Dúvtung
A common, easy-to-learn germanic zonelang created for personal and aesthetic ends
Introduction
Dúvtung is a project I've been working on occasionally for the past few years. It is inpsired by the Folkspraak and Anglish projects, bunch of modern and ancient Germanic languages, and of course Proto-Germanic. Dúvtung is essentially an artificial and opinionated simplification of Proto-Germanic, with the goal being to have a neutral germanic language that is relatively easy to learn and contains only germanic vocabulary. Along the way I add and remove things that I like, it is at the end of the day a personal conlang. Its grammar is near completion and will be ported over to this page bit-by-bit.
Contents
Phonology1
| Rune | Rune name | IPA sound | Romanisation | Numeric Value |
| ᚠ | fe | [f] | f | 0 |
| ᚥ | úr | [u:] | ú | 1 |
| ᚦ | thurn | [θ] | th | 2 |
| ᚨ | ans | [ɑ] | a | 3 |
| ᚱ | raidh | [ɾ] | r | 4 |
| ᚲ | kirn | [k] | k | 5 |
| ᚷ | gev | [x] | g | 6 |
| ᚤ | wer | [w] | w | 7 |
| ᚺ | hagl | [h] | h | 8 |
| ᚾ | naudh | [n] | n | 9 |
| ᛡ | ís | [i:] | í | |
| ᛃ | jér | [j] | j | |
| ᛁ | il | [ɪ] | i | |
| ᛈ | perth | [p] | p | |
| ᛋ | sun | [s] | s | |
| ᛏ | tiw | [t] | t | |
| ᛒ | birk | [b] | b | |
| ᛖ | ew | [ɛ] | e | |
| ᛗ | man | [m] | m | |
| ᛚ | lag | [l] | l | |
| ᛜ | ing | [ŋ] | ng | |
| ᛟ | ost | [ɔ] | o | |
| ᛞ | dag | [d] | d | |
| ᚮ | óthal | [o:] | ó | |
| ᛆ | air | [aː] | á | |
| ᛇ | él | [e:] | é | |
| ᚢ | ur | [ə] | u | |
| ᚹ | leuv | [v] | v | |
| ᚧ | stadh | [ð] | dh |
ᚨᚢ᛫ᚨᛁ᛫ᛖᚢ᛫ᛁᚢ᛫ᛟᛁ
au, ai, eu, iu, oi
[a͜u], [a͜ɪ], [ɛ͜u], [ɪ͜u], [ɔ͜ɪ]
The reason why the diacritics or corresponding runic characters are not used in these set diphthongs is to allow the distinction of vowels in digraphs without introducing more diacritics. For example, aí would be pronounced [a.i]
Note: in the romanisation of Dúvtung th and dh are counted as seperate characters in its alphabet, they may also be written as þ and ð if your keyboard supports it.
Nouns2
| Singular | Plural | |
|---|---|---|
| Nominative | -ar | -ór |
| Vocative | -e | -os |
| Accusative | -a | -an |
| Genitive | -as | -ú |
| Dative | -ai | -am |
| Instrumental | -o | -ir |
Dúvtung nouns/adjectives do not inflect on gender, but some nouns are definitely gendered (módhér and fadhér being the most obvious examples).
The vocative singular -e ending is optional. It mostly used for roots that end in an awkward consonant cluster; eg. bagme, nadhre, etc.
Pronouns3
| Nominative | Accusative | Genitive | Dative | |||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| First Person | Singular | ek | mek | mín | mir | |
| Dual | wet | unk | unker | unkir | ||
| Plural | wir | uns | unser | unsir | ||
| Second Person | Singular | thú | thek | thín | thir | |
| Dual | jut | ink | unker | unkir | ||
| Plural | júr | iru | irer | irir | ||
| Third Person | Singular | Masculine | ir | ine | es | im |
| Feminine | sí | ije | er | ere | ||
| Neuter | it | ita | is | imai | ||
| Plural | ír | ins | imer | imir | ||
| Reflexive | selv | sek | sir | sír | ||
| wó - Who/what | Animate | Inanimate |
|---|---|---|
| Nominative | wó | wat |
| Accusative | wen | |
| Genitive | wes | |
| Dative | wer | wam |
| Instrumental | wé | wí |
| hir - This | Animate | Inanimate | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Singular | Plural | Singular | Plural | |
| Nominative | hir | hit | hír | hé |
| Accusative | hin | hins | hinur | hije |
| Genitive | hes | her | ||
| Dative | him | himar | ||
| Instrumental | hinó | himir | ||
| sa - That | Animate | Inanimate | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Singular | Plural | Singular | Plural | |
| Nominative | sa | that | thai | thó |
| Accusative | than | thans | thanur | thain |
| Genitive | thas | thairú | ||
| Dative | tham | thaim | ||
| Instrumental | thair | thaimir | ||
Verbs4
| Weak verb endings | Transitive / Intransitive | Causative | |||
| Present | Past | Present | Past | ||
| Active | Infinitive | -an | -jan | ||
| Indicative | -e | -d(e) | -je | -dje | |
| Subjunctive | -ai | -dai | -jai | -djai | |
| Passive | Infinitive | -as | -jas | ||
| Indicative | -es | -des | -jes | -djes | |
| Subjunctive | -au | -dau | -jau | -djau | |
| Participle | -ans | -at | -jans | -jat | |
1. The phonology is taken directly from Proto-Germanic, with a few slight changes (such as z > r, γ > x, x > h, etc) especially to the quality of the long and short vowels. The runic alphabet uses Elder Futhark at its core, with some extra runic characters to differentiate between the vowels. They are not very representative of how the runic vowel characters were used in the ancient Germanic languages, as I needed a way to have a separate rune for every sound.
2. Taken from the Proto-Germanic masculine a-stem, with a few changes.
3. With the personal pronouns I aimed to avoid homophones and overlap. So while they are largely based on the personal pronouns found in Proto-Germanic, there are few of my own inventions.
4. I was never really happy with how the verbs sounded in Dúvtung, and still am not now. It is inspired by the verbs present in Nordic languages, and is largely based on the Proto-germanic class 1 weak verb.