| Ancient Dane Dane | |
 | |
| Pronunciation | [ɾanə] |
| Period | 7000BK - 5000BK |
| Spoken in | Southern small Nautlic Islands |
| Total speakers | Ancient Dane People |
| Writing system | none |
| Classification | Nautli Languages |
| Typology | |
| Basic word order | S first |
| Morphology | agglutinating |
| Alignment | split-erg |
| Credits | |
| Created by | Creyeditor |
Ancient Dane is a Nautli language, that was once spoken on the southern small Island of the Nautlic Islands. It is a direct descendant of Proto-Nautli.
Phonology[]
The consonant inventory of Ancient Dane lost the pharyngealization contrast, but expanded the labialization contrast and the retroflex series. As for the romanization, labialization is always written as ⟨v⟩, retroflex consonants are romanized as their alveolar counterparts followed by an ⟨r⟩. Other differences from the IPA are given in the table. Where there are two consonants in a cell, the right one is labialized.
| Labial | Alveolar | Retroflex | Velar | Glottal | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Plosives | p pʷ | t tʷ | ʈ ʈʷ | k kʷ | |
| Nasals | n nʷ | ɳ ɳʷ | ŋ ŋʷ ⟨ng⟩ | ||
| Fricatives | s sʷ | ʂ ʂʷ | h | ||
| Taps |
ɾ ɾʷ ⟨d⟩ |
ɽ ɽʷ | |||
| Approximants | ɻ ɻʷ ⟨r⟩ | w ⟨v⟩ | |||
| Lateral A.'s | l lʷ |
The vowel system is reduced to a three vowel system, but kept the tense-lax harmony. Tense high vowels in Proto-Nautli were diphthongized.
| Front | Central | Back | |
|---|---|---|---|
| High tense | i ⟨í⟩ | u ⟨ú⟩ | |
| High lax | ɪ ⟨i⟩ | ʊ ⟨u⟩ | |
| Mid | ə ⟨e⟩ | ||
| Low lax | ɐ ⟨a⟩ | ||
| Low tense | a ⟨á⟩ | ||
| Diphthongs | ai ⟨áí⟩ | au ⟨áú⟩ |
Stress is usually on the penultimate sylllable. Unstressed lax vowels are reduced to schwa.
Morphology[]
Ancient Dane kept all the number distinctions of Proto-Nautli. The grammatical core case system was reduced, while the locative system was expanded. Stacked case morphemes were reanalyzed as new cases.
The forms on the left are used for tense stems, the ones on the right are used for lax stems.
| at | to | from | |
|---|---|---|---|
| on | -ná / -ne | -nádí / -nade | -náhúh / -naheh |
| in | -ráú / -re | -ráúdí / -rude | -ráúheh / -ruheh |
| over | -níl / -nel | -níláídí / -nelide | -níhsúh / -nahseh |
| under | -lúr / -lr | -lúráídi / -lride | -lúsrúh / -lasreh |
There are three core cases in Ancient Dane. The nominative is the most unmarked case. It is used for subjectives in most contexts. It is also used for objects in non-embedded clauses, when the subject is inanimate. The accusative ist used for objects in all other contexts. The Instrumental case is used for possessor, instruments, companions and inanimate subnjects in non-embedded clauses. In the following table you can see the relevant morphemes.
| Singular | Dual | Plural | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Nominative | none |
-áún / náún -en / -nen |
-úk / -núk -ek / -nek |
| Accusative |
-áí / -l -e / -l |
-áún-ál / -náún-ál -un-el / -nun-el |
-úl / -núl -el / -nel |
| Instrumental |
-áíkí / -kí -ike / -ke |
-áún-áíkí / -náún-áíkí -en-ike / -nen-ike |
-únkí / -núnkí -anke / -nanke |
Syntax[]
Ancient Dane had two very prominent and similar syntactic processes: unmarked passive and topicalization.
Unmarked passives are formed by simply deleting the agent of a sentence. This usually leads to a sentence, that does not begin with the subject.
Topicalization moves the subject or a non-argument to the sentence initial position. This is also accompanied by a special intonation: the pitch drops after the topic and starts to rise with the following word, staying level after reaching the unmarked pitch.
Vocabulary[]
cat - PN:*lxejeen - lídáín
crab - PN:*jangè - dange
daughter - PN:*jăngvi - dangve
day - PN:* theneeth - trínítr
death - PN:*qong - úng
dog - PN:*jikvò - dikve
to eat - PN:*qòrtul - atrel
finger - PN:*pèlik - palek
fire - PN:*olxes - álíh
freeze - PN:*neen - náín
hand - PN:*vèstu - vahte
top - PN:*vòqvă 'head'- vave
heart - PN:*qvikăh - vikeh
grass - PN:*nxaroo - náráú
language - PN:*jănxă - dane
life - PN:*tlaral - tlárál