Venedic is a naturalistic

constructed language A constructed language (sometimes called a conlang) is a language whose phonology, grammar, and vocabulary, instead of having developed naturally, are consciously devised for some purpose, which may include being devised for a work of fiction. ...

, created by the Dutch translator

Jan van Steenbergen Johannes Hendrik "Jan" van Steenbergen (, born June 3, 1970) is a Dutch translator and interpreter. He is known for being the author of several constructed languages, notably Interslavic and Wenedyk. He was born in Hoorn, where he spent most of ...

(who also co-created the international auxiliary language

Interslavic Interslavic (''Medžuslovjansky'' / ''Меджусловјанскы'') is a pan-Slavic auxiliary language. Its purpose is to facilitate communication between speakers of various Slavic languages, as well as to allow people who do not speak a S ...

). It is used in the fictional ''Republic of the Two Crowns'', based on the

Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth The Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth, formally known as the Kingdom of Poland and the Grand Duchy of Lithuania, and, after 1791, as the Commonwealth of Poland, was a bi-confederal state, sometimes called a federation, of Crown of the Kingdom of ...

, in the

alternate timeline Alternate history (also alternative history, althist, AH) is a genre of speculative fiction of stories in which one or more historical events occur and are resolved differently than in real life. As conjecture based upon historical fact, altern ...

of Ill Bethisad. Officially, Venedic is a descendant of

Vulgar Latin Vulgar Latin, also known as Popular or Colloquial Latin, is the range of non-formal registers of Latin spoken from the Late Roman Republic onward. Through time, Vulgar Latin would evolve into numerous Romance languages. Its literary counterpa ...

with a strong Slavic admixture, based on the premise that the

Roman Empire The Roman Empire ( la, Imperium Romanum ; grc-gre, Βασιλεία τῶν Ῥωμαίων, Basileía tôn Rhōmaíōn) was the post-Roman Republic, Republican period of ancient Rome. As a polity, it included large territorial holdings aro ...

incorporated the ancestors of the

Poles Poles,, ; singular masculine: ''Polak'', singular feminine: ''Polka'' or Polish people, are a West Slavic nation and ethnic group, who share a common history, culture, the Polish language and are identified with the country of Poland in ...

in their territory. Less officially, it tries to show what Polish would have looked like if it had been a

Romance Romance (from Vulgar Latin , "in the Roman language", i.e., "Latin") may refer to: Common meanings * Romance (love), emotional attraction towards another person and the courtship behaviors undertaken to express the feelings * Romance languages, ...

instead of a Slavic language. On the Internet, it is well-recognized as an example of the

altlang An artistic language, or artlang, is a constructed language designed for aesthetic and phonetic pleasure. Language can be artistic to the extent that artists use it as a source of creativity in art, poetry, calligraphy or as a metaphor to address ...

genre, much like

Brithenig Brithenig, or also known as Comroig, is an invented language, or constructed language ("conlang"). It was created as a hobby in 1996 by Andrew Smith from New Zealand, who also invented the alternate history of Ill Bethisad to "explain" it. Offi ...

and Breathanach. The idea for the language was inspired by such languages as Brithenig and Breathanach, languages that bear a similar relationship to the Celtic languages as Venedic does to Polish. The language itself is based entirely on ( Vulgar)

Latin Latin (, or , ) is a classical language belonging to the Italic languages, Italic branch of the Indo-European languages. Latin was originally a dialect spoken in the lower Tiber area (then known as Latium) around present-day Rome, but through ...

and Polish: all phonological, morphological, and syntactic changes that made Polish develop from

Common Slavic Proto-Slavic (abbreviated PSl., PS.; also called Common Slavic or Common Slavonic) is the unattested, reconstructed proto-language of all Slavic languages. It represents Slavic speech approximately from the 2nd millennium B.C. through the 6th ...

are applied to Vulgar Latin. As a result, vocabulary and morphology are predominantly Romance in nature, whereas phonology, orthography and syntax are essentially the same as in Polish. Venedic uses the modern standard

Polish orthography Polish orthography is the system of writing the Polish language. The language is written using the Polish alphabet, which derives from the Latin alphabet, but includes some additional letters with diacritics. The orthography is mostly phonetic, ...

, including (for instance) for and for . Venedic plays a role in the

alternate history Alternate history (also alternative history, althist, AH) is a genre of speculative fiction of stories in which one or more historical events occur and are resolved differently than in real life. As conjecture based upon historical fact, alte ...

of Ill Bethisad, where it is one of the official languages of th
Republic of the Two Crowns
In 2005 Venedic underwent a major revision due to a better understanding of Latin and Slavic sound and grammar changes. In the process, the author was assisted by the Polish linguist Grzegorz Jagodziński. The dictionary on the WWW page linked below contains over 4000 entries. The language has acquired some media attention in Poland, including several online news articles and an article in the monthly '.

Spelling and pronunciation

Venedic uses the

Polish alphabet The Polish alphabet ( Polish: ''alfabet polski'', ''abecadło'') is the script of the Polish language, the basis for the Polish system of orthography. It is based on the Latin alphabet but includes certain letters with diacritics: the ''kre ...

, which consists of the following 32 letters : :A Ą B C Ć D E Ę F G H I J K L Ł M N Ń O Ó P R S Ś T U W Y Z Ź Ż Also, there are seven digraphs, representing five phonemes (ch being identical with h, and rz with ż): :Ch Cz Dz Dź Dż Rz Sz Pronunciation is exactly as in Polish. Stress almost always falls on the penultimate

syllable A syllable is a unit of organization for a sequence of speech sounds typically made up of a syllable nucleus (most often a vowel) with optional initial and final margins (typically, consonants). Syllables are often considered the phonological ...

. A

preposition Prepositions and postpositions, together called adpositions (or broadly, in traditional grammar, simply prepositions), are a class of words used to express spatial or temporal relations (''in'', ''under'', ''towards'', ''before'') or mark various ...

and a

pronoun In linguistics and grammar, a pronoun ( abbreviated ) is a word or a group of words that one may substitute for a noun or noun phrase. Pronouns have traditionally been regarded as one of the parts of speech, but some modern theorists would not ...

are generally treated as one word, and therefore, when the pronoun has only one syllable, the preposition is stressed. (In theory, the construction of Venedic enables relatively easy construction of other "Slavo-Romance" languages. The Romance "mirror" for

Czech Czech may refer to: * Anything from or related to the Czech Republic, a country in Europe ** Czech language ** Czechs, the people of the area ** Czech culture ** Czech cuisine * One of three mythical brothers, Lech, Czech, and Rus' Places * Czech, ...

, for example, is called "Šležan"

another for Slovak language, Slovak, although somewhat looser than the other two as it uses a partially

Hungarian orthography Hungarian orthography ( hu, helyesírás, lit=correct writing, link=no) consists of rules defining the standard written form of the Hungarian language. It includes the spelling of lexical words, proper nouns and foreign words (loanwords) in themse ...

, is called "Slevan"

Nominals

Venedic does not have article (grammar), articles. This is a feature that distinguishes Venedic from all natural Romance languages. The reason for this is that

showed only a rudimentary tendency toward the formation of articles, whereas they are absent in Polish and most other Slavic languages. Nouns, pronouns and adjectives can have three

genders Gender is the range of characteristics pertaining to femininity and masculinity and differentiating between them. Depending on the context, this may include sex-based social structures (i.e. gender roles) and gender identity. Most cultures us ...

(masculine, feminine, neuter), two

numbers A number is a mathematical object used to count, measure, and label. The original examples are the natural numbers 1, 2, 3, 4, and so forth. Numbers can be represented in language with number words. More universally, individual numbers can ...

(singular, plural), and three cases: * the ''direct case'': used for both the subject and the

direct object In linguistics, an object is any of several types of arguments. In subject-prominent, nominative-accusative languages such as English, a transitive verb typically distinguishes between its subject and any of its objects, which can include b ...

of a sentence. In the sentence: ''Miej poterz'' leże ''libier'' "My father reads a book", ''Miej poterz'' "my father" and ''libier'' "a book" are both in the direct case. * the ''

genitive case In grammar, the genitive case ( abbreviated ) is the grammatical case that marks a word, usually a noun, as modifying another word, also usually a noun—thus indicating an attributive relationship of one noun to the other noun. A genitive can a ...

'': used to indicate possession, for example: siedź ''potrze'' "''my father's'' chair", rzejna ''Anglie'' "the queen ''of England''". * the ''

dative case In grammar, the dative case ( abbreviated , or sometimes when it is a core argument) is a grammatical case used in some languages to indicate the recipient or beneficiary of an action, as in "Maria Jacobo potum dedit", Latin for "Maria gave Jacob ...

'': used to indicate the

indirect object In linguistics, an object is any of several types of arguments. In subject-prominent, nominative-accusative languages such as English, a transitive verb typically distinguishes between its subject and any of its objects, which can include but ...

of a sentence, for example: Da ''mi'' ił libier "Give ''me'' that book", Da ''mi'' łu "Give it ''to me''". Venedic also has a ''

vocative case In grammar, the vocative case ( abbreviated ) is a grammatical case which is used for a noun that identifies a person (animal, object, etc.) being addressed, or occasionally for the noun modifiers (determiners, adjectives, participles, and nume ...

''. In most cases it has the same form as the direct case, but there are exceptions: O potrze! "Oh father!" In earlier version of Venedic, it used to have nominative and accusative cases, but later merged to form the direct case. Nouns can be subdivided into four

declension In linguistics, declension (verb: ''to decline'') is the changing of the form of a word, generally to express its syntactic function in the sentence, by way of some inflection. Declensions may apply to nouns, pronouns, adjectives, adverbs, and ...

s. They are similar to the declension system in Latin: * The ''first declension'' are all words on -a, the vast majority of which are

feminine Femininity (also called womanliness) is a set of attributes, behaviors, and roles generally associated with women and girls. Femininity can be understood as socially constructed, and there is also some evidence that some behaviors considered fe ...

; * the ''second declension'' are mostly masculine and neuter words ending with a

consonant In articulatory phonetics, a consonant is a speech sound that is articulated with complete or partial closure of the vocal tract. Examples are and pronounced with the lips; and pronounced with the front of the tongue; and pronounced w ...

. It is a mixture of the second and fourth declension in Latin; * the ''third declension'' are mostly feminine words ending with a soft consonant; * the ''fourth declension'' are words on -ej, it matches the Latin fifth declension. However, the author treated the nouns with the 4th declension ending as irregular, see also the sections below.

Declension endings

''Hard'' and ''soft'' in this context are suffixes that are decided by final consonants, either hard (remaining consonants, like ''-n'', ''-c'', or ''-d'') or soft (

postalveolar Postalveolar or post-alveolar consonants are consonants articulated with the tongue near or touching the ''back'' of the alveolar ridge. Articulation is farther back in the mouth than the alveolar consonants, which are at the ridge itself, but n ...

s or palatal-like sounds, like ''-l'', ''-ń'', or ''-rz''). Endings in ''-ia-'', ''-ie-'', and ''-i-'' are always affected by regular changes below:

Irregular nouns

There is a number of irregular nouns. Not just completely irregular nouns on the table below, some nouns have less predictable oblique stems (the rest stem other than nominative singular), as in above ''moszkieł'', gen. ''moszklu''. However, nouns with the last vowel ''ó'' regularly shorten to ''o'' (''sórz'', ''sorze'').

Adjectives

Adjective In linguistics, an adjective ( abbreviated ) is a word that generally modifies a noun or noun phrase or describes its referent. Its semantic role is to change information given by the noun. Traditionally, adjectives were considered one of the ...

s always agree in gender, number and case with the noun they modify. They can be placed both before and after it. Unlike nouns, the adjective declension are always consistent and there is no distinctions in declension classes.

Further derivatives of adjectives

The comparatives and superlatives are formed by the suffixes ''-ierzy'' and ''-ieśmy'', respectively, to the adjective's stem. However, the adjectives below have irregular comparative (second row) and superlative (third row) forms: * ''bony'' "good", ''mielerzy'', ''oćmy'' * ''mały'' "bad", ''piejerzy'', ''pieśmy'' * ''grędzy'' "big", ''mojerzy'', ''mośmy'' * ''łonięcy'' "far", ''łonierzy'', ''łonieśmy'' * ''pieskły'' "small", ''mnierzy'', ''mnieśmy'' * ''wiekły'' "old", ''wieszczerzy'', ''wieszcześmy'' * ''jałty'' "high", ''sprzerzy'', ''sprześmy'' * ''mołt'' "many/much", ''pły'' "more", ''płerześmy'' "most" Adverbial forms are either done by removing the ''-y''/''-i'' from the root or adding the suffix ''-mięć'' into the root (''kłary'', ''kłar''/''kłaramięć'' "warmly"). There are no rules which forms are preferred, but the latter usually expresses how something is done. For the longer form, ''-amięć'' is used after hard consonants while ''-iemięć'' used after soft consonants. Adjectives in ''-ły'' use the suffix ''-lemięć'' (i.e. ''-ł-'' + ''-iemięć''), except for the adjectives ''biały'', ''mały'', ''miły'', ''siegły'' which are always suffixed with the former (''biały'' → ''białamieć''). The adjective ''bony'' "good" has an irregular adverbial derivation: ''bień''. The comparatives and superlatives can also have adverbial forms, by substituting ''-ierzy'' and ''-ieśmy'' with ''-iu'' and ''-ieśmie''. Verbal participles always remove their last vowels. The predicative forms are the same as masculine and neuter direct singular forms, except that sometimes the suffix ''-y''/''-i'' is removed, but this predicative forming is somewhat archaic and the resulting forms should not be confused with adverbs.

Pronouns

Unlike nouns, adjectives and other pronouns,

personal pronoun Personal pronouns are pronouns that are associated primarily with a particular grammatical person – first person (as ''I''), second person (as ''you''), or third person (as ''he'', ''she'', ''it'', ''they''). Personal pronouns may also take dif ...

s do not use the direct case, but preserve the distinction between the

nominative In grammar, the nominative case ( abbreviated ), subjective case, straight case or upright case is one of the grammatical cases of a noun or other part of speech, which generally marks the subject of a verb or (in Latin and formal variants of Eng ...

and

accusative The accusative case ( abbreviated ) of a noun is the grammatical case used to mark the direct object of a transitive verb. In the English language, the only words that occur in the accusative case are pronouns: 'me,' 'him,' 'her,' 'us,' and ‘ ...

instead. They are displayed in the following chart:

Verbs

Verb A verb () is a word ( part of speech) that in syntax generally conveys an action (''bring'', ''read'', ''walk'', ''run'', ''learn''), an occurrence (''happen'', ''become''), or a state of being (''be'', ''exist'', ''stand''). In the usual descr ...

s are inflected for person, number, mood and tense. Because Latin and Proto-Slavonic had virtually identical person/number inflections, Venedic and Polish do also. Venedic verbs have the following moods and tenses: :''

infinitive Infinitive ( abbreviated ) is a linguistics term for certain verb forms existing in many languages, most often used as non-finite verbs. As with many linguistic concepts, there is not a single definition applicable to all languages. The word is de ...

'' – jemar "to love" :''

present tense The present tense ( abbreviated or ) is a grammatical tense whose principal function is to locate a situation or event in the present time. The present tense is used for actions which are happening now. In order to explain and understand present ...

'' – jemu "I love, I am loving" :''

imperfect The imperfect ( abbreviated ) is a verb form that combines past tense (reference to a past time) and imperfective aspect (reference to a continuing or repeated event or state). It can have meanings similar to the English "was walking" or "used to ...

'' – jemawa "I loved" :'' perfect'' – jemie " I have loved" :''

future tense In grammar, a future tense ( abbreviated ) is a verb form that generally marks the event described by the verb as not having happened yet, but expected to happen in the future. An example of a future tense form is the French ''aimera'', meaning ...

(

imperfective The imperfective (abbreviated or more ambiguously ) is a grammatical aspect used to describe ongoing, habitual, repeated, or similar semantic roles, whether that situation occurs in the past, present, or future. Although many languages have a ge ...

)'' – joru jemar "I will love, I will be loving" :''

(

perfective The perfective aspect ( abbreviated ), sometimes called the aoristic aspect, is a grammatical aspect that describes an action viewed as a simple whole; i.e., a unit without interior composition. The perfective aspect is distinguished from the i ...

)'' – jemaru "I will have loved" :''

conditional mood The conditional mood ( abbreviated ) is a grammatical mood used in conditional sentences to express a proposition whose validity is dependent on some condition, possibly counterfactual. It may refer to a distinct verb form that expresses the condit ...

'' – jemarsi "I would love, I would have loved" :''

imperative mood The imperative mood is a grammatical mood that forms a command or request. The imperative mood is used to demand or require that an action be performed. It is usually found only in the present tense, second person. To form the imperative mood, ...

'' – jem "love!" :''

present active participle In linguistics, a participle () (from Latin ' a "sharing, partaking") is a nonfinite verb form that has some of the characteristics and functions of both verbs and adjectives. More narrowly, ''participle'' has been defined as "a word derived fro ...

'' – jemęć "loving" :'' perfect passive participle'' – jematy "beloved"

Regular verbs

Word list

Venedic vocabulary as published on the internet consists of over 4000 words. Because of how it was developed from Vulgar Latin, Venedic words are closest to

Italian Italian(s) may refer to: * Anything of, from, or related to the people of Italy over the centuries ** Italians, an ethnic group or simply a citizen of the Italian Republic or Italian Kingdom ** Italian language, a Romance language *** Regional Ita ...

, but with phonologic differences from Italian which may be compared to those distinguishing

Portuguese Portuguese may refer to: * anything of, from, or related to the country and nation of Portugal ** Portuguese cuisine, traditional foods ** Portuguese language, a Romance language *** Portuguese dialects, variants of the Portuguese language ** Portu ...

from

Spanish Spanish might refer to: * Items from or related to Spain: **Spaniards are a nation and ethnic group indigenous to Spain **Spanish language, spoken in Spain and many Latin American countries **Spanish cuisine Other places * Spanish, Ontario, Can ...

. The following charts of 30 shows what Venedic looks like in comparison to a number of other Romance languages; note that unlike

, where one-quarter of the words resembled Welsh words, only four Venedic words (not counting ''szkoła'', borrowed into Polish from Latin) resemble Polish words, due to the Slavic languages' greater distance from the Romance languages compared to the Celtic languages:

Example text

The ''

Lord's Prayer The Lord's Prayer, also called the Our Father or Pater Noster, is a central Christian prayer which Jesus taught as the way to pray. Two versions of this prayer are recorded in the gospels: a longer form within the Sermon on the Mount in the Gosp ...

'' in Venedic:

''Potrze nostry, kwały jesz en czałór, sąciewkaty si twej numię.''
''Owień twej rzeń.''
''Foca si twa włątać, komód en czału szyk i sur cierze.''
''Da nów odzej nostry pań kocidzany.''
''I dziemieć nów nostrze dziewta, komód i nu dziemiećmy swór dziewtorzór.''
''I nie endycz nosz en ciętaceń, uta liwra nosz dzie mału.''
''Nąk twie są rzeń i pociestać i głurza, o siąprz. Amen.''

Article 1 of the ''

Universal Declaration of Human Rights The Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR) is an international document adopted by the United Nations General Assembly that enshrines the rights and freedoms of all human beings. Drafted by a UN committee chaired by Eleanor Roosevelt ...

'' in Venedic: :''Tuci ludzie noszczę sie liwrzy i jekwali z rześpiece świej dzińtacie i swór drzecór. Li są dotaci ku rocenie i koszczęce i dziewię ocar piara wyniałtru en jenie frotrzeńtacie.'' Article 1 of the ''Universal Declaration of Human Rights'' in English: :''All human beings are born free and equal in dignity and rights. They are endowed with reason and conscience and should act towards one another in a spirit of brotherhood.''

Similar languages

In the Ill Bethisad universe, there are two other languages which are related to Venedic: Slevan, which is spoken in that universe's counterpart of

Slovakia Slovakia (; sk, Slovensko ), officially the Slovak Republic ( sk, Slovenská republika, links=no ), is a landlocked country in Central Europe. It is bordered by Poland to the north, Ukraine to the east, Hungary to the south, Austria to the ...

; and Šležan, or Silesian, spoken in

Silesia Silesia (, also , ) is a historical region of Central Europe that lies mostly within Poland, with small parts in the Czech Silesia, Czech Republic and Germany. Its area is approximately , and the population is estimated at around 8,000,000. S ...

. Šležan mirrors

br>
in much the same way Venedic does Polish, whereas Slevan, despite being located in Slovakia, is more similar to Hungarian language, Hungarian and Croatian in its orthography. (The Romance "mirror" of Slovak is a dialect of Slevan spoken in

Moravia Moravia ( , also , ; cs, Morava ; german: link=yes, Mähren ; pl, Morawy ; szl, Morawa; la, Moravia) is a historical region in the east of the Czech Republic and one of three historical Czech lands, with Bohemia and Czech Silesia. The ...

called Moravľaňec.) (As if in compensation, Croatian in Ill Bethisad is forced to be noticeably different from

Serbian Serbian may refer to: * someone or something related to Serbia, a country in Southeastern Europe * someone or something related to the Serbs, a South Slavic people * Serbian language * Serbian names See also * * * Old Serbian (disambiguation ...

by being made to resemble the now-virtually-missing Czech and Slovak

) Additionally, in the famous ''

The Adventures of Tintin ''The Adventures of Tintin'' (french: Les Aventures de Tintin ) is a series of 24 bande dessinée#Formats, ''bande dessinée'' albums created by Belgians, Belgian cartoonist Georges Remi, who wrote under the pen name Hergé. The series was one ...

'' series, the fictional language

Syldavian Syldavian is a fictional West Germanic language created by Hergé as the national language of Syldavia, a fictional Balkan kingdom that serves as a major setting in many of ''The Adventures of Tintin'' stories. Hergé modeled the language on Br ...

may be thought of as the Germanic counterpart of Venedic, showing what Polish might have looked like if it were a Germanic and not a Slavic language. The nearly extinct

Wymysorys language Wymysorys (, or ), also known as Vilamovian or Wilamowicean, is a West Germanic language spoken by the ethnic Vilamovian minority in the small town of Wilamowice, Poland ( in Wymysorys, ), on the border between Silesia and Lesser Poland, nea ...

provides another real-life example of this. Ill Bethisad also has such a "Slavo-Germanic" language: Bohemian, spoken in that universe's

Czech Republic The Czech Republic, or simply Czechia, is a landlocked country in Central Europe. Historically known as Bohemia, it is bordered by Austria to the south, Germany to the west, Poland to the northeast, and Slovakia to the southeast. The ...

, developed by amateur

linguist Jan Havliš.

Citations

Notes

References

Bibliography

*Tilman Berger
Vom Erfinden Slavischer Sprachen
in: M. Okuka & U. Schweier, eds., ''Germano-Slavistische Beiträge. Festschrift für P. Rehder zum 65. Geburtstag'', München 2004, pp. 19–28. Cites Venedic as an example of Slavic-based extrapolated conlangs. *Michał Foerster

in: ''Esencja'', no. 07/2008 (LXXIX), August–September 2008. *Dorota Gut

("New Language"), in: ''Wiedza i Życie'', February 2004. *Jakub Kowalski
Wymyślone języki
on: ''Relaz.pl'', 2 March 2007. *

Stefan Michael Newerkla Stefan Michael Newerkla (; born October 7, 1972) is an Austrian linguist, Slavist and philologist. He has taught as Professor of West Slavic Linguistics at the University of Vienna since 2004 and has been Full Member (Fellow) of the Austrian A ...

, "Auf den Spuren des ř in den slawischen Sprachen und rund um den Globus", in: Johannes Reinhart & Tilmann Reuther, eds., ''Ethnoslavica: Festschrift für Herrn Univ. Prof. Dr. Gerhard Neweklowsky zum 65. Geburtstag; Beiträge des internationalen Symposiums des Instituts für Slawistik der Universität Klagenfurt in Zusammenarbeit mit dem Institut für Slawistik der Universität Wien, Klagenfurt, 7.-8. April 2006'', München-Wien: Otto Sagner, 2006, p. 212. *Paul J.J. Payack, ''A Million Words and Counting: How Global English Is Rewriting the World'', 2008, p. 193.
Romance glossary
A list of common words in all Romance languages, including Venedic and Brithenig.

External links

Wenedyk
{{conlang Artistic languages Fusional languages Ill Bethisad Constructed languages introduced in the 2000s 2002 introductions Thought experiments Constructed languages Italo-Dalmatian languages