Tone introduced to West Germanic

Although I have multiple sources for West Germanic vocabulary in-keeping with the policy of linguistic purism, it is sometimes still difficult to find an appropriate word. I needed a word to translate 'gas'. German and Dutch use 'gas'. Indeed, English took the word from Dutch, but it is probably ultimately from the Greek word 'khaos', which means 'empty space'.

Old English does not have a word for 'gas'. So I have now ruled out two methods of vocabulary-sourcing. I looked at the English Wordbook (a dictionary for a form of restrained English named Anglish) and found the listed alternatives for 'gas' to be 'wind' and 'loft'.

These would yield 'wind' and 'lyft' in my West Germanic. However, they already mean 'wind' and 'air'. I think the distinction between 'gas' and 'wind' is a necessary one.

To maintain the distinction, I have two options. I could forget Anglish, go all the way back to the Proto-Indo-European root of 'gas' and find a word in Old English from which it evolved. This is tricky. The alternative is to adopt phonemic tone, or what is known as a pitch accent. It already exists in the majority of the world's languages and in North Germanic ones, such as Swedish, too. Not many of my words will require tone, but I can think of some that would benefit. I wanted to use 'erdappel' (earth apple) for 'potato' based on similar words in other languages. However, 'eorþæppel' (yielding 'erdappel' in West Germanic) is a native Old English word for 'cucumber'. And I need that word.

With tone, I could give priority to the native meaning, yet add an additional meaning.

wind - wind

wînd - gas

erdappel - cucumber

êrdappel - potato

I have not yet decided what tone I should use.

Word of the week: furlang

The West Germanic word of the week is furlang, which is derived from the Old English word that also gave modern English 'furlong'.

I needed a word for 'stadium' and many (or most?) Indo-European languages here borrow from Latin and Greek.

In Old English, it was a measure of distance that was fixed in the 9th Century on the Roman stadium, which was one-eighth of a mile. The word 'stadium' in Latin thus meant, as 'furlang' in Old English, a measure of length, but it also grew to mean a foot race and was later adopted into languages to describe a stadium.

I presumed that the Old English 'furlang' could have taken a similar course. All in all, a nice Germanic word!

Contact me if you would like to know something specific about West Germanic or would like me to translate a word: seancanderson@sky.com

Welcome to West Germanic

This is my new blog to showcase my musings with regard to my invented West Germanic language. It's all happening at the moment - a website, a dictionary, a wiki (yes, I went a bit PHP-crazy) and now a blog. It's time West Germanic was unleashed.