Proto-Germanic - help me please!

[cmacq]

It can be prononce Swa'-Bows, in english they're the historic Swabians

[blitzkrieg80]

concerning Proto-Germanic pronunciation: long vowels have been marked for a reason, sorry if my attitude is bad on this, but why else would there be long vowels, although character names and map names remain unaltered because of time constraints and game mechanic reasons.

I don't have lots of time to go into the many disputed elements of Proto-Germanic, suffice to say that there are many letters such as pointed out in 'd'/'th' that academics will debate into the future, since so much MUST be reconstructed to exist at all...

in-game standardization-wise, [x] is represented by 'h' whether or not it is much more complex ('ch' in German) in sound with many derivatives, similarly [þ] is represented by 'th', and [đ] is represented by 'd'... and there are some problems with this, such as with the name Wōđanaz which definitely changes to a 'th' rather than 'd' sound in Old Norse Óðinn... but oh well, it took quite a while to do what has been done, so I'm not worried about it.

in the future, fans can expect a pronunciation guide in the unit descriptions as well as a published guide accompanying the voice mod itself, but
it makes no sense for me to spend time on this atm, when the voice mod itself needs development, but i will try to help when possible.

for general reference, pronunciation of vowels in terms of Received Standard English:

a as the first vowel of 'aha'
ā as the second vowel in 'aha'
e as in 'bet'
ē approx. as in 'hate', but a pure vowel
i as in 'tin'
ī as in 'seen'
o as in 'cough'
ō approx. as in 'so', but a pure vowel
u as in 'pull' [not 'hut']
ū as in 'cool'

like Germanic language in general, all consonants must be pronounced.

I’ll try to add more when I have time. (I would like to discuss this stuff, like i said, i just don't have time currently... eventually i'd like to speak on [x] and [þ], because it's really interesting... Wikipedia can inform you for now although I by no means claim it to be entirely accurate.)

Swēƀōz = (something like) Suay-bohz

[mlc82]

I'm with the guy at the top of thread here, also wondering how in the world you pronounce "Casse".

[Landwalker]

Thanks for the quick-guide, blitzkrieg. Much appreciated!

Cheers.

[blitzkrieg80]

np... i forgot to add:

đruxtiz would probably have more of a 'ch' sound since it probably comes from the verb đreuǥanan "to campaign" originally, from which the new mercenary term is also derived: đruǥulaz: a brilliant idea by Swabian where in Germanic- verb + [vowel] + 'l' = 'adjective tending to perform the action of the verb', such as flugulaz 'swift', 'apt to fly'

tō is a post-position (prepositions were used commonly in Proto-Germanic in the post position), literally "to" in Modern English and the word from which it has descended from, but it can also mean 'for', 'into' and 'as a', such as in Temran ƀrewwanđe tō "Building for Brewing" (Temran 'Timber', since house is actually an Indo-Iranian loanword and 'home' doesn't equate with building exactly, even way back when)


I wonder how Casse is pronounced also

[Centurio Nixalsverdrus]

Thank you blitzkrieg. That helps very much!

For some buildings I think "the guy took the english word and added a -z" (I know it's not the case), for example in "Wellanz andi Dikaz" - Wells and Dikes. At least most of the words seem to be very near to modern English, much more than to modern German.

Oh one thing I wondered about: The level 4 government is Leudanz Waldan Frije (not exactly), and level 3 is Leudanz Waldan Semifrije. I understand that as "Leute walten frei", "people administer themselves" or "half-themselves". But isn't "semi" a latin word of greek origin?

[blitzkrieg80]

the reason the words seem similar to English is because English is a very Germanic language... in fact, Old English (aka Saxon, and very close to Low German) is more Germanic in many ways than Old High German, because it developed farther removed in the Northern lowlands, where High German was set amidst a hub of language traffic and it reflects it in many of its loanwords... English has its own horde of borrowed words from Latin, French, ect. though, besides becoming totally weird (in the context of its related family members) as an syntactical language and tossing gender and inflection to the wind, yet keeping strong verb forms and irregular plurals, just to keep things confusing ... English and German actually have many common terms like stark, swart, fast (as in hold fast), although much of it is considered arachaic these days (yet slang is making a comeback to Old Germanic, with -z and -a endings!) but the commonality is pretty cool and makes learning easy for both... Dutch and the various Scandinavian languages shouldn't be forgotten either Ja, mann!

Excellent question, I thought that myself, but it actually comes from the common Indo-European root from which Latin, Greek and Sanskrit have cognates. The reason it is not borrowed also, is that it's not exactly "semi" as we know it, but means 'half'/'incomplete' which is the same definition, but i don't think it can be applied to a circle

btw, frijaz means "one's own" also (abstraction in relationship between the idea of freemen belonging and participating in the tribe)... anyways, so it's: "Half-one's-own Authority/Dominion of Subjugated People" or "Half-free Authority of Subjugated People" ('subjugated people' is implied in leudi, a term like folk which originated in "army/host" but changed to encompass a more abstract relationship of tribes/peoples)