Wenedyk

Wenedyk (in English: Venedic) is a constructed language of the naturalistic kind, created by the Dutch translator Jan van Steenbergen. It is used in the fictional "Republic of the Two Crowns" (based on the "Republic of Two Nations"), in the alternate timeline of Ill Bethisad. Officially, Wenedyk is a descendant of Vulgar Latin with a strong Slavic admixture, based on the premise that the Roman Empire incorporated the ancestors of the Poles in their territory. Less officially, it tries to show what Polish would have looked like if it had been a Romance instead of a Slavic language. An alternative Polish term for the language could thus be either "włoskopolski", incorporating the term "włoski", originally meaning Vlach but now applied in Polish to Italian, or "polskoromański", literally "Polish-Romance". On the Internet, it is well-recognized as an example of the altlang genre, much like Brithenig and Breathanach.

The idea for the language was inspired by such languages as Brithenig, Breathanach and Kerno, languages that bear a similar relationship to the Celtic languages as Wenedyk does to Polish. The language itself is based entirely on (Vulgar) Latin and Polish: all phonological, morphological, and syntactic changes that made Polish develop from Common Slavic are applied to Vulgar Latin. As a result, vocabulary and morphology are predominantly Romance in nature, while phonology, orthography and syntax are essentially the same as in Polish. Wenedyk uses the modern standard Polish orthography, including (for instance) for /IPA|v/ and <ł> for /IPA|w/.

Wenedyk plays a role in the alternate history of Ill Bethisad, where it is one of the official languages of the [http://www.geocities.com/wenedyk/ib/rtc.html Republic of the Two Crowns] . In 2005 Wenedyk underwent a major revision due to a better understanding of Latin and Slavic sound and grammar changes.

The dictionary on the WWW page linked below contains over 4000 entries.

The language has acquired some attention in Poland, including a few online news articles and an article in the monthly "Wiedza i Życie" ("Knowledge and Life").

Spelling and pronunciation

Wenedyk uses the Polish alphabet, which consists of the following 32 letters :

:A Ą B C Ć D E Ę F G H I J K L Ł M N Ń O Ó P R S Ś T U W Y Z Ź Ż

Also, there are seven digraphs, representing five phonemes (ch being identical with h, and rz with ż):

:Ch Cz Dz Dź Dż Rz Sz

Pronunciation is exactly like in Polish. Stress almost always falls on the penultimate syllable. A preposition and a pronoun are generally treated as one word, and therefore, when the pronoun has only one syllable, the preposition is stressed.

Grammar

Nouns and adjectives

Wenedyk does not have articles. This is a feature that distinguishes Wenedyk from the other Romance languages and also from other Romance-based constructed languages languages like Esperanto and Ido. The reason for this is that Vulgar Latin showed only a rudimentary tendency toward the formation of articles, while they are absent in Polish and most other Slavic languages.

Unlike for example English, Wenedyk is an inflecting language. Nouns, pronouns and adjectives can have three genders (masculine, feminine, neuter), two numbers (singular, plural), and three cases:
* the "direct case": used for both the subject and the direct object of a sentence. In the sentence: "Miej poterz" leże "libier" "My father reads a book", "Miej poterz" "my father" and "libier" "a book" are both in the direct case.
* the "genitive case": used to indicate possession, for example: siedź "potrze" "my father's" chair", rzejna "Anglie" "the queen "of England".
* the "dative case": used to indicate the indirect object of a sentence, for example: Da "mi" ił libier "Give "me" that book", Da "mi" łu "Give it "to me".Wenedyk also has a "vocative case". In most cases it has the same form as the direct case, but there are exceptions: O potrze! "Oh father!"

Noun can be subdivided into four declensions. They are similar to the declension system in Latin:
* the "first declension" are all words on -a, the vast majority of which are feminine;
* the "second declension" are mostly masculine and neuter words ending with a consonant. It is a mixture of the second and fourth declension in Latin;
* the "third declension" are mostly feminine words ending with a soft consonant;
* the "fourth declension" are words on -ej, it matches the Latin fifth declension.

Adjectives always agree in gender, number and case with the noun they modify. They can be placed both before and after it.

Pronouns

Unlike nouns, adjectives and other pronouns, personal pronouns do not use the direct case, but preserve the distinction between the nominative and accusative instead. They are displayed in the following chart:

Verbs

Verbs are inflected for person, number, mood and tense. The forms in the present tense are::"1 sg." &ndash; jemu "I love":"2 sg." &ndash; jemasz "you love":"3 sg." &ndash; jema "he/she loves":"1 pl." &ndash; jemamy "we love":"2 pl." &ndash; jemacie "you love":"3 pl." &ndash; jemą "they love"

Wenedyk verbs has the following moods and tenses::"infinitive" &ndash; jemar "to love":"present tense" &ndash; jemu "I love, I am loving":"imperfect tense" &ndash; jemawa "I loved":"perfect tense" &ndash; jemie " I have loved":"future tense (imperfective)" &ndash; joru jemar "I will love, I will be loving":"future tense (perfective)" &ndash; jemaru "I will have loved":"conditional mood" &ndash; jemarsi "I would love, I would have loved":"imperative mood" &ndash; jem "love!":"present active participle &ndash; jemęć "loving":"perfect passive participle &ndash; jematy "beloved"

Word list

Wenedyk vocabulary as published on the internet consists of over 4000 words. The following charts of 30 shows what Wenedyk looks like in comparison to a number of other Romance languages:

Example

The Lord's Prayer:

"Potrze nostry, kwały jesz en czałór, sąciewkaty si twej numię."
"Owień twej rzeń."
"Foca si twa włątać, komód en czału szyk i sur cierze."
"Da nów odzej nostry pań kocidzany."
"I dziemieć nów nostrze dziewta, komód i nu dziemiećmy swór dziewtorzór."
"I nie endycz nosz en ciętaceń, uta liwra nosz dzie mału."
"Nąk twie są rzeń i pociestać i głurza, o siąprz. Amen."

References

* [http://szkolazklasa.gazeta.pl/szkolazklasa/1,58420,1905232.html Dorota Gut: "Now@ Mow@"] ("New Language"), "Wiedza i Życie", February 2004: This article is mostly, but not exclusively, about Wenedyk.
* [http://homepages.uni-tuebingen.de/tilman.berger/Publikationen/BergerPlansprachen.pdf Tilman Berger: "Vom Erfinden Slavischer Sprachen"] : Cites Wenedyk as an example of Slavic-based extrapolated conlangs.
* [http://www.geonames.de/wl-romance.html Romance glossary] (a list of common words in all Romance languages, including Wenedyk and Brithenig)

External links

* [http://steen.free.fr/wenedyk/ Wenedyk] en icon