Skylandic: Difference between revisions

Latest revision as of 13:45, 28 June 2026

Skylandic
Himmeldeutsch, Ciellandais
Chiveduts
The flag of Skyland
Pronunciation	[ɕiv.dy ~ ʃɪv.dʏ]
Created by	Kazu Inoue
Date	first version, 2021; third and latest version, 2024
Setting	Alternate Earth where magic exists
Native to	Skyland
Native speakers	1.5 million (1600) 200,000 L2
Language family	Indo-European Germanic West Germanic Aerial West Germanic Skylandic
Early forms	Old Skylandic Middle Skylandic Early Modern Skylandic
Standard form	Standard Vögelbergean Skylandic
Dialects	Bernstein Skylandic Primétoilean Skylandic
Sources	Proto-Germanic, German, French
Official status
Official language in	Germany · France · Liechtenstein · Belgium · Switzerland · Austria
Recognised minority language in	Italy · the Netherlands · Luxembourg · Great Britain
Regulated by	European Language Round Table (ELRT)

Skylandic (autoglossonym: Chiveduts; Skylandic: [ɕiv.dy]) is a West Germanic language in the Indo-European language family, mainly spoken in Western Europe. It is the national and official language of Skyland, the floating country above the Germany-France border. It is also the co-official language of Germany, France, Liechtenstein, Austria, Belgium and Switzerland; a recognized minority language in Italy, the Netherlands, Luxembourg and Great Britain; and one of the official languages of the European Language Round Table (ELRT) alongside English, German, France, Neallish, Irish, Italian and Spanish. It is the only member of the Aerial Germanic subfamily.

It has over 1.5 million native speakers and over 200,000 L2 (or second language) speakers. A majority of its native speakers live in Skyland, Germany and France. It has two major dialects — the Bernstein and Primétoilean dialects. The Bernstein dialect is spoken by the people living in the east German-side of the country while the Primétoilean dialect is spoken in the west French-side of the country. The Bernstein dialect has more native Germanic words and German calques while the Primétoilean dialect has more French loanwords and calques.

The floating island's first inhabitants were ancient West Germanic mages who had stumbled upon the island using their flight magic. A couple of centuries later, the Old French mages also decided to explore and live on the island. From the mingling of the two communities, a new dialect of West Germanic was born which, over time, developed into a language of its own now known as Modern Skylandic.

Classification

Skylandic is an a posteriori language with its vocabularily mostly based on Proto-Germanic and its phonology and orthography based on French. One can say that it explores the question of "How German would look like if it evolved like French?"

It is also a tripartite or ERG-ACC language — meaning, it marks the subject of an intransitive verb, the agent and the patient of a transitive verb all differently.

It is inspired by the minority languages like Dungan (a Sinitic language written using the Cyrillic script) and Vilamovian (a Germanic language spelled using the Polish alphabet), and the conlang Venedic (a Romance language evolved to be like Polish).

The language has actually gone through three revisions with the third one being the current version. The first version used to have an Old English-y orthography while the second version used to have a German-ish orthography. According to the conlanger, the reason for the revision was that he was enthralled and fascinated by the spelling rule of the French language.

Evolution of Skylandic

As unfortunate as it may seem, the ELRT hasn't found any sufficient amount of surviving records yet of the language's early and middle stages. But they did made an end-to-end evolutionary list of the language starting from Proto-Germanic (PGmc) or sometimes Proto-West Germanic (PWG). All thanks to help of the Great Sage. The sound changes are shown below, in no particular order.

Sound and Spelling Changes

● *sC → /eC/. *sk becomes ⟨ch⟩ before ⟨e, i, y⟩. But can also happen randomly with other vowels.
PGmc *skrīaną → Skylandic "écrien" [e.kʁi.jɑ̃] (to shout)
PGmc *skiwô → Skylandic "Chive" [ɕiv] (sky)
PGmc *skawwoną → Skylandic "chauven" [ɕo.vɑ̃] (to show)
PWG *spil → Skylandic "Épeau" [e.po]

● Intervocalic *t(j) and *k → Ø (Elision)
PGmc *flutjaną → Skylandic "fluire" [flɥiʁ] (to move)

● *Vsk(ij)- → -Vst-er → Vître. This is a consequence of the previous sound change with just an infinitive ending change involved.
PWGm *aiskōn → Skylandic "aître" [ɛtʁ] (to ask)

● *Cw → Cɥ ; xʷ → ɥ
PGmc *kwedaną → Skylandic "cuiden" [kɥidɑ̃] (to say)
PGmc *hwann → Skylandic "huen" [ɥɑ̃] (if, when)

● *sw → ɕɥ
PGmc *swīną → Skylandic "Chuin" [ɕɥɑ̃] (pig)

● *k, x → ɕ
PWGmc *bōk → Skylandic "Bouch" [buɕ] (book)
PGmc *þauh → Skylandic "dauch" [doɕ] (infirmative yes)

● Word-initial *x → Ø (Elision).
PWG *hauh → Skylandic "hauch" [oɕ] (high)

● VxC → ViC
PGmc *nahts → Skylandic "Nait" [nɛ] (night)

● *iu, eu, ew → /ø/
PGmc *beudaz → Skylandic "Beute" [bøt] (table).
- Sometimes, this can arise from *au being fronted by a succeeding *i(j).

● *w → /v/ or /ɡ/
PGmc *aiwaz → Skylandic "Aive" [ɛv] (eternity)
PGmc *werþaną → Skylandic "guerdre" [ɡɛʁdʁ] (to become)

● *b → /v/, after and/or between vowels only.
PGmc *bilībjaną → Skylandic "bleivre" [blɛvʁ] (to stay)
PGmc *ab → Skylandic "av-" [av]

● *dj, dij, g → <y> /j/, sometimes ⟨i⟩.
PGmc *hūdijaną → Skylandic "huyen" [ɥi.jɑ̃] (to hide)
PGmc *dagaz → Skylandic "Daie" [dɛ] (day)
PGmc *maganą → Skylandic "mayen" [mɛ.jɑ̃] (would like, to want)

● *Vmb → Ṽʑ.
PWGmc *climbana → Skylandic "clingen" [klɛ̃ʑɑ̃] (to climb)

● *-Vng → /Ṽʑ/ <-Vnge>.
PWG *sangu → Skylandic "Sange" [sɑ̃ʑ] (song)

● *z → /ʁ/
PGmc *hauzjana → Skylandic "heuren" [øʁɑ̃] (to hear, listen)

● *r /r/ → /ʁ/
PGmc *rinnaną → Skylandic "rinnen" [ʁi.nɑ̃] (to run)

● *j → /ʑ/
PGmc *jainaz → Skylandic "jain" [ʑɛ̃] (that)

● *þ → /d/
PGmc *frawiþaz → Skylandic "Freude" [fʁød] (joy)

● *u, *ū → /y u/. Sometimes, if *ū is followed by *d(i)j, it becomes /ɥi(j)/.
PGmc *kunnaną → Skylandic "cunir" [ky.niʁ] (can, to be able)
PGmc *brūkan → Skylandic "brouchen" [bʁuɕɑ̃] (to need)

● *ei, oi → /wa/.Sometimes, this can stem from *-egi- where the *-g- is elided.
PGmc *legijaz → Skylandic "loir" [lwaʁ] (low)

● *Vn, Vm → /Ṽ/. The same SC as French except with *um, *un becoming /ʏ̃/.
PGmc *landą → Skylandic "Lant" [lɑ̃] (land)
PGmc *umbi → Skylandic "unge" [ʏ̃ʑ] (around)

● Intervocalic *g → /ʑ/. Sometimes, it fortizes into /g/.
PGmc *hlōgijaną → Skylandic "leugen" [løʑɑ̃] (to laugh)

● *Vl → ⟨Vu⟩
PGmc *albis → Skylandic "Euve" [øv] (elf)

● *Vkaną → ⟨Vire⟩
PGmc *makaną → Skylandic "maire" [mɛʁ] (to make)

● *okVną, *ukVną → ⟨uire⟩ /ɥiʁ/. Sometimes, if the PGmc verb contains *ū, it instead becomes ⟨ouire⟩ [wiʁ].
PGmc *hukaną → Skylandic "huire" [ɥiʁ] (to cower)
PGmc *lūkaną → Skylandic "louire" [lwiʁ] "to close"

● Word-final *-el, -il → /o/ or [ø]: ⟨eau⟩ or ⟨eu⟩
PGmc *wela → Skylandic "veau" [vo] (to make)

● *-aną in most verbs → /ɑ̃/ ⟨-en⟩
PGmc *haltaną → Skylandic "hauten" [otɑ̃] (to stop)

● *e (sometimes *a) between single consonants → /ə/, sometimes silent.
PGmc *upanana → Skylandic "ouvenir" [uvniʁ] (to open)
PGmc *lesaną → Skylandic "lesen" [lə.zɑ̃] (to read)

● *VsC → ⟨V̂C⟩
PGmc *isti → Skylandic "îte" [it] (be.PRES)

● *Vrh → /rVɕ/
PGmc *þurhw → Skylandic "druch" [dʁʏɕ] (through)

● *l(i)j → /j/ ⟨ill⟩. Sometimes, this can happen even without the *j after *l.
PGmc *fallijana → Skylandic "faillen" [fajɑ̃] (to fall)

● *oCu → /ø/ ⟨œu⟩
PGmc *swotuz → Skylandic "sœuz" [sø] (sweet)

● Monosyllabic /ə/ from French loans → /ø/
French "que" → Skylandic "que" [kø] (conjunction that)

● *ī /i:/ → ui /ɥi/
PGmc *rīdaną → Skylandic "ruiten" [ʁɥi.tɑ̃] (to ride)

Phonology

The phonology of Skylandic is almost identical to that of French with only some minor differences.

Consonant Inventory

ALLOPHONES
1. /ɕ ʑ/ are often realized and pronounced as [ʃ ʒ], especially by younger native speakers and are nice approximates for learners.
2. /ʁ/ is often and validly approximated as either [ɾ] or [ɹ]. In fact, dialects outside of Skyland has it as their proper rhotic consonant.
3. /ʁ/ after vowels is often vocalized as [Vɐ] diphthongs in the Bernstein dialect, mostly because of its proximity to Germany and a high number of German descents. Thus "maire" (more) is often pronounced in the Bernstein region as [mɛɐ̯].
4. The ELRT discourages approximating /ɥ/ as [w], for there are some minimal pairs involving these phonemes.
5. Syllable- and/or word-final /l/ can be validly approximated as [ɫ]. Though, natives rarely do it.

Vowel Inventories

MODAL VOWELS

Allophones

1. The vowels /i u y/ are often realized as [ɪ ʊ ʏ] inside orthographically closed syllables.
2. The central mid vowel /ə/ is often pronounced as either [ɘ] or [ø] in stressed syllables, and especially in monosyllabic words like « le » and « de ».

3. The phoneme sequence /ɛʁ/ is pronounced as the vowel [ɐ] when it comes before a consonant or as a syllable coda. This allophone is most prominent in the Bernstein regional dialects.

NASAL VOWELS

Allophones

1. /ɔ̃/ is sometimes pronounced as [õ], and /ɛ̃/ is sometimes pronounced as a more open [æ̃].
2. Contrary to some dialects of French, /ɑ̃/ is never rounded and is still pronounced as [ɑ̃]. Though, some dialects pronounce it as a front [ã].

3. There are a few dialects that pronounced the final « -en » /ɑ̃/ of verbs as [ɐ̃].

Liaison and Enchaînement

Two of the phonological processes that Skylandic got from French are liaison and enchaînement.
Liaison is when a silent final consonant becomes pronounced and produces a syllable with the next word’s initial vowel or semi-vowel. The consonants prone to this phenomenon are listed below.

1. Final s — Les Houses [le.z‿uz]
2. Final n — L’Étain ist [l‿e.tɛ̃.n‿i]
3. Final t — Min Lant ist [mɛ̃ lɑ̃.t‿i]
4. Final x — Seix Oyen [sɛ.z‿wa.jɑ̃]
5. Final g — Freuveling ist [fʁøv.lɛ̃.k‿i]
6. Final d — L’Émid ont [l‿e.mi.t‿ɔ̃]
7. Final -er — Duimer ist [dɥi.mɛ.ʁ‿i]
8. Final -ille — Écaille-ich [e.ka.j‿iɕ]
9. Final f — ouf ainen [u.v‿ɛ.nɑ̃]
10. Final z — houz Anne [u.z‿ɑ̃]

Be wary of forbidden liaisons, though. These are liaison situations that aren't allowed by the language.

1. Final « bs cs ds fs ps rs ts »
Les Lants ist [lø lɑ̃ i]

2. After inversions
Ist-nous écritine ? [iˈnu e.kʁiˈtin]

3. After « des » DEF.ACC.PL
… des Affeaux ? [de a.fo]

4. Before « on » and « ance »
Jacques ance… [ʑa.k‿ãs]

5. After « ant » and « Hunt » “hundred”
Duain Hunt ant aite [dɥɛ̃.n‿ʏ̃ ɑ̃ ɛt]

Enchaînement [ɑ̃.ɕɛn.mɑ̃], on the other hand, is a phonological phenomenon where a pronounced final consonant from a word forms its own syllable with the initial vowel of the next word, or when two vowels become one long vowel or a phonetic diphthong. Unlike liaison which is mandatory, enchaînement is just optional and depends on the person speaking. In this phenomenon, the full vowels /i u y/ become the semi-vowels [j w ɥ].

LIAISON:
les House
[le.z‿uz]
"the house"

ENCHAINEMENT:
Tu ist gout.
[tɥ‿i ɡu]
"You are good."

Stress

Skylandic has no lexical stress. That is, words on their own have no stressed syllable. Instead, it has sentential stress — stress on the sentence level. Stress only appears when words are combined together to form a complete sentence. The stress pattern of Skylandic sentences is always in iambs — syllable pairs consisting of an unstressed syllable followed by a stressed syllable. In fact, Skylandic poetry is entirely based on this stress pattern but in specific counts — iambic pentameter. An exception would be if the phrase, clause or sentence has an odd number of syllables. The last three syllables ends up being an anapaest.

Nauvement Huie Ich Isen Ont Préseunu.
[nov'mɑ̃.t‿ɥi 'iɕ i'zɑ̃.n‿ɔ̃ 'pʁe.zøˌny]
"Exactly How I Planned It."

Phonotactics

Unfortunately, according to the conlanger, he didn't actually lay out any phonotactic rules for the language. All he just said that the Skylandic might actually have an almost identical phonotactic rules as French.

Orthography

Skylandic uses the same alphabet and grapheme-to-phoneme correspondence as French, again with minor differences.

Skylandic Alphabet
Aa Bb Cc Dd Ee Ff Gg Hh Ii Jj Ll Mm Nn Oo Pp Qq Rr Ss Tt Uu Vv Xx Yy Zz

Collation Order
The alphabetical order is as shown above. However, for letters with diacritics, the base letter comes first before the one with diacritics. Thus, in a list or a dictionary, et comes first before ét, èt and êt. Within diacritics, the order is acute first, then grave, and lastly circumplex. The diaeresis diacritic is rare in Skylandic.

The language used to be written using the Hebrew-based Grimoire script and the Georgian-based Elvish script. But ever since adopting the French spelling rule, all of Skyland has now switched to the Latin script.

Grapheme-to-Phoneme Correspondence

Consonants and Clusters

Consonants
Graphemes	Environment	Phoneme	Example
-bs, -cs, -ds, -fs, -gs, -ps, -ts	Word-final	Silent	daincs [dɛ̃]
b	elsewhere	/b/	bleivre [blɛvʁ]
b	word-final	silent	Cramb [kʁɑ̃]
c	before e, i, y	/s/	ce [sø]
c	elsewhere	/k/	Cou [ku]
ch	everywhere	/ɕ/	chans [ɕɑ̃]
d	word-final	silent	gaid [ɡɛ]
d	elsewhere	/d/	dou [du]
f	everywhere	/f/	fur [fyʁ]
g	before <e, i, y>	/ʑ/	gêtran [ʑɛ.tʁɑ]
g	elsewhere	/ɡ/	gout [ɡu]
gn	everywhere	/ɲ/	agneuvre [a.ɲøvʁ]
h	everywhere	silent	Hant [ɑ̃]
j		/ʑ/	je [ʑø]
l, ll	everywhere	/l/	Lant [lɑ̃]
m, mm	everywhere	/m/	Mann [man]
n, nn	everywhere	/n/	neun [nœ̃]
p	word-final	silent	Damp [dɑ̃]
p	elsewhere	/p/	plus [ply]
q(u)	everywhere	/k/	que [kø]
r	everywhere	/ʁ/	Ruie [ʁɥi]
s	between vowels	/z/	House [uz]
	word-final	silent	lasais [la.zɛ]
	elsewhere	/s/	Saive [sɛv]
t	word-final	silent	Blout [blu]
t	elsewhere	/t/	Trive [tʁiv]
v	everywhere	/v/	Veaut [vo]
x	word-final	silent	Éleux [e.lø]
x	between vowels	/k.s/	exaient [ɛk.sɛ]
z	word-final	silent	houz [u]
z	elsewhere	/z/	Zite [zit]

Vowels

Vowels and Vowel Combinations
Graphemes	Environment	Phoneme	Example
a, à		/a/	var [vaʁ] "true"
â		/ɑ/	fâtenir [fɑt.niʁ] "to secure"
ai, aî, aie		/ɛ/	Nait [nɛ] "night" Daie [dɛ] "day"
au		/o/	Traume [tʁom] "dream"
ay		/ɛj/	dayen [dɛ.jɑ̃] "to suck"
e	elsewhere	/ə/ or Ø	ouvenir [uv.niʁ] "to open" bereuven [bəʁovɑ̃] "to rob"
	before multiple consonants	/ɛ/	brechen [bʁɛɕɑ̃] "to break"
	before a pronounced final consonant		Affel [afɛl] "apple"
	before ⟨x⟩		exaient [ɛk.sɛ] "was going out"
	before a silent final consonant	/e/	des [de] "of the (singular)"
	word-final in SG nouns	Ø	Trive [tʁiv] "tree"
	word-final in mono- syllabic open words	/ø/	je [ʑø] 1SG.INTR
é, ée		/e/	éliven [elivɑ̃] "to split"
è, ê		/ɛ/	gêtran [ʑɛtʁɑ̃] "yesterday"
eau		/o/	Veaut [vo] "world"
ei, eî		/ɛ/	reit [ʁɛ] "right. correct"
eu, eû		/ø/	heuren [øʁɑ̃] "to hear, listen"
i	elsewhere	/i/	mit [mi] "with"
i	before other vowels	/j/	étienne [e.tjɛn] (eat.PRES.SJV)
î		/i/	îte [it] "is/am/are"
-ie	word-final only	/i/	Fantaisie [fɑ̃tɛzi] "fantasy"
o	phonologically final	/o/	fos [fo] (nurture.PRES)
o	elsewhere	/ɔ/	Hoff [ɔf] "hope"
ô		/o/	fôtre [fotʁ] "to nurture"
oi, oie, oî		/wa/	loir [lwaʁ] "low"
œu		/ø/	Mœur [møʁ] "mother"
ou, oû		/u/	Flouch [fluɕ] "curse"
oue	word-final only	/u/	Cloue [klu] "lump"
oy		/waj/	doyen [dwajɑ̃] "to die"
u	elsewhere	/y/	fur [fyʁ] "for"
	after ⟨g¹, q⟩	Ø	guirds [ɡiʁ] "become/s" dainquons [dɛ̃kɔ̃] (thank.IMP)
	before other vowels	/ɥ/	huiss [ɥis] "white"
û		/y/	plûjain que [plyʑɛ̃ kø] "furthermore"
ue	elsewhere	/ɥɛ/	muenir [mɥɛniʁ] "may, be allowed to"
ue	word-final, after ⟨g, q⟩	Ø	chainque [ɕɛ̃k] (bestow-IMP)
-uie		/ɥi/	luie [lɥi] (lie.PRES)
uy		/ɥij/	luyen [lɥi.jɑ̃] "to lie"
y	elsewhere	/i/	y [i] 3SG.N.ERG
y	before vowels	/j/	euyen [ø.jɑ̃] "to show"

¹ Only applies if another vowel succeeds ⟨u⟩. Otherwise, it's pronounced as usual — /y/.

Vowels and Consonants

Vowel and Consonant Combos
Graphemes	Environment	Phonemes	Example
aim, ain	before consonant or finally	/ɛ̃/	Ainte [ɛ̃t] "fear"
am, an	before consonant or finally	/ɑ̃/	Lant [lɑ̃] "land" Nam [nɑ̃] "name
cqu		/k/	acquimen [akimɑ̃] "to arrive"
eim, ein	before consonant or finally	/ɛ̃/	einhouten- [ɛ̃.u.tɑ̃] "to contain"
em, en	before consonant or finally elsewhere	/ɑ̃/	-ment [mɑ̃] "-ly"
em, en	PRES of some verbs, after /j/	/ɛ̃/	ouviens [u.vjɛ̃] "open/s"
-ent	conjugation ending in verbs	Ø	aivent [ɛv] (have.PRES.SJV)
-er	elsewhere finally	/e/	nier [nje] "under"
es	word-sinally	Ø	Veautes [vot] "worlds"
eun	before consonant or finally	/œ̃/	cheun [ɕœ̃] "beautiful"
ge	before ⟨a, o, u⟩	/ʑ/	hangeant [ɑ̃ʑɑ̃] "hanging"
gu	before ⟨e, i, y⟩	/ɡ/	guerdre [ɡɛʁdʁ] "to become"
il	after ⟨a, e, eu, œ, ou, u, ue⟩	/j/	Faile [faj] "mistake"
il	elsewhere	depends	détoilen [detwalɑ̃] "to depart"
ill	after ⟨a, e, eu, œ, ou, u, ue⟩	/j/	écouillir [ekujiʁ] "should"
ill	elsewhere	depends	épillen [epilɑ̃] "to play"
im, in	before consonant or finally	/ɛ̃/	Vint [vɛ̃] "wind"
oin	before consonant or finally	/wɛ̃/	moin [mwɛ̃] "hello"
om, on	before consonant or finally	/ɔ̃/	hayons [ɛjɔ̃] (have.IMP)
tiV	anywhere	/tj/	fâtiens [fɑtjɛ̃] "fasten/s"
um, un	before consonant or finally	/ʏ̃/	unge [ʏ̃ʑ] "around"

Nouns

Morphology

Just like German, Skylandic nouns have their first letter capitalized wherever they appear in the sentence. However, unlike German and French, Skylandic nouns don't have gender. While they do decline according to case, they rarely do so that much. The only grammatical feature that they almost consistently inflect is number — that is, whether they're singular or plural.

Cases

Skylandic has five cases — namely, ergative, intransitive, accusative, dative and genitive.

A. Ergative Case (ERG)
The ERG case is used in marking the agent of a transitive verb and the subject of a relative clause. Depending on the noun's spelling, the nouns form their singular ERG form as follows:
1. If the noun ends in a silent -e, it doesn't really change form.
Trive tree → Trive

2. If the noun ends with a silent consonant, a silent -e is added.
Lant [lɑ̃] country → Lante [lɑ̃t]

3. If the noun ends in a consonant phoneme, the suffix -ée is added.
Bouch [buɕ] book → Bouchée [bu.ɕe]

B. Intransitive Case (INTR)
The INTR case is the dictionary form of the nouns. It is used in marking the lone argument (subject) of an intransitive verb. Lone nouns in books and plays are usually in this case. Even if the verb can be transitive, as long as no direct object is present in the sentence, the subject still declines in INTR case. Both the subject and the complement of a copular verb like "guesen" are also declined into INTR (or more like doesn't really decline).

Soyons un Mann!
be.IMP NDEF.INTR man
"Be a man!"

C. Accusative Case (ACC)
The ACC case is most commonly used in marking the patient of transitive verbs. Most locational prepositions also require their objects to be in ACC case. The object in a relative case is also declined in ACC case even though the subject has been replaced by the relative pronoun.

Essons den Fiche.
eat-IMP DEF.ACC.SG fish
"Eat the fish."

D. Dative Case (DAT)
The DAT case is mainly used in marking the indirect object of ditransitive verbs. The preposition "du" to, a majority of directional prepositions and other prepositions require the DAT case. Some verbs of feeling also require a DAT object. AN example of which is laid-toire "to feel sorry".

Dou tois mir laid.
2SG.ERG do.PRES 1SG.DAT displeasing
"I feel sorry for you."

ERG and DAT case are the only cases that declinable nouns really do decline in their singular form. The inflection rules of the dative case are the same as with ERG.

E. Genitive Case (GEN)
The main function of the GEN case is to mark the possessor noun in a possessive phrase. Some adverbial phrases relating to points in time are also declined in GEN.

Ainis Daie, vinniront je.
one-GEN.SG day | win-FUT 1SG.INTR
"One day I'll win."

End des Veaut
end DEF.GEN.SG world
"End of the World"

Articles

Because Skylandic nouns don't really decline that much, one must rely on grammatical articles to denote or signify the positional function of a word in a sentence. The articles of Skylandic only decline in number and case. These articles are shown on the image below.

NOTES:
1. The definite plural ERG article "doux" is from PGmc *þō.
2. The indefinite DAT article is from Latin « ūnī ».
3. The indefinite GEN article is from PGmc *ainis.

Plural Nouns

Nouns form their plurals depending on how their singular form is spelled.

1. Nouns ending in a silent final -e form their plural in all cases by just adding a silent final -s. Their GEN.PL forms, though, conjugate by annexing the suffix -eune.
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2. Nouns ending in -el and -al form their INTR, ACC and GEN plurals by changing those endings to -eux and -aux, respectively; and their ERG and DAT plural by changing those endings to -euse and -ause.

3.1. Monosyllabic nouns ending with a cluster grapheme where the last consonant is silent form their plurals via umlaut. The ERG and ACC gain an additional « -e », the GEN gain « -es », while the DAT gain « -ine ».

3.2. Monosyllabic and bisyllabic words that end in a nasal vowel form their ERG, ACC and DAT by annexing « -ne »; their GEN and INTR by adding « -es ».

4. Nouns that end in a single silent consonant form their ERG and ACC by annexing the suffix -er which is pronounced as [e]; their INTR the silent suffix -es; their DAT the suffix -ine and their GEN the suffix -ies.

5. Some nouns are just plain irregular.

Pronouns

Personal Pronouns

◆ NOTES:

The pronouns je and mich become clitics j' and m' before vowels. As for "tu", it only becomes a clitic t' before a word that starts with ⟨u⟩.
"Y" is pronounced [i] before consonants but [i.j‿] before vowels.

Relative Pronoun

There are two types of relative pronouns in Skylandic. Namely, the anaphoric and non-anaphoric relative pronouns.

Anaphoric REL pronouns are used when an antecedent word or phrase is present in the sentence. The pronoun huich and its forms below are anaphoric.

Interrogative Pronouns

Verbs

Morphology and Types

Skylandic verbs are classified using two sets of classifications — based on how they conjugate and on how they look. Based on how they look, a Skylandic verb can either be Germanic or French-y. Germanic verbs are called that not because they evolved from PGmc, but because end in the infinitive suffix -en while French-y verbs are called that not because they are French loans, but because they end in one of these endings: -ir, oir, or -re. Based on how they conjugate, they can be strong, weak, irregular or special. Most of the Germanic verbs are either weak or strong (depending on spelling; see below) while French-y verbs are mostly irregular. Special verbs, on the other hand, are a set of regular French-y verbs that have a separate regular conjugation scheme of their own.

Strong Verbs

Strong verbs are verbs that conjugate by changing their stem vowel alongside annexing a conjugation suffix. This kind of vowel change is usually called ablaut and in this case it's a PIE or Proto-Indo-European ablaut. But unlike its IRL relatives, Skylandic doesn't classify strong verbs based on its etymological root's spelling, but on the verbs' current spelling themselves. Also, instead of having all seven classes, Skylandic now only has five (5) strong verb classes.

Class 1. These are verbs that contain the stem vowel -ui- [ɥi]. Most of these verbs evolved from PGmc verbs that has the stem vowel *ī. This stem vowel evolution is unique to Skylandic. Their vowel changes are as follows.

Class 2. These are verbs that contain the stem vowel digraph -eu- [ø]. These verbs evolved from PGmc verbs that have the diphthong *eu or an *au that has undergone an umlaut.

Class 3. These are verbs that contain the stem vowel -e- or -i- followed by a consonant cluster or a double consonant. Sometimes, these consonant clusters are reduced to a single consonant and their previous presence is now just signaled by a circumplex diacritic (ê î) before the remaining consonant of the stem. This diacritic is carried onto the verb's conjugations.

Class 4. These are verbs that contain the stem vowel -ie- [je] followed by any of the four sonorants (l, m, n, or r) and no other consonants. Geminated sonorants aren't included.

NOTE — The « -oi- » stem vowel of the IMPF.SJV form is from PGmc *-ē-.

Class 5. The last of the five classes of Skylandic strong verbs. These are verbs that contain the stem vowel -e- followed by a lone non-sonorant consonant.

The « -ine » suffix of the IMPF.SJV is a remnant of PGmc PAST.SJV.3PL suffix -īn.

Weak Verbs

The weak verbs are the so-called "regular verbs" of the language. All verbs under this category follow the same conjugation pattern and all of them don't change their spelling except from their infinitive ending -en.

Take Note:
1. The imperfect subjunctive conjugation suffix becomes -asse if the verb's stem ends in ⟨y⟩.
2. The strong verbs also use the same conjugation endings for PRES, PRESP, PRES.SJV, FUT, and IMP "tenses".

Special Verbs

The following are the sets of special verbs.

1. -enir Verbs
These are verbs that have the infinitive ending -enir preceded by a consonant, thus excluding the modal verb "muenir". These verbs are attested to have evolved from PGmc class 4 weak verbs — the ones that end in *-naną, though there are exceptions, like ouvenir below. Their conjugation scheme is as follows:

2. -ayen, -oyen & -uyen Verbs
The ELRT is still debating on whether to include this in the sets of Special Verbs or if they are just special cases of weak verbs. Because, while they conjugate like weak verbs, the ⟨y⟩ on their INF ending becomes when followed by a silent ⟨e⟩. Examples are dayen, reinoyen and luyen.

Example texts

Other resources

Skylandic Book

Skylandic: Difference between revisions

Latest revision as of 13:45, 28 June 2026

Contents

Classification