Verse:Tdūrzů/Knench/Ancient

Druidic Canaanite
𐤊𐤍𐤏𐤍𐤉𐤕
Pronunciation	[/xənaɣ̃ˈniːð/]
Created by	IlL
Setting	Lõis
Language family	Afro-Asiatic Semitic Central Semitic North Semitic Canaanite (Pre-Exilic) Biblical Hebrew Druidic Canaanite

Druidic Canaanite (natively 𐤄𐤋𐤔𐤅𐤍 𐤄𐤊𐤍𐤏𐤍𐤉𐤕 ʔal-lašón ʔaχ-χanaȝníδ /ʔallaˈʃon ʔaxxanaɣ̃ˈniːð/) is the stage of Xnánið between the split from Pre-Exilic Biblical Hebrew ca. 6th century BC and ca. 5th century CE. It was used as a literary language during this period and was the liturgical language of Near-East druidism before the religion was supplanted by Henosis Ousias. It was then that the drastic changes that had occurred in the spoken language began to be reflected in writing, thus ushering in the era of modern Xnánið.

Druidic Canaanite developed in isolation from Jewish Hebrew in Cyprus and was influenced by Celtic languages. It is a separate lineage from the Post-Exilic Jewish reading traditions that eventually gave rise to Tiberian Hebrew and the modern Jewish reading traditions.

Todo

• Long and overlong vowels?
• When should matres lectionis be used?

Phonology

Orthography

Druidic Canaanite was written in an abjad descended from the Proto-Hebrew script. Religious texts were vocalized but not completely, hence it is reconstructed on the basis of Modern Canaanite and Tiberian Hebrew.

Since /ʔ/ and /h/ merged completely, the letter he was only used for a few function words and particles such as the definite article ʔaC-.

Consonants

Out of the 25 consonants of Pre-Exilic Biblical Hebrew, Druidic Canaanite merged:

• /x/ with /ħ/ into /ħ/
• /ɬ/ with /t/ (taw) into /θ/
• /ʕ/ and /ɣ/ into /ɣ̃/
• /h/ and /ʔ/ into /ʔ/ ([h] was an allophone used for emphasis.)

/m p b f v n t d th θ ð ts~dz s tsʰ ʃ ɣ̃ ħ k g kh x ɣ l w j r/ ⟨m p b f v n t d ᴛ θ δ z s c š ȝ ħ k g ᴋ χ γ l w y r⟩

/l/ allophonically velarized before C.

Mutations

Words can undergo initial mutation but the mutations are different from the begadkefat spirantization in Tiberian Hebrew. The following mutations occur after a vowel:

• beth /p/ → /b/
• pe /f/ → /v/
• daleth /t/ → /d/
• taw /θ/ → /ð/
• gimel /k/ → /g/
• kaph /x/ → /ɣ/
• zayin /ts/ → /dz/
• samekh/sin /s/ → /z/

Vowels

a e i o u á é í ó ú /a e i o u a: e: i: o: u:/

Long vowels were a result of dropped aleph and he and instances of lost gemination in grammatical affixes.

Prosody

Stress

Stress was penultimate for most words.

Grammar

Syntax was retained as VSO under the influence of Celtic.

Pronouns

Independent

• 1sg: ʔáni
• 2sg: ʔátta (m), ʔátte (f)
• 3sg: ʔū (m), ʔī (f)
• 1pl: ʔáħnu
• 2pl: ʔattémma (m), ʔatténna (f)
• 3pl: ʔémma (m), ʔénna (f)

Nouns

Inflection

The definite article was ʔaC- (from Biblical Hebrew *haC-). It caused gemination of the following consonant; if the following consonant was a guttural and thus could not geminate, it was lengthened to ʔá-.

The Biblical feminine singular ending *-ā́ became unstressed -a, and the stress in feminine singular nouns in -a shifted to penultimate (by analogy with masculine singular adjectives and 3fs perfect verbs). Other possible feminine endings are -t, -θ or -δ. Eventually stress shifted away from gender/number suffixes across the board: The regular masculine and feminine plural endings were unstressed -im and unstressed -oδ, from Biblical Hebrew *-ī́m and *-ṓt.

The ending -a is more common than in Jewish Hebrew; sometimes -a is found where Standard Jewish Hebrew has -t.

The construct state was not entirely predictable but not as "hard" as Tiberian Hebrew. Feminine singular nouns in -a had a construct state in -aδ.

Example with sus 'horse' and susa 'female horse':

Basic declension

number	singular		plural
gender	m.	f.	m.	f.
indef.	𐤎𐤅𐤎 sus /sus/	𐤎𐤅𐤎𐤀 susa /ˈsusa/	𐤎𐤅𐤎𐤉𐤌‎ susim /ˈsusim/	𐤎𐤅𐤎𐤅𐤕‎‎ susoδ /ˈsusoð/
def.	𐤄𐤎𐤅𐤎 ʔas-sus /ʔassus/	𐤄𐤎𐤅𐤎𐤀 ʔas-susa /ʔasˈsusa/	𐤄𐤎𐤅𐤎𐤉𐤌‎ ʔas-susim /ʔasˈsusim/	𐤄𐤎𐤅𐤎𐤅𐤕‎‎ ʔas-susoδ /ʔasˈsusoð/
const.	𐤎𐤅𐤎 sus /sus/	𐤎𐤅𐤎𐤕 susaδ /ˈsusað/	𐤎𐤅𐤎𐤉‎ suse /ˈsuse/	𐤎𐤅𐤎𐤅𐤕‎‎ susoδ /ˈsusoð/

Possessive suffixes were as follows:

• 1sg: susi "my horse", pl. susāy "my horses"
• 2sg.m: susaγ, pl. suseγa
• 2sg.f: suseγ, pl. suseγe
• 3sg.m: suso, pl. susayo
• 3sg.f: susā, pl. susayā
• 1pl: susanu, pl. susaynu
• 2pl.m: susaγem, pl. susayγem (-n instead of -m for feminine)
• 3pl.m: susam, pl. susēm (-n instead of -m for feminine)

Adjectives

The most common way to express 'very, extreme(ly), great(ly)' was to use the prefix ro- (which caused mutation; borrowed from Proto-Celtic *ɸro-; cognate to Irish ró-, Welsh rhy, both 'too, excessively'). At first only adjectives could take this prefix, but later it was also used on nouns.

Verbs

All 7 binyanim of Biblical Hebrew were in use.

Verbs inherited the following forms from Biblical Hebrew:

• Past/Perfect/Stative (from the BH perfect)
• Non-past/Imperfect (from the BH imperfect)
  • Energic nun for emphasis or wishes
• Imperative
• Infinitive construct
• Infinitive absolute
• Participle

The Biblical Hebrew waw-consecutive and jussive forms were lost.

Derivation

Mishkalim

Todo: new Druidic Hebrew mishkalim

• masculine segolates: CaCəC, CiCəC, CuCəC
• feminine segolates: CaCCa, CiCCa, CuCCa
• CaCaCa
• CaCuCa

Lexicon

ʔ

• ʔilṓ (pl. ʔilóʔim) = an animistic spirit, like a Japanese kami
• ʔəšéra = tree as a spiritual object

n

• n-ᴛ-f
  • níᴛfa = spiritual intuition or inspiration (from a root meaning 'dropping, prophecy' in BH)

ȝ

• ȝarába = willow

r

• rimmón = pomegranate