Until quite recently, the population of Altland has spoken two distinct languages, one Germanic in origin and calling itself Teutsprek, the other a Romance tongue, Romança. It is the purpose of this page to provide a introduction to both of these tongues. Since Teutsprek is the native language of about three-fifths of the kingdom's population, it will be presented first. At the present time, The Royal Institute of Linguistics is hard at work preparing a comparable introduction to Romança. The two other languages used in the Kingdom, Latin and Modern English, need no special presentation. The former was the language of learning and law until the end of the last century, when it was superseded by Modern English, which is now one of the official languages of the Kingdom and used as its everyday lingua franca.

A. The Sounds of the Language and Their Representation

1. Vowel sounds: With a few exceptions, the vowels of Teutsprek sound rather like those of modern High German; that is, they have their "continental" value. Vowels are long when doubled or when followed by a single consonant; short, when ending a word or when followed by two or more consonants or by the same consonant doubled.

a (called "ah") = long as "father," short as in "amend"
æ (called "ash") = short only, like the "a" in "bat"
e (called "ay")= long, like the "a" in "fate"; short, like the "e" in "bet";
But note: "e" at the end of a word is often pronouned "uh," the neutral schwau sound. This same sound, when it occurs within a word, is not rpresented by any letter; hence, the sound is meant to be introduced between adjacent consonants which could not easily be pronounced without some kind of vowel sound to voice the second of them. For example, the name of the capital, spelled "Midlburgh," is pronounced the same as the English "Middleburg," though with a slight gutturalization of the final "g."
i (called "ee") = long, like the "i" in "elite"; short, like the "i" in "hit"
ij (called "eye") = long only, like the "i" in "bike"
o (called "oh") = long, like the "o" in "vote"; short, like the "o" in "hot"
u(called "oo") = long, like the "u" in "tutor"'short, like the "u" in "put"
y (called "yee") = long, a "pinched 'u'", much like the French "u" or the German "ü"; short, pinched even more and amounting to the "y" in "itchy,"especially at the beginnings or ends of words.

2. Diphthongs: Other vowel sounds are represented by dipthongs:
au = long only, like the "ow" in "now"
eu = long only, like the "oi" in "oil"
iu = long only, like the "u" in "cute"
ui = long and short are hardly distinguishable, both having a sound like the German "ö"

3. All other vowel combinations (which are relatively rare) are pronounced as in Old English: both vowels sounded, but with a heavy stress on the first. In those few instances in which they are meant to be pronounced with an even distribution of stress, the glottal stop necessary between them is marked with an apostrophe (').

4. Vowel sound shifts: In words which have direct cognates in living Germanic languages on the planet Earth, following sound shifts occur with very few exceptions:
"a" sounds often become "o" sounds,
"e" sounds often become "a" sounds,
"i" sounds always remain the same,
"o" sounds often become "e" sounds
"u" sounds often become "y" sounds
"y" sounds become "i" sounds in some words, "ij" sounds in others, and a very "pinched" "g" sound at the ends of words.
The diphthong "ow" normally becomes and pure long "u" sound.

5. Consonant sounds: Teutsprek's orthography aims to be almost unambiguously phonetic. It possesses the following consonant sounds, represented by letters of the Latin alphabet, supplemented by the use of some of the consonant symbols found in Old English and Icelandic texts.

b (called "bay") = "b" as in "boat"
c (called "chee") = "ch" as in "church"
d (called "day") = "d" as in "door"
f (called "feh") = "f" as in "foot"
g (called "gay") = "g" as in "gift"
g (called "goff" or "yogh") = the gutteral sound represented by "ch" in German
h (called "hoh") = "h" as in "hat" (also used in mechanical print after "g," "t," and "w" when the letters "g" Ý," "d," and "w" are not available)
j (called "jot") = "j" as in "jug" (except when it follows an "i")
k (called "kah") = "k" as in "Kent"
l (called "ell") = "l" as in "lift"
m (called "em") = "m" as in "mole"
n (called "en") = "n" as in "nose"
p (called "pay") = "p" as in "peel"
r (called "air") = a rolled are before long vowels, a "flapped" are before short ones.
s (called "ess") = "s" as in "Dis"
sc (called "esh:) = "sh" as in "show" (at the beginning of printed words and in handwriting it is sometimes written $); in all other instances, adjacent consonants are both pronounced.
t (called "tay") = "t" as in "take"
Ý (called "eth") = the voiced "th" as in "this"
(called "thorn")= the unvoiced "th" as in "think"
v (called "vay") = "v" as in "voice"
w (called "way") = "w" as in "war"
w (called "wynn") = the aspirated "wh" (rarely occuring)
z (called "zayt") = "z" as in "zero"
Note: Teutsprek does not use the letters "q" and "x."

6. Consonant shifts are not as regular as the vowel shifts, and must be learned more by observation than by rule. They do not always occur at all, and when they do, they are most common at the beginnings and the endings of words. One fairly regular one, for example, is that German derivative words ending in "ff" regularly have this transformed into "p."

B. The Vocabulary of the Language and Its Derivation

1. In general, the vocabulary of the language is purely Germanic, a blend of the vocabularies of the several Germanic languages spoken by the sea-farers who provided the island kingdom with its earliest population. Over the course of time, the vocabulary actually used sorted itself out as follows:

2. Sign Words: In most cases the articles, prepositions, conjunctions, non-descriptive modifiers, and auxiliary verbs of the language represent transformations of the English word stock, sometimes in their Old or Middle English, and sometimes in their Modern forms.

3. Content words: the nouns, verbs, and descriptive modifiers of the language are generally evolved from some form of English, when that language possesses a Germanic word for a given concept or reality; in other cases, they are evolved forms of words from other Germanic languages, most often from German itself. For example, the word for "concept," which in English is a Latin derivative, is "bgrip" in Teutsprek.

C. Grammar

1. Substantives. In theory, all substantives have gender, but in current Teutsprek, all genders share the same definite articles, "de" (definite) and "en" (indefinite). In the informal, spoken language, however, the practice of making adjectives agree in gender is in flux. It seems to be done now mainly when the presence of the extra vocable improves the rhythm of a phrase or clause. However, in formal, written Teutsprek, and for purposes of pronoun agreement, any animal of the male sex is considered masculine, together with certain classes of things associated in the minds of the early Teutonic Altlanders with masculinity; likewise, all female animals and certain classes of things associated with femininity are feminine, as well as most words denoting abstractions; all inanimate objects, animals too young to be capable of reproduction, and collective nouns are considered neuter.
         Most nouns ending in vowel sounds form their plurals by adding "-s," but some do so by adding "-n." Those ending in consonant sounds form the plural by adding "-en."
         Teutsprek has five cases in both numbers and two declensions, the vowel declension (for words whose nominative singular ends in a vowel) and the consonant declension (for words whose nominative singular ends in a consonant. Below are the declensional tables:

                           Vowel Declension                            Consonant Declension
                                                               Singular
Nominative:                   --                                                             --
Genitive:                        -s                                                             -es
Dative:                           -m                                                           -em
Accusative:                     -n                                                            -e
Prepositional:                 -ne                                                           -en
                                                               Plural
Nominative:                   -s (-n)                                                       -en
Genitive:                        -r                                                              -er
Dative:                           -n                                                             -um
Accusative:                    -se                                                            -ene
Prepositional:                -sen                                                          -enen

         Pronouns must agree with their antecedents in gender and number. Their case is determined by their grammatical role in a clause. Except for the personal pronouns, which have special forms, the inflectional endings are the same as for nouns, depending on whether the nominative form ends in a vowel or in consonant. The special declensional forms of the personal pronouns are follows:

                                             Singular
Persons:          1st          2nd          3rdM          3rd F          3rd N
Nominative:      y            ty             hy               scy              hyt
Genitive:          myn        tyn           hys             hyr              hyts
Dative:             mee         tee           hym            hyr              hyt
Accusative:      my           ty            hym            hyr              hyt
Prepositional:  me           tee           hym            hyr              hyt

                                     Plural
Persons:          1st          2nd          3rdM
Nominative:     wy           U              dy
Genitive:          wyr          ur             dyr
Dative:             yms         Um           dyn
Accusative:       ys           U              dym
Prepositional:   yns         Un            dyn

2. Modifiers. Adjectives in the attributive position are inflected, but only minimally in the current Teutsprek. Usage in this regard is in flux, and inconsistent. In formal, literary Teutsprek, however, adjectives generally agree with the words they modify in gender, number and case. The ending marking masculine adjectives is the ending "-ar" (a masculine plural ending also found on certain very old nouns, especially in proper names). That for feminines is a terminal "-e." Neuters have no ending. In the formation of the oblique cases and of plurals, masculine adjectives follow the consonant declension after the gender sign; feminine adjectives, the vowel declension. Neuter adjectives use whichever set of declensional endings fits the terminal sound of their plain form.
Adjectives in the predicative position never have endings.
         Nondesciptive adverbs have no special ending. Descriptive adverbs are the same as the plain form of the corresponding adjectives, except those that indicate manner, which usually have the ending "-lik."

3. Connectives. Most prepositions are derived from their English equivalents. The nouns or pronouns following them are in the Prepositonal Case, except when movement or dynamism in intended and the accusative is used.
Hence:          "in" + the prepositional = "in"; "in" + the accusative = "into"
                     "an" + the prepositional = "on"; "an" + the accusative = "onto"
                     "æt" + the prepositional = "at"; "æt" + the accusative = "toward"
         Likewise, most conjunctions are also derived from English, but subordinating conjunctions are often emphasized by being doubled with "dat," such as "Whan dat" for "when."

4. Expletives and Interjections. Two expletives are commonly used: "yt" and "her." Teuts-speaking Altlanders use a variety of interjections, the most common (for gaining attention) being "heu," with its variant "aheu" (accented on the first syllable) being the most common informal greeting.

4. Verbs. All verbs in Teutsprek have person, number, tense, voice, and mood, formed either with endings or with auxiliary verbs or both.
         There are three personal endings used in all tenses, both voices, in the indicative mood: first singular, "-e"on consonant stems; second singular, "-st"; all plural persons "-n." The infintive ending is "-an," which is attatched to the plain form, as is the present participial ending "-eng."
         Verbs are of two classes, strong and weak. Weak verbs form their past tense by adding a "-t" to their present stem, before their personal endings, unless the stem ends with a "t," in which case they add a "d" after a (normally unwritten) neutral vowel sound instead of the "t." Strong verbs have special forms for the past tense and the past participle, usually involving only the transformation of their principal vowel sound, but sometimes of certain consonant sounds as well. These special forms are best learned by observation. All past participle forms are also marked by the prefix "y-."
         All tenses other than the present and past active are formed with auxilliary verbs combined with plain forms, infinitive forms, and participial forms. The formation of these other tenses is described below.

-- The future tense is formed by the inflected auxilliary "wollan" and the plain form of the real verb.
-- The perfect tenses are formed with the present, past, and future forms of the auxilliary verb "hapan," unless they imply motion, in which case they use the auxilliary "bi'an," (the verb "to be") which is, like the verb "go'an," ("to walk or go") irregular.
-- The actional passive voice is formed with the auxiliary verb "wardan," which by itself means "to become." The statal passive is formed with the auxiliary "bi'an."
-- As already noted, all present infinitives bear the ending "-an." The sign "te" is sometimes used before infinitives, under much the same circumstances as the German "zu." For the expression of purpose, the infinitive form is preceded by "fer te" or "om te."
-- The present and past participial forms have already been described. Perfect participial forms are formed as in English, out of the present participle of the appropriate auxiliary and the past participle of the real verb. Perfect infinitives are formed in a similar way, with the present infinitive of "hapan" plus the past participle of the real verb.
-- The gerunds are formed on the same pattern, the present gerund ending being "-ung" instead of "-eng." Gerund forms are also used as adjectives expressing purpose. Infinitives may also be used as substantives and as adjectives expressing purpose (always after the nouns they modify), but in these roles they are not declined, although gerunds are.
-- The subjunctive mood is used to express any action or state of being which is in any way less than completely actual. In general, the rules for its use are very similar to those which prevail in modern German, although this feature of Teutsprek is also now in flux, and it appears as though the subjunctive is being used less and less in the informal, spoken language and may go the way it has gone in modern English.

5. Word Order: The word order in Teutsprek is sometimes like that of modern English, sometimes like that of modern German, whichever seems to the speaker or writer more effective for his purposes. In older and more formal prose, the word order tends to be more like that of German; in current colloquial speech and less formal utterances, more like that of modern English.