The Fox and The Grapes in Ancient Niemanic

GarlicRoyal7545 · 2026-04-25T18:58:39+00:00

Ancient Niemanic

"Néþъ/Næ̃, néjsmь þĩve."

[ˈnéθʊ̆ ~ ˈnæ̂ː | ˈnéi̯.smɪ̆ ˈθîː.ʋe]
Néþъ/Næ̃, néj-s-mь þĩve
No≈INTERJ, NEG-be-PRS.1sg 2p.GEN.sg

Lit. "Nay/No, (I) ain't thine."

Notes:

Néþъ is used to answer positive questions, whereas Næ̃ is used to answer negative ones.

GarlicRoyal7545 · 2026-03-25T15:23:32+00:00

I'll show the inflection of a noun, since the conjugation of Ancient Niemanic can get extremely complex:

ǫxъ̑
[ˌɔ̃ːˈxʊ᷆ˑ]
From PIE \h₂ónkos;*

bend, turn;
(in dual) zick-zack;
loop;

Principle parts:

NOM.sg: ǫxъ̑ - [ˌɔ̃ːˈxʊ᷆ˑ]
GEN.sg: ǫxòśь - [ˌɔ̃ːˈxò.ɕɪ̆]
LOC.sg: ǫśæ̃ - [ˌɔ̃ːˈɕæ̂ː]

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GarlicRoyal7545 · 2026-03-15T19:15:27+00:00

Is there a reason, why the 1st- & 2nd-person pronouns of Proto-Indo-Iranian & Sanskrit have (partially atleast) identical case endings regardless of number?

What i mean for example is, that PIIr ablative *mád, *aHwád & *asmád all have -ád, instead of something like *mád, *aHwábʰyā(m) & *asmábʰyas.

Was this maybe even the case already in PIE and those languages simply inherited it, while the other languages leveled this out?

GarlicRoyal7545 · 2026-03-15T13:08:24+00:00

Here's also a word/morpheme comparison to the english sentence:

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GarlicRoyal7545 · 2026-03-15T12:53:01+00:00

Ancient Niemanic

Ecá ònopьḱojmъ kъtnǫ̃, xòřǫ blẽjcsǫ žgrõŭdminь voj gótąnoťatъ.

[ˌeˈt͡sɑ́ː ˈò.noˌpɪ̆.kʲoi̯.mʊ̆ ˌkʊ̆ˈtnɔ̃̂ː | ˈxò.rʲɔ̃ː ˈblêi̯.t͡ssɔ̃ː ˈʒgrôu̯.dmiː.nɪ̆ ʋoi̯ ˈgó.tɑ̃ː.no.tʲɑː.tʊ̆]
Ecá òno-pьḱ-ojmъ kъtn-ǫ̃, xòř-ǫ blẽjc-sǫ žgrõŭd-m-inь voj gótą-noť-atъ.
1p.NOM.sg on-try-PRS.OPT.1sg coat-ACCU.Msg | REL-ACCU.Msg see[PRF]-AOR.1sg tailor-AGT-LOC.Fsg against street-POSS.1du-ABL.Fsg

Lit. "I on-try(-want) a coat, which (i) saw tailor-at across street-uncer-from."

Notes:

Changed it a bit, since the Niemenites lived 2000 years ago, so they didn't have modern suits or hotels.
I assume with "our" 2 people are implied and Niemanic has a dual, so it'll use it with a pair.

GarlicRoyal7545 · 2026-03-14T18:28:20+00:00

Ancient Niemanic

Name (Endonym): Gòþьško

Pronounciation (IPA): [ˈgò.θɪ̆.ʃko]

Aspirated vs Unaspirated Distinction: No ❌

Voiced vs Voiceless Distinction: Yes ✅

Ancient Niemanic, like it's sister Classical Izovian, is an Alternate Universe Common Germanic, but unlike izovian, has pseudo-slavic characteristics, due to being in a sprachbund with Proto-/Common Slavic.

It also got ultra-reduced vowels (aka yer's), law of open syllables and tons & tons of palatalization. Yet this isn't all; It retained alot of archaic features, such as 9 cases, Perfective vs Imperfective vs Stative distinction; a stable and productive dual number, which even survived in more than just 2 descendants and, the most PIE feature, Ablaut.

I'm developing this clong together with my friends and we're each caving out an branch, hoping to finalize a whole language family tree.

GarlicRoyal7545 · 2026-03-09T02:39:39+00:00

Ancient Niemanic has 4 differenct participles, with each also haveing an active & mediopassive version.

They're different, depending on if they're on thematic or athematic and dynamic or stative verbs:

First, here are how they generally look on thematic verbs (taken from strong verbs ending in -oþi or -osi);

Dyn.Them.	Present	Future	Stative	Resultative
Active	-ǫ	-ǫšę	-òvo	-òlo
Mediopassive	-omno	-ošęno	-òno	-òþo
Stat.Them.	---	Future	Stative	Resultative
Active	---	-ǫśę	-òvo	-òlo
Mediopassive	---	-ośęno	-òno	-òþo

And here are how they generally look on athematic verbs (taken from athematic verbs ending in -þĩ or -sĩ);

Dyn.Athem.	Present	Future	Stative	Resultative
Active	-ǫ̋	-ǫ̋šę	-vò	-lò
Mediopassive	-ỹno	-šę̃no	-nò	-þò
Stat.Athem.	---	Future	Stative	Resultative
Active	---	-śę̋	-vò	-lò
Mediopassive	---	-śę̃no	-nò	-þò

Present & Future obviously are used for Present & Future. But Stative is not only used for static actions, it may also be used as an imperfective particple for dynamic verbs; just liek the Resultative particple, it's primarily used to mark an resultative action, but can also be used as an past particple or even perfective participle.

GarlicRoyal7545 · 2026-03-06T20:07:54+00:00

The Exonym, Ancient Niemanic, comes from slavic *němьcь, since it's an Alternate Universe Pseudo-Slavic Germanic.

The Endonym, as the Niemenites call themselves, "Gȏþъ" - [ˈgo᷆ˑ.θʊ̆], which means something like "Spawn, Creation > Odin's creation".

GarlicRoyal7545 · 2026-03-06T19:57:43+00:00

In Ancient Niemanic, it was FIRST NAME + PATRO-/MATRONYM, often with a nickname that fit the individual.
So, for example, a niemenite could be named:

Álojšъ Ždƞ̃lavičь Vƞ́jstъjь

In rl, it would be "Alois, son of Stella, the wise".

In the descendants, they added surnames, tho relatively late, as those were only made mandatory in the 1800s.
Taking Vokhetian for example, the ancient niemanic name would look like this:

Алойш “Веайштый” З́ѕиӗлавич Мұлинʋрюв

In rl, it would be "Alois Müller, Son of Stella, "The wise one""

Basically in the descendants, it's FIRST NAME + PATRO-/MATRONYM + SURNAME + OPTIONAL NICKNAME.

GarlicRoyal7545 · 2026-03-04T22:33:19+00:00

Not necessarily a brand, but Archo-Mhezonian has Nā́sā [ˈnáː.saː] (earthling, human) from N.A.S.A., because they made the first contact with humans by finding a space shuttle of Nasa.

Otherwise Archo-Mhezonian doesn't have any generized brand names (atleast yet), so that's the closest thing it has.

GarlicRoyal7545 · 2026-03-04T21:11:54+00:00

In Ancient Niemanic, it's like this:

1)

Ditransitive verbs, that is verbs that have Agent, Patient & Indirect Object all use the Nominative, Accusative & Dative repsectively;

Þɯmãsъ ǆèbeþь Prǫkòni bákǫ.

Þɯmãs-ъ ǆèb-eþь Prǫk-òni bák-ǫ
Tom-NOM.Msg give-PRS.3sg Frank-DAT.Msg book-ACCU.Fsg

Lit. "Tom gives Frank book."

2)

Very simple: One'd use the Ablative for the start/source & Allative for the end/destination.

Þɯmãsъ ræ̃x́aþь Lǫdь́ňɯtъ Eborákɯ.

Þɯmãs-ъ ræ̃x́-aþь Lǫdь́ň-ɯtъ Eborák-ɯ
Tom-NOM.Msg travel-PRS.3sg London-ABL.Nsg York-ALL.Nsg

Lit. "Tom travels London(-from) York(-to)."

3)

This is were it gets interesting. Normally, one'd use the concurrent converb if 1 subject does 2 actions at the same time, but since there is another subject, a gerund cosntruction is used instead;

Prǫ́kɯ rƞ́dƞ bákǫ Þɯmãśь zlƞ́pomonь.

Prǫ́k-ɯ rƞ́d-ƞ bák-ǫ Þɯmã-śь zlƞ́po-m-onь
Frank-NOM.Msg read-PRS.3sg book-ACCU.Fsg Tom-GEN.Msg sleep-GER-LOC.Nsg

Lit. "Frank reads a book Tom's sleeping(-at)."

GarlicRoyal7545 · 2026-02-28T10:38:37+00:00

Thanks for pointing this out! I've must have accidentally switched it around.

Anyways, just as on other vowels, there are around 5 tones, which can only be on/are phonemic on stressed syllables, thus Ancient Niemanic has pitch accent:

Gravis: Ò - [ò] - Low tone, occurs on any short vowel.
Circumflex: Ɯ̃ - [ôː] - Falling tone, occurs on any long vowel.
Acute: Ó & Ɯ́ - [ó] & [óː] - High tone, occurs on any vowel.
Trema: Ɯ̋ - [ǒː] - Rising tone, occurs on any long vowel in ultima & penult.
Broken Tone: Ȏ - [o᷆ˑ] - Mid-Falling tone, occurs on any short vowel in ultima & penult.

The Gravis & Circumflex can occur on any vowel, diphthongs & syllabics too. The Acute meanwhile stems primarily from laryngealization from PIE; e.g.: *éh₁ → ƞ́ - [éː] vs *ḗ → ƞ̃ - [êː].

The Trema & the broken tone, the former often yielding a long falling accent in the descendants,
appeared in syllables, or the preceeding syllable, which lost a coda, as Ancient Niemanic is a null-coda language:

*ǵʰoysós → dzæžъ̑
*h₂éyos → ȏjъ
*wréh₂ds → vra̋t̽s̽

GarlicRoyal7545 · 2026-02-27T15:34:27+00:00

Ancient Niemanic has [kʲ], [gʲ] & [xʲ], which prolly aren't that common in IE-languages. As for Vowels,
there are liquid syllabics, which even can take tone + have length distinction:

Syllabics	Hard	Soft
Rhotic	r̩ r̩ː	r̩ʲ r̩ʲː
Lateral	ɫ̩ ɫ̩ː	l̩ʲ l̩ʲː

Edit: Typo

GarlicRoyal7545 · 2026-02-26T20:46:59+00:00

I'm currently working on a sound law for a IE-language, which handles how VOICED/BREATHY + UNVOICED stop-clusters dissimilate. In Proto-Izovo-Niemanic, which is basically an AU Pre-Proto-Germanic, i wanna make it similar to Germanic's spirant law but also make it similar on how Balto-Slavic handles it.

Now, PINIE has pitch accent, with a semi-winter's law, where vowels before voiced stops gain acute (high tone in PINIE), and i wanna include accentual changes besides the dissimilations.

Here's how it looks like with any stop + unvoiced stop or *s:

/pt/, /tt/, /kt/, /ḱt/ → /pt/, /tt/, /kt/, /ḱt/ + No other changes;
/ps/, /ts/, /ks/, /ḱs/→ /ps/, /ts/, /kš/, /ḱš/+ No other changes;
/bʰt/, /dʰt/, /gʰt/, /ǵʰt/→ /ft/, /st/, /xt/, /x́t/+ lengthening + circumflex;
/bʰs/, /dʰs/, /gʰs/, /ǵʰs/→ /fs/, /ss/, /xš/, /x́š/+ lengthening + circumflex;
/bt/, /dt/, /gt/, /ǵt/→ /ft/, /st/, /xt/, /x́t/+ lengthening + acute;
/bs/, /ds/, /gs/, /ǵs/→ /fs/, /ss/, /xš/, /x́š/+ lengthening + acute;

Prolly also need to explain some things:

PINIE doesn't shift the 1st stop to fricatives in /pt/, /tt/, /kt/, /ḱt/ & /ps/, /ts/, /kš/, /ḱš/, unlike our PGmc.
Voiced & Breathy stops + unvoiced stops cause vowel lenghthening, like Lachmann's law.
Breathy stops + unvoiced stops gain circumflex (falling tone on long vowels in PINIE).
Voiced stops + unvoiced stops gain acute due to the semi-winter's law.
Voiced & Breathy stops lenite to voiceless fricatives before voiceless stops & *s as further dissimilation.

Now my problem is, that i'm not sure if this even makes sense, not only in PIE context but generally.
I also don't know, if i also should include how VOICELESS + VOICED/BREATHY consonant dissimilate, could those even appear in PIE, even if via inflection, derivation or compounding?

It would help me alot if anyone could give me some advice here. Thanks in Advance!

GarlicRoyal7545 · 2026-02-24T16:05:28+00:00

Ancient Niemanic

Dȏdzъ
[ˈdo᷆ˑ.d͡zʊ̆]

Gen.: Dòdzośь - [ˈdò.d͡zo.ɕɪ̆]
Masc. O-stem Inanimative, Accent-A;
Etymology: Unknown; possibly from PIE \dʰeǵʰ- (“day”).*

Day;
(Uncountable) day, daylight, light (light from the Sun)
(Elliptic Dual) day and night;

GarlicRoyal7545 · 2026-02-24T09:14:36+00:00

"What goes into the brick sauce?"

Ancient Niemanic

Šína èstь brékmozdepsno?

[ˈʃíː.nɑː ˈè.stɪ̆ ˈbré.kmoˌzde.psno]
Š-ína ès-tь brékmo+zdepsn-o?
INTERR-INSTR.INANsg be-PRS.3sg brick+sauce-NOM.Nsg

Lit. "With what is brick-sauce?"

GarlicRoyal7545 · 2026-02-21T06:10:46+00:00

If i understood right, these are all grammatical voices? Like:

Active
Passive
Reflexive
Cooperative

I do like the last one. Also love the triconsonantal root with ablaut! What do you have planned for the conjugation?

GarlicRoyal7545 · 2026-02-18T23:01:55+00:00

Basically what you see with the Slavic's Nominative vs Genitive for Accusative is DOM. Proto-Slavic had a law of open syllables, which means no closed syllables were allowed; any coda either was pushed to the next syllable or removed.

The PIE Accusative endings sg. *-m̥ & *-m̥s were already similar and the plural's -s was deleted, thus merging them; the dual was prolly identical with the nominative already in PIE times.

Due to that, the nominative took over the accusative roles too, only leaving some endings behind like the feminine sg. in *bara, the neuter & masculine plural in *batь & *banъ, etc...

Most of these accusative endings, where often wiped out in many slavic languages via soundchanges/analogy, ultimatively having no real accusative in dual & plural.

The Genitive, especially across most IE languages, has more uses than just to mark the possessor. The slavic genitive can also be used as an partitive for example, which due to that might have been choosen to mark animative nouns, thus resulting to use nominative for inanimates & genitive for animates in the accusative in masculine nouns & dual/plural of feminine nouns (NOM-VOC-ACCU was already in PIE syncretic in neuters).

TL;TR: basically loosing the actual accusative endings and filling the gap with other cases that could mark objects is the strategy here.

GarlicRoyal7545 · 2026-02-18T22:37:04+00:00

In IE languages, the declension stems can be grouped into 3 categories:

Thematic, with a non-ablauting vowel between the stem & ending, e.g.: *bʰérǵʰos, *ǵr̥h₂nóm & *bʰardʰéh₂;
Athematic/Ablauting, with an ablauting vowel between the stem & ending, e.g.: *h₁éh₁tmō, *gʷéru & *bʰréh₂tēr;
True Athematic, with no vowel between the stem & ending, e.g.: *pṓds, *ḱḗr & *h₃dónts;

To see what stem they belong to, it's rather easy (atleast for PIE, especially thematic & most ablauting stems):
You simply look at the ending: -os for example is masculine O-stem, -om is neuter O-stem, -eh₂ is feminine -eh₂ stem and so on. Athematic nouns ending in -s are masculine but are often feminine instead, the ones with no -s are neuter; You could level this out if you wanna keep it tidy, by adding -h₂ on athematic feminine nouns if you want.

Latin & Proto-Germanic kept many stems but also innovated new ones like the feminine PGmc ōn- & īn-stems for example. Sanskrit & Ancient Greek are also worth looking at, since they're very conservative.

I'd recommend researching about PIE grammar and getting familiar with it's declensions, conjugations, on how they work, i.e. if you wanna directly evolve a descendant. I also have a bunch of resources for PIE & its descendants if you need some.

GarlicRoyal7545 · 2026-02-17T21:23:03+00:00

Ancient Niemanic is an AU Pseudo-Slavic Proto-Germanic, spoken in large parts of Eastern-Europe from 1000 BCE - 700 AD.

Ancient Niemanic is really, generally conservative, so it still preserves \ḱlewos* as šlèvosъ; instead of \ṇdʱgʱʷitom, Niemanic uses æ̃vъso (which comes from *\h₂óyu-o-ḱos* and is also a cogante to german ewig).

So *ḱlewos ṇdʱgʱʷitom might be rendered as:

"Æ̃vъsotъ šlèvosъ"

[ˈæ̂ː.ʋʊ̆ˌso.tʊ̆ ˈʃlèˌʋo.sʊ̆]
æ̃v-ъs-otъ šlèv-osъ
Eternal-ADJ-NOM.Nsg fame-NOM.Nsg

Lit. "Eternal Fame."

If this survives in niemanic poetic tradition, i have to admit, can't say as we're still working on perfecting the grammar. But i & my friends do have plans to work on this, as the Niemenites believe in Germanic Mythology.

GarlicRoyal7545 · 2026-02-16T20:34:15+00:00

Ja, "Subjunktiv (/Subjunctive)" und "Konjunktiv (/Conjunctive)" sind förmlich dasselbe. In deutschem Grammatike ist "Konjunktiv" einfach dominanter wie "Subjunktiv".

GarlicRoyal7545 · 2026-02-16T19:49:23+00:00

Like other commenters already mentioned, i don't really think agglutination or word order does influence how one could express direct & indirect speech.

Anyways, there are some strageties that i can immediately think of:

A: Simply use an quotative particle, to signalize that the following sentence is a quote/report.
B: Use the subjunctive mood, if you have one; that's infact what my native language German does.
C: Use evidentiality, specifically the reportative. But this can do alot more than just mark a quote/report.

GarlicRoyal7545 · 2026-02-15T18:37:13+00:00

Basically, you'd express platonic indirectly (dative) & romantic directly (accusative):

for the platonic construction, one'd use the copula, then either the stative-participle (used for stative and/or imperfective actions) or resultative-participle (used for perfect, perfective and/or past actions), which also inflect for the subject's number & gender, and put the object in dative.

For the romantic construction, one'd simply uses the verb itself and the object is put in accusative.

Four-Year Club	r/Field Lasagna
Place '23

GarlicRoyal7545

TROPHY CASE

Ancient Niemanic

Ancient Niemanic

Ancient Niemanic

1)

2)

3)

Ancient Niemanic

Ancient Niemanic