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Skundavisk, also known by its anglicized name Shoundavish, is a Germanic constructed language created by Mohamed Kaseb . Designed as a West Germanic language, it has been developed from the Old Saxon dialects spoken in what is now Schleswig and Holstein in the early Middle Ages, and is thus closely related to English, Dutch, Low Saxon, the Frisian languages and (High) German. Shoundavish also underwent a slight North Germanic influence due to contacts with the Nordic countries, which is reflected by the presence of Scandinavian loanwords in its vocabulary, especially from Old Norse and Early Modern Danish. Consequently, despite being a West Germanic language, Shoundavish shares some similarities with Danish, Swedish and Norwegian, especially in phonology and vocabulary.

Shoundavish didn't take part in the High German consonant shift, and has been designed to be one of the most conservative Germanic languages regarding the consonants. Due to its preservation of the sounds /θ/, /ð/ and /w/, along with a large common vocabulary, Shoundavish is closer to English than most Continental Germanic languages are. However, while English borrowed many words from the Romance languages (especially French), the Shoundavish vocabulary remained mostly Germanic, and very few words were borrowed from non-Germanic sources. Therefore, words like "biology" or "literature" are built using Germanic roots instead of Latin or Greek ones. While being very conservative in its phonology and lexicon, Shoundavish didn't preserve the complex grammar of Proto-Germanic, and the medieval case system has been reduced to scattered remnants in the modern language.

Development
The earliest developments of Shoundavish started in 2008, but at this stage, the language was only a rough mix of Dutch and Scandinavian. In 2016, Shoundavish was refounded completely, and a full set of sound shifts were defined to yield consistent word derivation from Proto-Germanic to Modern Shoundavish. The language started being promoted on Facebook constructed language communities through linguistic lessons, translated texts and memes in late 2017, and a page dedicated to Shoundavish was created in May 2019 . As of 2023, the page has more than 800 followers.

Classification and dialects
Shoundavish belongs to the West Germanic branch of the Germanic languages. It bears many similarities with the Anglo-Frisian, Low Saxon and Low Franconian languages, which include English, Frisian, Low German and Dutch among others.

There are two main dialects of Shoundavish: Western Shoundavish and Eastern Shoundavish. These main dialectal groups are further divided into subdialects that differ in grammar, phonology, vocabulary and syntax, but are still mutually intelligible to a great extent. The written standard is based on the dialect of Kijl, a Western Shoundavish variety, and, inside the Shoundavish conworld, is supposed to be understood everywhere in the country. However, outside the region of Kijl, standard Shoundavish is rarely spoken, and the dialects are still widely used, unlike what happened in most West European countries. The dialect of Sweren, an Eastern Shoundavish variety, is also used as an informal written standard in the Eastern part of Shoundafland.

Fictional history
The name Shoundavish comes from an old Germanic compound name: *skunduz habai, litterally "fast way to the sea" (the word *habai is the genitive of *haba and is related to English "haven"), referring to the original homeland of the Shoundaves between the North and the Baltic Seas. The earliest stage of the language is Old Shoundavish, which emerged in the 6th century from North Sea Germanic dialects, near the original homeland of the Angles, the Saxons and the Frisians. At that time the language was, like the other early Germanic languages, highly inflected. The original four cases of Proto-Germanic were all preserved, but were quite simplified. Old Shoundavish was divided into two main dialects, Old West Shoundavish and Old East Shoundavish, which both had their own written conventions.

By the 12th century the language had evolved significantly and was entering the Middle Shoundavish period, during which many vowels in unstressed syllables were reduced (ex. Old Shoundavish daga, sunno, friunds, drivan > Middle Shoundavish dag, sunne, friend, driven). The Middle Shoundavish vocabulary is quite close to that of Modern Shoundavish, but the pronunciation was different and the adjectives and articles were still inflected, like in Modern German. Middle Shoundavish wasn't a unified language, but rather a dialectal continuum, with the varieties of the five main Hanseatic cities (Flensburg, Kijl, Hamburg, Lyvig and Sweren) serving as loose written standards. The varieties of Kijl and Sweren also served as lingua francas inside the Hanseatic league, and had a huge impact on the Scandinavian languages (Danish, Swedish and Norwegian), whose modern vocabulary contains around 30% of Shoundavish loanwords, either Western Shoundavish (Kijlisk) or Eastern Shoundavish (Swerenisk). By the 15th century, the dialects of Shoundavish had diverged quite a lot from each other, and each dialect developed its own distinct pholonogial and grammatical characteristics.

The 16th century saw a drastic simplification of the grammar, all the cases disappeared (except the very formal genitive case which survived in the written language) and the use of the subjunctive mood declined. Several vowels shifted during this period, especially the long vowels which split into diphthongs or were significantly modified (ex. Middle Shoundavish driven /dri:βən/, hus /hu:s/, stan /sta:n/ > Modern Shoundavish drijven /drɪjβən/, hous /hows/, stån /sto:n/). Since Sleswijk was under Danish rule during this time, Shoundavish borrowed a few words from Danish, and adopted a Scandinavian-looking orthography using the letters å, æ, ø and y. Since then, the language didn't undergo any significant change, therefore the 17th century texts almost don't differ with actual texts in style, grammar and vocabulary.

While the other Germanic languages were adopting many new scientific and technical words, which were coined from Latin and Greek roots, Shoundavish coined its own scientific vocabulary using Germanic roots. For example, words like biology, physics or gene are translated as lijfkunthe, byrdkunthe and erfthe (literally "life-knowledge", "nature-knowledge" and "heritage" with a "-the" suffix related to English "-th"). It is therefore possible to write a Shoundavish text dealing with science or technology without any loanword from Latin or Greek, as it is the case in Icelandic.

Consonants
Overall, Shoundavish has been designed as a substantially conservative language regarding the consonants. Beside not being affected by the High German consonant shift, the conlang didn't undergo the/w/ > /v/ and /θ/ > /d/ shifts, unlike most Continental West Germanic languages like Dutch and German, which makes it closer to English in this aspect. Shoundavish also has preserved the bilabial consonants /ɸ/ and /β/, though, in the fictional world where the language exists, it is a distinct Kijlisk feature. Most other varieties have shifted /ɸ/ to /f/, and /β/ to either /v/ or /b/. Another distinct feature is the palatalisation of /k/ and /g/ to /c/ and /ɟ/, respectively, before front vowels.

Vowels
The Shoundavish vowels have undergone slightly more shifts than the consonants. Similarly to what happened in English, Dutch and German but in to a smaller extent, the long vowels /i:/, /u:/ and /y:/ have shifted to diphtongs /ɪj/ (spelled ij), /oʊ/ (spelled ou) and /øj/ (spelled øj), respectively. The other major vowel shift is the backing of /a:/ to /o:/ (spelled å)

Phonotactics
Some Shoundavish phonemes are written by combining two characters. Some of these combinations are remnants of older consonant clusters that were then simplied (like sk, formerly pronouned /sk/ before shifting to /ʃ/), while others are simply due to the limitations of the Latin script (like th and gh).

● /g/+/h/=/x/ or /χ/

● /n/+/g/=/ŋ/

● /s/+k/=/ʃ/

● /t/+/h/=/θ/ or /ð/

● /h/+/w/=/ʍ/

Articles
The old Germanic case system has been drastically reduced, and only the genitive case has survived, while all other forms have merged into a common case. While Shoundavish still distinguishes the three genders of Proto-Germanic, the reduction of unstressed syllables has made them barely distinct. Consequently, there is no distinction anymore between the masculine and feminine genders in the case of definite nouns, and between the masculine and neuter genders in the case of indefinite nouns. The surviving genitive case still distinguishes masculine/neuter and feminine forms.

Nouns
While nouns can be either masculine, feminine or neuter, the gender distinction is chiefly reflected in the determiners and vestigial adjective endings, not on the nouns themselves. An exception is the genitive case marker -s, which is only appended to masculine and neuter nouns:

● the hund = the dog > thes hunds = of the dog

● the mous = the mouse > ther mous = of the mouse

● the skåp = the sheep > thes skåps = of the sheep

An important remnant of the old Germanic noun class system is the way plurals are formed. Consequently, Shoundavish has five main plural markers, depending on which Germanic class the noun comes from. Some of these classes contain nouns of only one gender, while others contain nouns of all three genders.

Verbs
As in most Germanic languages, Shoundavish only has two simple tenses, the present and the preterite. All the other tenses (present perfect, future, continuous present, etc) are formed with an auxillary verb combined with the infinitive, the present or the past participle. The way the past is formed from the present root depends on the conjugation pattern in which the verb lies. There are five main conjugation patterns in Shoundavish : strong, weak, mixed, modal and irregular. Shoundavish also distinguishes three moods : indicative, subjunctive and imperative.

Strong verbs
Strong verbs are characterized by the shift of the main vowel to distinguish the present and the past roots, as in English sing-sang-sung. The seven strong verb classes of Proto-Germanic have been preserved and still follow predictable patterns.

▷ Class 1 strong verbs

▷ Class 2 strong verbs

▷ Class 3 strong verbs

▷ Class 4 strong verbs

▷ Class 5 strong verbs

▷ Class 6 strong verbs

▷ Class 7 strong verbs

Weak verbs
Weak verbs are characterized by the addition of a dental suffix to indicate the past tense, as in English want-wanted.

Mixed verbs
Mixed verbs are characterized by the combination of a vowel shift and the addition of a dental suffix to indicate the past tense, as in English feel-felt. In some cases, consonant shifts may also happen, as in English think-thought.

▷ Mixed verbs without consonant shift

▷ Mixed verbs with consonant shift

Modal verbs
Modal verbs are descended from the older preterite-present verbs of Proto-Germanic, like English can or may. They are characterized by a present conjugation pattern similar to the past conjugation of strong verbs. As in most Germanic languages, they express modality (will, probability, obligation etc) and can be used as auxillary, notably to form the future tense (like English will and shall).

Irregular verbs
Irregular verbs are verbs that follow their own conjugation pattern. As in most other Germanic languages, this class contains the most frequent verbs, like have, be, go or do, and often involve suppletion.

Adjectives
Attribute adjectives agree with nouns in gender, number, case and definiteness. While this formulation suggests that adjectives work as in Proto-Germanic, the older inflection system has been heavily eroded by the reduction of unstress vowels, and many of these distinctions are vestigial. Predicative adjectives are on the other hand invariable. The inflection marks of the adjectives are given by the following table. Strong declension correspond to indefinite nouns, while weak declension correspond to definite nouns.

Pronouns
The following table lists the Shoundavish personal pronouns.

Comparison with other Germanic languages
As a West Germanic language with slight North Germanic influences, Shoundavish shares numerous cognates with the other Germanic laguages. The following table compares cognates in several different Germanic languages and Shoundavish. In some cases, the meanings may not be identical in each language.

Loanwords
Unlike most other Germanic languages, Shoundavish deliberately avoids Latin and Greek loanwords, and relies mostly on Germanic roots to create new vocabulary. Consequently, most Shoundavish words are of Germanic origin, either inherited directly from Proto-West Germanic or borrowed from North Germanic languages (most often Old Norse and Early Modern Danish). The following table lists examples of Latin or Greek loanwords in English and German, which are translated using Germanic roots in Shoundavish.

The non-Germanic loanwords present in Shoundavish can be divided in two main categories :

● Loanwords dating back from the Proto-Germanic era and attested in most other Germanic languages, e. g., mylle (mill, from Latin molīnum), buter (butter, from Ancient Greek βούτῡρον (boútūron)), ijren (iron, from Proto-Celtic *īsarnom).

● Loanwords created specially for Shoundavish and fitted to Shoundavish phonology, e. g., kroktel (crocodile, from Latin crocodilus), faver (paper, from Ancient Greek πάπυρος (pápuros)), wijr (virus, from Latin vīrus).

The phonological fitting process depends on the era when the word was borrowed. Consequently, for words borrowed during the Pre-Germanic times, Grimm's law applies, as can be seen on faver. For later loanwords, only unstressed vowel reduction and some further shifts are applied to yield natural-sounding Shoundavish words, as in kroktel and wijr. More information about Shoundavish vocabulary can be found on the Contionary website.

Sample text
The following text is a translation of Grimms' tale The Fox and the Geese.

''The foks kamm eens up eene weethe, hwar eene herde skøner fetter gænse satt, than laghte hi and sagde "ik komme als geroopen, ji sittet winig bij elkantheren, so kann ik eene after the anthere freten." The gænse kakelden af skrekk, sprangen up, fengen an te jåmeren and klæglijk um here lijve te bidden. Meden the foks wolde over neets høren and sagde "thar is nee genåthe, ji mootet sterven."

''Endlijk took eene sijn gante mood and sagde "skullen wi armen gænse unser junge friske lijf than though laten, so skenk uns eene eenigste gunst and orloof uns nogh een gebed, tharmid sterven wi neet in synde : tharafter willen wi uns in eene reewe stellen, tharmid kant thou eewe the fettste outsøken."

'' "Ja," sagde the foks "thet is fornømstig, and is een froom wynsk: bedet, ik will so lange wachten." So feng the erste een reght lang gebed an, jet eewe "gak! gak!" and als si though neet uphålden wolde, wachtete the tweede neet, til thet kerd an her kamm, sunderen feng ook an "gak! gak!" The thridde and fierthe folgden hir, and sån kakelden si alle tegader.

And hwann si mid thet gebed over sind, skall thet mærken wijder ortåld beun, si beden jethough gantertijd nogh eewe forth.

English translation :

The fox once came to a meadow in which was a flock of fine fat geese, on which he smiled and said, "I come in the nick of time, you are sitting together quite beautifully, so that I can eat you up one after the other." The geese cackled with terror, sprang up, and began to wail and beg piteously for their lives. But the fox would listen to nothing, and said, "There is no mercy to be had! You must die." At length one of them took heart and said, "If we poor geese are to yield up our vigorous young lives, show us the only possible favour and allow us one more prayer, that we may not die in our sins, and then we will place ourselves in a row, so that you can always pick yourself out the fattest." - "Yes," said the fox, "that is reasonable, and a pious request. Pray away, I will wait till you are done." Then the first began a good long prayer, for ever saying, "Ga! Ga!" and as she would make no end, the second did not wait until her turn came, but began also, "Ga! Ga!" The third and fourth followed her, and soon they were all cackling together.

When they have done praying, the story shall be continued further, but at present they are still praying without stopping."