Verse:Tdūrzů/Knench/Ancient
| Druidic Hebrew | |
|---|---|
| 𐤊𐤍𐤏𐤍𐤉𐤕 | |
| Pronunciation | [/xanaɣ̃ˈniːð/] |
| Created by | IlL |
| Setting | Lõis |
Afro-Asiatic
| |
Druidic Hebrew (natively 𐤊𐤍𐤏𐤍𐤉𐤕 χanaȝníδ /xanaɣ̃ˈniːð/) 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 Anatolian and Cypriot 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 Hebrew developed in Cyprus and was influenced by Cypriot Celtic. 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.
Phonology
Orthography
Druidic Hebrew 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.
Consonants
Out of the 25 consonants of Pre-Exilic Biblical Hebrew, Druidic Hebrew merged:
- /x/ with /ħ/ into /ħ/
- /ɬ/ with /s/ (samekh) into /s/
- /ʕ/ and /ɣ/ into /ɣ̃/
- /h/ and /ʔ/ into /ʔ/
/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 ts' 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
Druidic Hebrew had a rather simple vowel system:
a e i o u ø á é í ó ú /a e i o u ə a: e: i: o: u:/
/ə/ was a result of vowel reduction. Long vowels were a result of dropped aleph and he.
Prosody
Stress
Stress was penultimate for most words.
Intonation
Morphophonology
Grammar
Still basically Hebrew (except with penultimate stress), with inflected verbs.
Syntax was retained as VSO under the influence of Celtic.
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 ʔā-.
The Biblical feminine singular ending *-ā́ became unstressed -a (e.g. ʔašḗra 'sacred tree'), 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 or -δ. The feminine plural ending was unstressed -oδ (e.g. ʔašḗroδ 'sacred trees'), from Biblical Hebrew *-ṓt. Sometimes -a is found where Standard Jewish Hebrew has -t, and vice versa.)
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.
Adjectives
The most common way to express 'very, extreme(ly), great(ly)' was to use the prefix ro- (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
Sample texts
Lexicon
ʔ
- ʔilṓ (pl. ʔilṓʔim) = 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)