Oderian is a collaboration between myself and a good friend of mine.

It explores the alternate history idea of an early classical period trading culture establishing itself along the Oder river of Central Europe, and particularly the koiné language that arises from contact between populations speaking different early Indo-European dialects.

History

Over the course of the 6th century BC, much of northern and western Europe was experiencing a time of migration and transition as the Bronze age was making way for the Iron age. Early Germanic groups began migrating southwards and eastwards from Jutland, establishing themselves inland and along the Baltic coastline. These areas, once predominantly settled by Early Celts, were now buzzing with diversity. On the eastern fringes of this cultural mixing, a prominent trade culture began to establish itself along the Oder river, not far from its northern estuary.

The eastern position of the trading culture allowed for frequent mingling between the Celtic and Germanic groups who were settling there with the early Balto-Slavic groups that were able to travel westward to engage in trade. All three groups spoke distinct but related languages derived from Proto-Indo-European, which at the turn of the century were at least partially intelligible with one another.

Gradually through the latter half of the century, certain common features of morphology, vocabulary and phonology began gaining particular favour in use amongst traders of the Oderian culture. By the end of the 6th century BC, the culture had arguably firmly developed its own specific dialect, or koiné, of late western Proto-Indo-European (or Pre-Proto-Celtic, as some linguistics have argued) that was distinct from the naturally spoken dialects of each original group.

As the Oderian trade culture continued to flourish from the 6th to the 1st century BC, the koiné had continued developing not only as a distinct language but also as an artefact of a now distinct Oderian culture that stood in its own right.

Although the Oderian culture and language sadly became extinct by some point at the end of the 1st century BC, the language’s importance to the rich Oderian trading culture had given it fertile grounds over the course of its history to develop a written tradition. Archaeological and paleographical evidence suggests early adoption of writing may have been a large factor in the success of the trading culture. By the early half of the 5th century BC, the form of writing had stabilised in the archaeological record, being a variation of the Etruscan alphabet of northern Italy.

A particular notable figure in the early Oderian written tradition is Glatēs. His frequent southern travels led him to a lifelong fascination with the early Italic, Roman and Hellenic cultures of the classical period. In particular, he brought many concepts and traditions from Greek civilisation back to the Oder, writing about these, as well as his travels in general and documenting the Oderian language.

By the 3rd century BC the Oderian culture was a highly-developed Iron Age culture in its own right, with its own norms, customs, beliefs and system of social strata. The Oderian language had become a central unifying aspect of this culture, leading to a tradition of prescriptivism to Glatesian language standards upheld particularly amongst the higher wrungs of social hierarchy.

Sound changes

Consonants

Consonantal development in Oderian remains fairly close to the changes seen in Celtic, which is part of the evidence given by some linguists for Oderian’s categorisation as a Celtic koiné rather than a higher level western Indo-European koiné.

• The ‘palatovelar’ series *ḱ, *ǵ and *ǵʰ merged with the plain velar series *k, g and gʰ.
• The voiceless plosive series *p, *t, *k and *kʷ remained as voiceless plosives with the exception of *p which fricated to /ɸ/ (transcribed as <f>).
• The plain voiced plosive series *b, *d, *g and *gʷ merged with the breathy voiced plosive series *bʰ, *dʰ, *gʰ and *gʷʰ, with both becoming plain voiced plosives.
• In contrast to the development of other western Indo-European languages, Oderian retained Indo-European syllabic resonants as syllabic consonants.

Vowels

Vocalic development in Oderian, in contrast to the consonants, displays a higher level of regularisation and simplification.

• As is typical of western Indo-European dialects, earlier Indo-European laryngeals (*h₁, *h₂ and *h₃) remain only as artefacts of their effect on surrounding vowels
  • *h₂ and *h₃ coloured adjacent vowels to /a/.
  • Additionally, laryngeals caused lengthening of a preceding vowel.
  • All other laryngeals are lost.
• The vowels *o and *a (typically associated with syllabic-h₂) merged into a single low vowel /a/
• Vowels preceding semivowels merge into specific semivowels, mostly also losing any length distinction in the vowels
  • *ey, *ēy → ei
  • *oy, *ōy, *h₂(e)y → ai
  • *ew, *ēw → eu
  • *ow, *ōw, h₂ew, h₃ew → au
  • One specific exception to the rule of the loss of length distinction in diphthongs is that length was sometimes artificially reinserted into some diphthongs in final or near-final position in consonant-stem nouns by analogy with the vowel length variance displayed in that stem’s paradigm, e.g. saqāi ‘fellow soldier’ (with declining stem saqai-).

Phonology

Morphology

Syntax

Examples

Rune poem

Carrying on a Germanic tradition, there exists a poem (or perhaps, more specifically, a children's riddle when names of the letters are left out) for which each letter in the Oderian script has a verse.

This is the verse for the letter 𐌌 (m):

megalam esti mari· dar masginti nraidjai·
ar terqiti neras· da tālim sfētim

Pagan prayer

There are many poems and stories written about the various gods and other beings in Oderian belief. One such example is a prayer written to Gaudān, a figure comparable to the Germanic Woden/Óðinn, a cognate of which is even mentioned in the poem as an epithet.

bltas gaudān geudār draugmān ·
wesus wātinas urdās frmān ·
mādijēwa wī trai medu wātūs

A Christmas Carol

An excerpt from Kalendás Maudí ('A Legend of Christmas Eve') by Geralán Rígakartus (Charles Dickens), telling the ghostly Christmas tale of Ibenisár Skraukas (Ebenezer Scrooge). This piece was translated using medieval (nimenine) orthography and grammar.

Mruas bau Mairalaukas: en kentei. Es narnitis uéré ne staiti. Ufafikilant stai grbnateis flaknam trai kasimnamqe, flakkanmqe, grbnarmqe, kentumqe cainarm. Ufafikilas esti Skraukas ed: ar uelas bau Skraukes namán en meiami, nemetti ens ualints enm kam qei saditei.

Senas Mairalaukas, bilé mruas duarklauei bau én.

Twilight

An excerpt from Dwisaulā ('Twilight') by Stefanī Mairenkā (Stephenie Meyer). This piece was translated with classical orthography and grammar, though of course borrowing some neo-Oderian vocabulary for modern concepts.

Gnālā esmi, ibē naiwē ne ēja da Forkm, ne wala staitei nu kaksai stadles mēn mrtaus. Ek, nemetti mēn āktis, ne maglā nesmi ankenetei fāmedintm mēn rakenam, frai es tadi cemelā esmi. Tan adbereti ardā tai drēmitim, nā mērē ufereiti qi tūs qēsām, ne dabe cainants, tan auwediti.

Smeilas esti weitār draugē tanna wāralas esti frawē ad canantm me.