of Modern Borish was characterised by a blend of Middle Borish and contemporary Estmerish spelling conventions and is often referred to as intermediary Borish or transitional Borish.
Upon independence, only about 24% of Borish claimed to speak primarily Borish, although 39% claimed it to be their native language.

Standardisation

The standardisation of Borish orthography was officially discussed and decided upon in 1936, with two main orthographies having many proponents: the conservative standard of the Rÿkshuis Borish Dictionary and the more reformative Helman standard. Among the deciding elites, the former was preferred, although it was altered in the official orthography, for example by adding the letter ⟨þ⟩, choosing the digraph ⟨hv⟩ over ⟨wh⟩ or ⟨hw⟩ and completely removing the letter ⟨j⟩ as it was not used at all within the frameworks of Borish orthography.
In a 1940 spelling reform, the letter ⟨x⟩ and the digraph ⟨qu⟩ were replaced with the trigraph ⟨cks⟩ (e.g. fux or boxe being changed to fucks and bockse) and the digraph ⟨kv⟩ (e.g. quale being changed to kvale), respectively, in native words and words loaned from other Weranic languages. Following this, the only thing officially changing within Borish spelling itself was the digraph ⟨qu⟩ being changed to ⟨qv⟩ in analogy to ⟨kv⟩ and ⟨hv⟩.

Rÿkshuis Standard

The Rÿkshuis standard is based on the writing conventions and rules found in the works of pre-independence Borish author and politician Yoghen Rÿnman with features like a greater number of Weranian loan words and grammatical structures as well as Borish archaicisms being (re)introduced. A prominent feature found in texts adhering closely to the Rÿkshuis standard is the similarity to Weranian declension rules on both indefinite and definite articles (an/ane/an and þer/þe//þet) and adjectives, including the partial presence of grammatical gender (compare the phrase ein großes Haus with an grootet hous).

Helman Standard

The Helman standard is based on the spoken language of Borland. As such, declension is largely limited to verbs and nouns, with adjectives having two forms (for some writers merely one) and articles showing no declension at all.
Additionally, the pre-1936 Helman standard featured the complete removal of the letters C, X and Z as well as the digraphs QU, PH, RH and TH, as these were only used in loan words. In this regard, it followed the Rÿkshuis standard closely after 1936.

Current Situation

During the middle and the latter half of the 20^th century, the situation of the Borish language has stabilised, the language now being spoken natively by around 4.8 million (ca. 68%) people within Borland itself, with a further 20,000 to 30,000 speakers in Azmara and an unknown number of speakers in both Estmere and Werania, largely from emigration during the last century. According to some estimates, there might be as many as 5.5 million native speakers of Borish worldwide, although more conservative estimates put the number closer to 5 million. The number of L2 speakers in Borland is estimated to be at around 2 million (with varying levels of competence), with no data on L2 speakers outside of Borland.
In parts of Westhaven and across many parts of Norland (especially in Stunhill), where the majority of the population claim to speak Estmerish, there was a clear shift towards vocabulary, pronunciation and grammar more closely resembling Borish during the last decades. This resembles an earlier trend in the area around Ledge and Olham, which switched from predominantly Estmerish to predominantly Borish between the 1960s and 1990s in a similar manner.
Contemporary Borish, both informal and formal, is characterised by a mix of both the Rÿkshuis and the Helman standards. To some extent, this has been “loaned into” the spoken forms of Borish, such as the widespread usage of not only universal þe, but rather singular þer/þe/þet.

Phonology

Consonants

Consonant phonemes of Borish

	Labial		Dental		Alveolar		Post- alveolar		Palatal		Velar		Glottal
Nasal		m				n						ŋ
Plosive	p	b			t	d					k	ɡ
Fricative	f	v	θ		s	z	ʃ	ʒ			x	ɣ	h
Affricate					ts		tʃ	dʒ
Rhotic						r
Approximant		w				l				j

Following a stressed open syllable with a short vowel, the consonants /m n b d g p t k s l/ are geminated by many speakers, including in the standard variety. However, this phenomenon is less common for /m b d g/ than for the other sounds. In most instances, this correlates with the doubling of the respective consonant in spelling.

The Borish rhotic which is commonly transcribed with the symbol ⟨/r/⟩ most commonly is pronounced as an alveolar tap [ɾ], with a true alveolar trill [r] being a rare variant. Another common variant is the wikipedia:Alveolar approximant [ɹ] which is used by some speakers across the country in free variation with the tap, although it is the most common pronunciation around Yord, along parts of the border with Azmara and in South Hethland. A somewhat rarer allophone is the retroflex approximant [ɻ], which is usually found in syllable-final position in coastal Hethlandic dialects, which otherwise use a tap or an alveolar approximant.
Syllable-final /r/-dropping is a very widespread phenomenon in all dialects of Borish. Although it can be compared to rhotic and non-rhotic Estmerish, its occurence is much more inconsistent in Borish.

The lateral of Borish comes in two varieties: a plain alveolar lateral [l] and a velarised lateral [ɫ]. For some speakers, the latter occurs only in syllable-final position, though many speakers at least sometimes velarise the /l/ sound intervocalically. A minority of speakers only have the unvelarised /l/.

It is disputed whether or not /x/ and /ɣ/ really count as two separate phonemes, as they occur in complementary distribution with only few exceptions. Whilst the voiceless velar fricative occurs at the start of words, before voiceless consonants and between vowels if it is in the onset of a stressed syllable, the voiced velar fricative occurs at the end of words (sometimes devoiced to /x/), between vowels in unstressed syllables or if following a stressed syllable and, for some speakers, before most voiced consonants.
Exceptions to this rule are usually loan words, such as blech [ˈblɛx] or loch [ˈlɔx]. In fact, outside of dialectal borrowings and loan words, [x] only occurs between vowels and voiceless consonants (e.g. licht [ˈlixt]), where it could also be analysed as underlying /ɣ/ which got devoiced.

The voiced alveolar fricative [z] is not usually analysed as phonemic, but rather an allophone of the voiceless alveolar fricative /s/ in intervocalic positions. Some speakers pronounce the letter ⟨z⟩ in loan words as [z], although this is usually regarded as a case of spelling pronunciation.
For a small set of speakers, this is, arguably, contrastive, although intervocalic [s] for these speakers usually is [sː~s.s] in standard Borish.
Similar to this, some speakers voice intervocalic /θ/ to [ð], although this never is contrastive. For some speakers, both of these allophones can also occasionally occur in other positions, such as word-finally if the following word starts with a vowel (e.g. is et daan? [ˌɪz‿ət ˈdɑːn] “is it done?”).

All affricates occur primarily in loan words and are realised as fricatives by some speakers. Similarly, /ʒ/ also occurs only in loan words (e.g. garazhe “garage” or zheel “gélé”), merging with its voiceless equivalent for some speakers.

In the common clusters /kw/ and /hw/, the /w/ commonly is somewhat or fully fricated, leading to the characteristic [kf] or [xw~xf] clusters.

Vowels

Vowel phonemes of Borish

	Front	Central	Back
Close	iː i~ɪ • yː		uː u~ʊ
Close-mid	e eː	ɘ	o oː
Mid		ə
Open-mid	ɛ ɛː		ɔ ɔː
Open			ɑ ɑː

The vowels of Borish can be divided into short and long vowels and can be analysed either as /ɪ ʊ ɘ ə ɛ ɔ ɑ/ and /iː yː uː eː øː oː ɛː ɔː ɑː/, respectively. In unstressed syllables, long vowels are pronounced as short vowels (e.g. automobil /ˈaʊ̯toːmoːˌbiːl/ [ˈaʊ̯tomoˌbiə̯ɫ]).

Both short high vowels of Borish, /ɪ/ and /ʊ/, can be lax [ɪ ʊ] or tense [i u], depending on the speaker and the dialect, often occuring in more or less free variation. The tense realisation of these vowels is a feature that is mostly associated with the dialects of Outhall and Newstead and is often associated with a higher register, eventhough it is much more widespread than that.

The central vowels /ɘ/ and /ə/ occur in complementary distribution, with /ə/ occuring in unstressed syllables and /ɘ/ in stressed positions. In colloquial Borish, /ɪ/ and /ɘ/ often merge.

The vowels /eː/ and /oː/ undergo breaking to [eɪ̯~ɛɪ̯] and [oʊ̯~ɔʊ̯] in most coastal dialects in some words, whilst being raised to [iː] and [uː], respectively, in some of them. Geographically unrelated, a similar sound change occurs for some speakers in Stunhill, just with a more centralised [ʉː]. Orthographically, this is represented by a single letter ⟨e⟩ or ⟨o⟩ in contrast to two letters ⟨ee⟩ or ⟨oo⟩.

For almost all speakers, the vowels /eː øː oː/ are lowered to [ɛː œː ɔː] before coda-/r/, with some speakers extending this to /l/. Oftentimes, this comes with a more or less noticeable diphthonisation (e.g. stool [ˈstoə̯ɫ]), although the diphthongisation of vowels before liquids is also present with other vowels.

Across Borish dialects, /a/ varies between a front [a], a centre [ä] and a back [ɑ]. Generally, the closer one moves to the Estmerish border, the more /a/ is a front vowel, and the closer one moves to the Azmaran border, the more it is a back vowel.

Orthography

Alphabet

Borish is almost exclusively written using an Estmerish-based Solarian alphabet, though occasional instances of other writing systems being used to write the language can be observed within some social circles. Most texts nowadays use an alphabet consisting of 28 letters (the 26 letters that are also found in the Estmerish alphabet, except for j, but with the addition of the letters Ë, Þ and Ÿ), though older texts often used ⟨i⟩ and/or ⟨e⟩ where modern texts use ⟨ë⟩, with ⟨ei/ey⟩ abd ⟨th⟩ having been a common replacement for ⟨ÿ⟩ and ⟨þ⟩, respectively. Some texts use ⟨æ⟩ and ⟨œ⟩ (sometimes represented by the digraphs ⟨ae⟩ and ⟨oe⟩, respectively) in loan words and some dialectal vocabulary, although their usage is not widespread. It has to be noted that Y is sorted in dictionaries where J would be sorted in other languages. Thus, the Borish alphabet goes as follows: A B C D E Ë F G H I Y Ÿ K L M N O P Q R S T Þ U V W X Z.

Additionally, the letters ⟨à⟩ and ⟨ç⟩ are used in limited circumstances in Borish, although they are treated as variants of the letters ⟨a⟩ and ⟨c⟩, respectively. While ⟨ç⟩ is at least somewhat widespread, being used for /s/ in loan words of Solarian origin where otherwise, Borish spelling would suggest /k/, the letter ⟨à⟩ is only used in one native word (àn “at, on, towards”) in order to distinguish it from a homonym (an “a”). Besides that, it is occasionally used for measurements as in Estmerish.

There are a multitude of digraphs that are used in the Borish language. These include vowel digraphs for long vowels (aa, ee, ea, oo, oa, ou, ui) and for diphthongs (ai, au, ei, eu, ie, oi, ow). At the end of words and between vowels, the ⟨i⟩ and ⟨u⟩ get respelled to ⟨y⟩ and ⟨w⟩, respectively (thus ai, au, ei, eu, oi, ui → ay, aw, ey, ew, oy, uy). This does not apply to ou and ow, as these represent different sounds (/uː/ and /ɔʊ̯/, respectively). In loan words, the diphthong /iə̯/ is spelled ⟨ië⟩, while native words use the spelling ⟨ie⟩ instead.
The digraph ⟨ei⟩ in particular is rather rare although the sound it represents (/ɛɪ̯/) is the most common diphthong in Borish. This is because, usually, the letter ⟨ÿ⟩ is used for this sound. However, when ⟨ÿ⟩ is not available or to cumbersome to type, ⟨ei⟩ is used as a substitute digraph. The same goes for ⟨þ⟩ and ⟨th⟩.

The digraph ⟨dg⟩ and the trigraph ⟨tch⟩ are used for the postalveolar affricates in all positions, although they are almost entirely absent from Borish with the exception of loan words. In the official spelling, it is recommended to always respell foreign words to use ⟨dg⟩ and ⟨tch⟩, although many Borish speakers do not necessarily consistently abide to this rule (e.g. spelling tchillen and dgungel as chillen and jungel). Other consonant digraphs are CH GH PH RH SH TH ZH. HV also is commonly counted as a digraph in Borish. It often is transcribed as ⟨/hw/⟩, though it can represent a variety of different sounds, depending on the dialect. These range from [xf] to [xv] and [hw] to [xw] in most dialects, which is mirrored in local Estmerish dialects. ⟨hv⟩ often corresponds to ⟨wh⟩ in Estmerish. ⟨kv⟩ is a similar digraph, represented by ⟨qv⟩ in loan words. There is no clear consensus on whether or not NG could be considered a digraph as its phonemic status is disputed.

Punctuation

Punctuation in Borish is based primarily on Weranian rules, with some exceptions. For instance, commas are always placed between two clauses except around the conjunctions and (“and”) and oþer (also spelled oʼar, “or”), where their placement is optional. Similarly to Estmerish, commas are also placed after adverbial phrases of location or time.
The rules on quotation marks differ slightly from Estmerish, with commas and full stops coming after the closing quotation mark rather than between the last word and the quotation mark. Double quotation marks are used for direct speech and other quotation, with single quotation marks being optional for quotation within a quotation.
Which quotation marks to use in Borish is not officially defined, although the consensus is that inward-pointing guillemets (»…«) are the default, with outward-pointing guillemets («…») also being relatively widespread. Somewhat more rarely, Estmerish quotation marks (“…” or "…") are also used, especially in the latter form on the internet.
Officially, the em dash (—) with a full space on both sides is used in Borish, although usage of the en dash (–), which officially is used only with numbers, is also common within sentences.

Grammar

Being a Weranic language, the grammar of Borish resembles that of other Weranic languages, such as Estmerish, Azmaran, Aldman or Weranian closely in many ways.
The Borish language largely retained the proto-Weranic grammatical gender system, although its extent is lesser nowadays than in earlier forms of the language due to the collapse of the grammatical case system since Old Borish.

Nouns

Most nouns in Borish decline for two numbers (singular and plural). Grammatical cases are shown primarily by means of word order and prepositions. Though there were, historically, more cases with distinct forms, only the genitive remains, being marked with the suffixes -s or -es (unlike Estmerish, without an apostrophe), with the construction op + article + noun being used commonly instead.
With most nouns, the plural form is formed by attatching either a suffix -(e)r or -(e)n to the word, with -er being the most common for masculine and neuter nouns and -en being mostly used for feminine nouns, although there are many exceptions. Some words, however, form their plural form either by means of umlaut or by umlaut and a plural suffix (e.g. land→lender, man→menner or stade→steden), comparable to Weranian or certain words in Estmerish (compare mous→muis to Maus→Mäuse or mouse→mice).

Pronouns

Borish has personal pronouns distinguishing between two numbers (singular and plural), with three persons. There are distinct gendered forms in the third person singular only, with a gender-neutral form ë existing in the colloquial spoken language and sometimes in the written language as well.
The impersonal pronoun is aner (the equivalent of Estmerish “one”).

Pronouns of Borish

Person		Nominative	Accusative	Genitive
1st	sg.	ik	my	myn
	pl.	wy	uns	unser
2nd	sg.	þu	þy	þyn
	pl.	ye	ye	yer
3rd	sg. masc.	hyr	hym	hyn
	sg. fem.	së	hër	hër
	sg. neut.	et	et	en
	pl.	þey	þÿm	þÿr

The first and second person plural pronouns have alternative forms; ye/yer/yer having the form yu/yur/yur, and wy/uns/unser having the form wy/ons/onser.

T–V distinction

Alongside many other Euclean languages, including some varieties of Estmerish, Borish has a T–V distinction, with þu (cognate to Estmerish “thou”, Weranian “du” and Azmaran “þu”) and ye or yu (cognate to Estmerish “ye” and “you”, respectively, to Weranian “ihr” and to Azmnaran “ju”) being used, depending on the context. Generally, þu, the original second person singular pronoun, is used amongst and towards children, among students and colleagues and among friends and family. Some speakers also use þu towards strangers in informal situations. On the other hand, ye, the original second person plural pronoun, (and its alternative form yu) is used when one speaks to higher-ups (e.g. teachers, bosses, customers) and strangers. Verbal conjugation also follows the personal pronouns used, with þu triggering the second person singular conjugation -(e)st and ye/yu triggering the second person plural conjugation -en.
Many speakers differenciate between singular and plural ye by using ye exclusively in its original plural meaning and using yu for the singular (whence Borish Estmerish singular you and plural ye). Additionally, singular ye/yu is often capitalised, which brings the T–V distinction to the plural as well in the written language for some speakers (i.e. singular þu–Yu and plural ye–Ye).

Articles

The indefinite article of Borish is an for masculine and neuter nouns, and ane for feminine nouns. The indefnite article of Borish is, similar to Estmerish or Weranian, used exclusively in the singular. It is derived from the numeral aan (“one”).
The definite article in its default form is þe, which is its only form in the colloquial spoken language for some speakers. Alongside with þë, a graphical variant spelling used to signify plural meaning, it is the only form of the definite article used in accordance to the Helman standard. Both in the spoken and the written language, there are dedicated forms for the grammatical cases. The forms are, in order of masculine, feminine and neuter, for the nominative (þer/þe/þet), the accusative (þen/þe/þet), the genitive (þes/þer/þes) and the dative (þem/þer/þem), although many speakers collapse this system somewhat. After having been lost during the Middle Borish, dedicated case forms were reloaned into the language through literature.

Verbs

Borish verbs conjugate for two numbers (singular and plural), three persons and two tenses. Though present in some Old Borish texts, Borish now lacks any other sort of verbal conjugation besides that.
Although the tenses are generally referred to as “present” and “past”, Borish could also be analysed as having a past tense and a non-past tense, as the so-called “present tense” covers a variety of times. There is no dedicated future tense in verbal conjugation, although a future tense can be formed by means of using the auxiliary werden (from Weranian werden “to become”) + the infinitive form of a given verb. Furthermore, using the verbs haven (“to have”) and sën (“to be”), sometimes in combination with werden, as auxiliary verbs followed by the infinitive form of a lexical verb, the Borish verbal system shows a great degree of similarity with Estmerish and Weranian.
A progressive conjugation similar to Estmerish -ing- forms can be achieved with the construction auxiliary verb (conjugated) + àn þat + lexical verb (infinitive) or, alternatively, auxiliary verb (conjugated) + àn + lexical verb (ending in -ënd).
Almost all Borish verbs end in -en in the infinitive, with the singular conjugations being -e/-(e)st/-eþ for the respective person. Similar to Azmaran, all plural conjugations are identical, although, in contrast to Azmaran, being -en in Borish. In the past tense, regular verbs end in -(e)de/-(e)dest/-(e)de in the singular and -den in the plural. The past participle of a given verb usually ends in -ed, more rarely in -en.
Borish distinguishes between weak verbs and strong verbs, similar to Azmaran, Weranian and Estmerish, with strong verbs exhibiting umlaut in some or all of their past tense conjugated forms.
An example for a strong and a weak verb is shown below.

Weak verb: reghnen (“to rain”)

Person	Present	Past
ik	reghne	reghnede
þu	reghnest	reghnedest
hyr/së/et	reghneþ	reghnede
wy/ye/þey	reghnen	reghneden

Strong verb: melken (“to milk”)

Person	Present	Past
ik	melke	molk
þu	melkest	molkest
hyr/së/it	melkeþ	melkde
wy/ye/þey	melken	melkden

Strong verbs make up most irregular verbs. Most of the time, a strong verb in Estmerish correlates with a strong verb in Borish (as is the case with, for example, rennen and “to run”), although this is not always the case, as some verbs have lost their historical strong declension in Estmerish (e.g. helpen and “to help”) or in Borish (e.g. kutten and “to cut”), while some strong verbs in Estmerish never have been strong verbs in Borish (e.g. katchen and “to catch”).
Some strong verbs in Borish include: bearen (ik beare/boar/have boaren “to carry, to bear”), beginnen (ik beginne/began/have begonnen “to begin”), beuden (ik beude/baud/have boden “to bid”), binden (ik binde/band/have bunden “to bind”), blowen (ik blowe/blew/have blowen “to blow”), botten (ik botte/boat/have botten “to beat”), brecken (ik brecke/brock/have brocken “to break”), draghen (ik draghe/drogh/have draghen “to draw, to pul; to carry, to wear”), drinken (ik drinke/drank/have drunken), eaten/eten (ik eate/ete/aat/have eaten/eten “to eat”), feghten (ik feghte/foght/have foghten “to fight”), fallen (ik falle/fell/have fallen “to fall”), geven (ik geve/gaav/have geven “to give”), halden (ik halde/held/have halden “to hold”), helpen (ik helpe/halp/have holpen “to help”), kommen (ik komme/kam/have kommen “to come”), krowen (ik krowe/krew/have krowen “to crow”), kveþen (ik kveþe/kvoþ/have kveþen “to chat”, cognate with “to quethe”), lighen (ik lighe/lagh/have leghen “to lie” (as in “to lie down”)), leughen (ik leughe/loagh/haven loaghen “to lie” (as in “to tell a lie”)), melken (ik melke/molk/have molken “to milk”), melten (ik melte/molt/have molten “to melt”), rennen (ik renne/rann/have ranned “to run”), saken (ik sake/sook/have saken “to quarrel”, cognate of “forsake”), se(gh)en (ik se(gh)e/sa(gh)e/have se(gh)en “to see”), sinken (ik sinke/sank/have sunken “to sink”), sitten (ik sitte/sat/have setten “to sit”), spreaken (ik spreake/sproak/have sprocken “to speak”), stealen (ik steale/stoal/have stolen “to steal”), sterven (ik sterve/starv/have storven “to die”), swearen (ik sweare/swoar/have sworen “to swear”), swellen (ik swelle/swoll/have swollen “to swell”), swimmen (ik swimme/swam/have swommen “to swim”), taken (ik take/took/have taken “to take, touch”), tearen (ik teare/toar/have toaren “to tear”), terren (ik terre/tor/have torren “to rip”), þrowen (ik þrowe/þrew/have þrowen “to throw”), winnen (ik winne/wan/have wonnen “to win”) etc.

Adjectives

In Modern Borish, adjectives only have two forms: their so-called dictionary form (Borish: bookform), which is used when they do not describe a noun, and their only declined form, usually with a suffix -e. After the indefinite article, the grammatical gender of the noun the adjective describes is marked on the adjective in the case of masculine and neuter nouns (with the suffixes -er and -et, respectively).

Syntax

The default word order in Borish is SVO, with adjectives preceeding the nouns they govern. Much like in Estmerish, but in contrast to Azmaran and Weranian, Borish is not a V2 language, meaning that the word order does not change to SOV in secondary clauses.
Questions are mostly formed by putting the conjugated verb infront of the subject, which also applies to WH-questions.

Vocabulary

The majority of words in Borish, especially those of daily use, are of proto-Weranic origin, which can be split into three categories: words directly inherited from proto-Weranic, Borish neologisms based on proto-Weranic roots and words loaned from other Weranic languages. Furthermore, a substantial part of words, especially in professional and scientific vocabulary, is of Piraeo-Solarian origin, often via Gaullican or Estmerish. The greatest sources of loan words in Borish are, in order, Estmerish, Piraean/Solarian, Gaullican and Weranian.
During the late Middle Borish period, a tendency towards calquing words rather than loaning them directly started, which was also the preferred mode of word creation during the early Modern Borish period. Oftentimes, Weranian or Azmaran words were taken as inspiration for new Borish vocabulary, whilst other times, completely new words were created.

Grammatical Gender

The grammatical gender of a word usually does not relate to any sort of biological gender or sex, but rather is related to how a noun pluralises and how adjectives decline for the noun. While the gender of most inanimate objects and animals is arbitrary, there are some instances where grammatical gender and gender match up in the case of about a dozen words relating to people. More specifically, these are, besides the words wive (“woman” or “wife”), mÿde (“girl” or “girlfriend”), dame (“lady”) and frawe (“madam” or “Mrs./Miss”), words for kinship, such as maþer (“mother”), ante (“aunt”), cousine (“fem. cousin”), dochter (“daughter”) or swester (“sister”). Furthermore, the professional words nure (“nurse”), nonne (“nun”), hore (“whore”, “prostitute”) and wicke/hagge (“witch”) are also feminine, regardless of the gender of the person in the profession. All other nouns referring to humans are masculine, regardless of the gender of the person that is referred to. There is no suffix for turning masculine words into feminine ones (in analogy to Weranian -in) or vice versa.

Examples

The Lordʼs Prayer (Unser Faþer) in Borish:

Unser faþer, hvor þu bist in þem hemel,

Healigh is þyn name,

Þyn ryk kumme,

Þyn wille kumme daan,

Hvo in þem hemel, et sy op þer erþe,

Geve uns àn þisem dagh unser daghlighet broad,

And fergeve uns unsere skulde,

Hvo ok wy fergeven unseren skuldern,

And loade uns nët to forsooking,

Aver erloose uns op þem boos,

For þyn is þet ryk,

And þe kraft and þe heerlykhÿd,

In ieþerhÿd,

Amen.

IPA:

[ˈʊnsəɾ ˈfɑːθəɾ | xwɔɾ θuː ˈbɪst‿ɪn θə(m) ˈheːməɫ]

[ˈhɛːlɪɣ‿ɪs θiːn‿ˈnɑːmə]

[θiːn ˈɾiːk‿ˈkʊm(ːə)]

[θiːn ˈwɪɫːə ˌkʊm(ːə) ˈdɑːn]

[xwɔ ɪn θə(m) ˈheːməɫ | ət ˈsiː ɔp θə(ɾ) ˈɛɾθə]

[ˈɡeːvə ʊns ɑn θiːsə(m) ˈdɑɣ‿ʊnsəɾ ˈdɑɣliɣət̚ ˈbɾɔːd̥]

[ɑn(d̥) fəɾˈɡeːv(ə) ʊns ʊnsəɾə ˈɕkʊɫdə]

[xwɔ ɔk̚ wiː fəɾˈɡeːvən ʊnsəɾə(n) ˈɕkʊɫdəɾn]

[ɑn(d̥) ˈlɔːd(ə) ʊns ˈnɘt‿to fəɾˈsoːkɪŋ]

[ˈɑːvəɾ əɾˈloːs(ə) ʊns ɔp̚ θə(m) ˈboːs]

[fɔɾ ˌθiːn ɪs θət̚ ˈɾiːk̚]

[ɑn(d̥) θə ˈkɾɑft̚ ɑn(d̥) θə ˈheːɾli(ː)kˌhɛɪ̯d̥]

[ɪn ˈɪə̯θəɾˌhɛɪ̯d̥]

[ˈɑːmən]