AtterCleanser44

Pages I have worked on:

Language edit

I have come up with a spelling reform, which you can see here.

Tales edit

The Nightingale

Japanese transliteration edit

Just for fun, what would Japanese transliteration be like without French influence on English letters? Some choices such as j for /dʒ/ would have to be changed. This is based on Hepburn romanization.

Basic hiragana:


	a	i	u	e	o
	あ a	い i	う u	え e	お o
k	か ka	き ki	く ku	け ke	こ ko
s	さ sa	し sji	す su	せ se	そ so
t	た ta	ち tji	つ tsu	て te	と to
n	な na	に ni	ぬ nu	ね ne	の no
h	は ha	ひ hi	ふ fu	へ he	ほ ho
m	ま ma	み mi	む mu	め me	も mo
j	や ja		ゆ ju		よ jo
r	ら ra	り ri	る ru	れ re	ろ ro
w	わ wa				を o
ん n

Notes:

/j/ is represented as j (occasionally used in Old English as consonantal i).
Sh for /ʃ/ shows French influence. Sj is used since /sj/ can result in /ʃ/, as shown in the development of English sure.
Ch for /tʃ/ is from French. Tj is used since it aligns with the rest of the t-row, and /tj/ can result in /tʃ/, as shown in the development of English nature.

Diacritics:


	a	i	u	e	o
g	が ga	ぎ gi	ぐ gu	げ ge	ご go
z	ざ za	じ dji	ず zu	ぜ ze	ぞ zo
d	だ da	ぢ dji	づ zu	ぜ de	ぞ do
b	ば ba	び bi	ぶ bu	べ be	ぼ bo
p	ぱ pa	ぴ pi	ぷ pu	ぺ pe	ぽ po

Notes:

As there is no native letter for initial /z/ (as the sound was only an allophone of /s/ in Old English and does not appear word-initially in standard English except in loanwords and interjections or words that originated as such), a new letter has to be used to represent initial /z/. Latin z is a good Anglish alternative since it simply represented /ts/, which is pointless to show in English, so it can be repurposed here.
Since j for /dʒ/ is from French, and initial /dʒ/ was established in English because of French influence, there is no native letter for initial /dʒ/. Dj is a good representation since /dj/ can result in /dʒ/, as shown in the development of English soldier.
For じ, zji is the specific romanization to use, as it is simply the voiced form of し (sji).
For づ, dzu is the specific romanization to use, as it is simply the voiced form of つ (tsu).

Digraphs:


	ja	ju	jo
k	きゃ kja	きゅ kju	きょ kjo
s	しゃ sja	しゅ sju	しょ sjo
t	ちゃ tja	ちゅ tju	ちょ tjo
n	にゃ nja	にゅ nju	にょ njo
h	ひゃ hja	ひゅ hju	ひょ hjo
m	みゃ mja	みゅ mju	みょ mjo
r	りゃ rja	りゅ rju	りょ rjo

Digraphs with diacritics:


	ja	ju	jo
g	ぎゃ gja	ぎゅ gju	ぎょ gjo
z	じゃ dja	じゅ dju	じょ djo
d	ぢゃ dja	ぢゅ dju	ぢょ djo
b	びゃ bja	びゅ bju	びょ bjo
p	ぴゃ pja	ぴゅ pju	ぴょ pjo

Notes:

For the z-row, the specific romanizations are zja, zju, and zjo, as zj represents the voiced form of sj.

Grammar edit

Pronouns edit

	Nominative	Accusative	Dependent possessive	Independent possessive	Reflexive
1st singular	I	me	my	mine	myself
2nd singular	thou	thee	thy	thine	thyself
3rd singular masculine	he	him	his	his	himself
3rd singular feminine	oo	her	her	hers	herself
3rd singular neuter	it	it	its	its	itself
1st plural	we	us	our	ours	ourselves
2nd plural	ye	you	your	yours	yourselves
3rd plural	hy	hem	her	hers	hemselves

Notes:

Oo is from OE hēo, the feminine personal pronoun. I have chosen not to use the regular reflex of OE hēo, since it would have become he, and its homophony with the masculine would be troublesome. Moreover, she itself is dubious in its origin and likely shows Norse influence in its development. The reflex oo results from stress shift in the diphthong in hēo and is attested in some British dialects that show /h/-loss in general. In my standard Anglish, oo was originally an unstressed variant of hoo that was generalized to avoid homophony with who since having a personal pronoun and an interrogative be identical in sound would cause quite a bit of confusion. An unstressed form can be expected to show loss of initial /h/, as shown by it (originally an unstressed form of now-dialectal hit) and colloquial pronunciations of unstressed pronouns such as he and her. This is similar to how an originally dialectal pronunication of one (which formerly rhymed with bone) ended up becoming standard (and thus rhyming with run) likely because it helped avoid confusion with own.
All the plural forms for the third person are the native ones; the th- set is from Norse.
- Hy is regularly gotten from the OE nominative hī.
- Hem is from OE heom, and in fact, it survives up to this day as 'em, which was later reanalyzed as a weak form of them.
- Her is from Middle English here. Though it would be nice to have it distinct from feminine her, it seems that the two forms were so hopelessly confused with each other that it is unrealistic that they would have been kept apart. In any case, context should generally be enough to let one see whether her is feminine or plural, and having the feminine and the plural be the same is not completely unprecedented. For example, German ihr is used as the possessive for both the feminine singular and the plural.

Verbs edit

In my ideal Anglish, this is how verbs are conjugated.

Abbreviations:

ind. - indicative
subj. - subjunctive

Regular verbs (e.g., *cook*)
Person / Number	Present tense	Past tense
1st singular	cook	cooked
2nd singular	cookst (ind.), cook (subj.)	cookedst
3rd singular	cookth (ind.), cook (subj.)	cooked
Plural	cook	cooked
Imperative	cook
Present participle	cooking
Past participle	cooked

Irregular verbs (e.g., *fall*)
Person / Number	Present tense	Past tense
1st singular	fall	fell
2nd singular	fallst (ind.), fall (subj.)	fellst
3rd singular	fallth (ind.), fall (subj.)	fell
Plural	fall	fell
Imperative	fall
Present participle	falling
Past participle	fallen

Be
Person / Number	Present tense	Past tense
1st singular	am (ind.), be (subj.)	was (ind.), were (subj.)
2nd singular	art (ind.), be (subj.)	wast (ind.), wert (subj.)
3rd singular	is (ind.), be (subj.)	was (ind.), were (subj.)
Plural	are (ind.), be (subj.)	were
Imperative	be
Present participle	being
Past participle	been

Archaic inflections and inflectional affixes include:

sind for the plural present ind. of be
sie for the present subj. of be
-en for the infinitive
-en for the plural present and past ind. and subj.
-eth for the plural imperative
-end for the present participle
y- for the past participle

-est

-est is said with syncope. When does syncope apply?

After vowels and (historical) /r/, e.g., fleest, playst, bearst.
After the voiceless consonants /p/, /t/, /k/, /f/, and /θ/, e.g., sleepst, heatst, lockst, laughst, unearthst.
After /l/ and nasals, e.g., feelst, swimst, cleanst, singst.

When does syncope not apply?

After sibilants, e.g., kissest, risest, washest, sabatogest, teachest, singest.
After a consonant cluster with a sibilant, e.g., burstest, gaspest, askest.
After the voiced consonants /b/, /d/, /g/, /v/, and /ð/, e.g., grabbest, heedest, loggest, leavest, breathest.

After /d/, however, -st is always used in certain forms such as hadst, couldst, and the past tense ending -edst. In these forms, dst is pronounced as /dst/ (but it may be easier and more natural for speakers to say it as /tst/). The special inflections are:

dost, didst
hast, hadst
canst, couldst
wilt, wouldst
shalt, shouldst
saist, saidst

For must, either the bare form must or the inflected form mustest (which was used in Middle English) is acceptable.

-eth

Nearly the same rules for syncope apply to -eth. Syncope applies:

After vowels and (historical) /r/, e.g., flieth, showth, shearth.
After the voiceless consonants /p/, /t/, /k/, and /f/, e.g., trapth, biteth, sinkth, puffth
After /l/ and nasals, e.g., fillth, loomth, rainth, ringth.

Syncope does not apply:

After sibilants, e.g., misseth, freezeth, thrasheth, arbitrageth, toucheth, bridgeth.
After the voiced consonants /b/, /d/, /g/, /v/, and /ð/, e.g., dubbeth, buildeth, cloggeth, bereaveth, sootheth.
After /θ/, e.g, frotheth.

y > u edit

Old English /y/ typically became unrounded and became /i/ in Middle English. In the West Midlands dialects, however, /y/ was kept, and this was spelled with u (a French convention). This sound was normally unrounded later, but some spelling variants showed the vowel being retracted to /u/ instead, in which case the French u was kept in the spelling. That this sound change occurred is proven by Middle English spellings using o for /u/, e.g., croch for crucche (crutch). Most OE words with /y/ show /ɪ/ in their modern forms, with a few exceptions having become standard.

In some OE words, /i/ was rounded to /y/ from influence of nearby consonants, e.g., micel > mycel, the source of much.

OE bysig became busy, with the spelling showing the West Midlands form, but the modern pronunciation shows the expected standard pronunciation, so the word would be better spelled as bizzy (compare with dizzy < OE dysig).

OE byrgan became bury, with the spelling showing the West Midlands form, but the modern pronunciation comes from the Kentish variant, so the word would be better spelled as berry (compare with merry < OE myrge).

Before preconsonantal and final /r/, /ɪ/ and /ʊ/ converged later, so the difference is merely in spelling now, i.e., it can be spelled as ir, ur, or (after w) or. The ur words are perhaps originally dialectal variants that became standard, but in Early New English, ir, er, and ur were mixed up in the spellings of some words, e.g., churl (< OE ceorl), kernel (< OE cyrnel). Hence, it is impossible to tell for sure whether a word with ur shows an originally dialectal pronunciation or merely the standard pronunciation showing ur in the spelling instead of expected ir. Nonetheless, these words are included here anyway.

There are a few derivative words showing y in OE as part of umlaut, but show u in their modern forms. This is due to influence of related words showing no umlaut, e.g., OE syndrig would have become *sindry, but from influence of related words such as the now-obsolete adverb sunder, the word became sundry instead.

It seems that the following environments encouraged the retraction to /u/:

Near /ʃ/, /tʃ/, and /dʒ/, e.g., shut, clutch, cudgel.
Near a labial, e.g., muck.
Near /r/, e.g., thrust, hurdle.


OE form	NE form
blyscan	blush
byrg (city)	-bury
byrþen	burden
clyccan	clutch
crycc	crutch
cycgel	cudgel
cyrice	church
hyrdel	hurdle
hyrst (grove)	hurst
mycel	much
rysc	rush
scytel	shuttle
scyttan	shut
swylc	such
þryccan (press)	thrutch
þrysce	thrush
wyrcan	work
wyrm	worm
wyrsa	worse
wyrst	worst
wyrt	wort

Note also the Old Norse borrowings muck (< ON myki) and thrust (< ON þrysta).

Notes:

OE byrg was the dative singular and the plural nominative and accusative of burg (city), which became borough. OE byrg as an independent word would have normally become *birry, but it only survives as -bury, an element in place names such as Canterbury; -bury represents a fossilized dative, as place names were often used in the dative.
OE mycel became ME muchel, but this was later shortened to much.
Rush here refers to the plant; rush meaning move forward is apparently from French.
OE swylc became ME swulch, which then showed loss of w because of the following u, as well as loss of l, whence the modern form such.
The spelling of work shows the vowel from the OE verb wyrcan, but the OE noun weorc may also have been the source of the spelling work, as shown by worth < OE weorþ.

w forms edit

In Old English, in the a-stems and ō were two subclasses: wa-stems and wō-stems. The notable things about their declensions are:

For masculine wa-stems, all inflections except the nominative singular and the accusative singular had w before the ending.
For neuter wa-stems, all inflections except the nominative and the accusative (in both the singular and the plural) had w before the ending.
For wo-stems (which are feminine), all inflections except the nominative singular had w before the ending.

Here are three examples:

*bearu* (grove, masculine)
Case	Singular	Plural
Nominative	bearu	bearwas
Accusative	bearu	bearwas
Genitive	bearwes	bearwa
Dative	bearwe	bearwum

*searu* (device, neuter)
Case	Singular	Plural
Nominative	searu	searu
Accusative	searu	searu
Genitive	searwes	searwa
Dative	searwe	searwum

*sinu* (sinew, feminine)
Case	Singular	Plural
Nominative	sinu	sinwa
Accusative	sinwe	sinwa
Genitive	sinwe	sinwa
Dative	sinwe	sinwum

These declensions would not last unaltered. Even in Old English, some nouns had already leveled out the w throughout the declension, as shown with strēaw (straw) and þēow (slave). In Middle English, there was even further leveling in favor of the base form or the forms with w.

Interestingly, bearu appears to be the only masculine wa-stem, so all other examples are neuter or feminine. The noun bearu is not attested in Middle English except in one late attestation and in names with variants such as barewe and berwe, so in this case, the w forms clearly won out. This is not surprising since most of the inflections had w.

Neuter nouns:


OE form	NE form
bealu (evil)	bale
cnēo, cnēow (knee)	knee
cwudu (cud)	cud
glēo, glēow (entertainment)	glee
hlēo, hlēow (shelter)	lee
melu (flour)	meal
searu (device)	*sare
smeoru (grease)	smear
teoru (tar)	tar
trēo, trēow (tree)	tree

Feminine nouns:


OE form	NE form
lǣs (pasture)	leaze, leasow
mǣd (meadow)	mead, meadow
sceadu (shadow)	shade, shadow
sinu (sinew)	sinew

Ablative adverbs edit

In Old English, there was an adverbial ending -an that denoted motion from a certain place. For example, westan meant from the west. Three words originally with this ending survive: hence (OE heonan), thence (OE þanan), and whence (OE hwanon). The -s adverbial genitive ending, which is now spelled -ce, was later added to these words.

Below is a list of ablative adverbs. It is assumed here that the adverbial genitive ending would be attached to them.


OE word	OE base	NE word
ēastan	ēast	*eastence
heonan	hēr	hence
hwanon	hwǣr	whence
norþan	norþ	*northence
sūþan	sūþ	*southence
þanan	þǣr	thence
westan	west	*westence

-le words edit

Though -le (spelled as -el in some words) is no longer a productive suffix, there are still a few common words formed with this suffix. These are the uses of the noun suffix -le:

Agent and instrument, e.g., ladle, beetle.
Diminutive (originally), e.g., kernel.


NE word	Etymological base	Function
*biddle (native word), beadle (French)	bode (message)	Agent
beetle (insect)	bite	Agent
beetle (hammer)	beat	Instrument
brethel (wretch)	*(a)breethe (degenerate)	Agent
bridle	braid	Instrument
brothel (prostitute)	*(a)breethe (degenerate)	Agent
cripple	creep	Agent
girdle	gird	Instrument
handle	hand	Instrument
kernel	corn	Diminutive
ladle	lade	Instrument
lorel (scoundrel)	leese (lose)	Agent
losel (scoundrel)	leese (lose)	Agent
pintle	(unknown)	Diminutive (?)
spindle	spin	Instrument
stile	sty (climb)	Instrument
thimble	thumb	Instrument

Notes:

Modern brothel is from a shortening of brothelhouse.
Kernel was either masculine or neuter in OE.

-th words edit

The suffix -th (-t in some words) is no longer productive, but is nonetheless found in a few common words. It is an abstract noun suffix mainly used with verbs and adjectives.

The words are split into two groups: the ones that have the suffix -th (in rare cases dropped or altered to -d), and the ones that have the suffix altered to -t. The reason for the change to -t is that historically, the suffix was right next to a fricative sound, which caused th to be modified to t.

The gender of derivatives is also listed if they are attested in OE.

*-th* words
NE word	Etymological base	OE gender
*bird (native word), birth (Norse)	bear (carry)	feminine
blowth (blossoming)	blow (blossom)	(none)
breadth	broad	(none)
dearth	dear	(none)
depth	deep	(none)
filth	foul	feminine
growth	grow	(none)
health	whole	feminine
length	long	feminine
*rimth, roomth (space, capacity)	room (roomy)	feminine
sleuth (sloth), sloth	slow	feminine
spilth (spillage)	spill	(none)
stealth	steal	(none)
strength	strong	feminine
tilth	till (cultivate)	feminine
troth (faith), truth	true	feminine
warmth	warm	(none)
wealth	weal (welfare)	(none)
width	wide	(none)
wrath	wroth	feminine
youth	young	feminine

Notes:

Roomth is a later form of OE rȳmþ by analogy with the now dialectal adjective room (roomy).
Wrath was wrǣþþu in OE, and the vowel was shortened because of the following double consonants. Because of degemination, the suffix essentially disappeared.

-t words
NE word	Etymological base	OE gender
cleft	cleave (split)	(none)
draught/draft	draw	(none)
drift	drive	(none)
drought	dry	feminine
heft	heave	(none)
height	high	feminine
might	may	feminine
rift (Norse)	rive (Norse)	(none)
shrift (absolution)	shrive (absolve)	masculine
sight	see	feminine
slaught (slaughter)	slay	masculine
strift (strife, French)	strive (French)	(none)
theft	thieve	feminine
thrift (Norse)	thrive (Norse)	(none)
weft	weave	masculine
weight	weigh	feminine
yeft (native word), gift (Norse)	*yeave (native word), give (Norse)	feminine