Difference between revisions of "Letto-Ruhnese"

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Letto-Ruhnese
Native to	Ruhn-i-Leht, Northern Courland
Native speakers	276 million (2015 est.)
Language family	Indo-European Balto-Slavic Baltic East Baltic East Baltic Finnic
Writing system	Latin
Official status
Official language in	Ruhn-i-Leht
Regulated by	The Ruhn-i-Lehtese Speech Committee

Letto-Ruhnese (Leto-Juonieshu), also known as Ruhnese Latvian or Finnic Latvian, is the official language of The Ruhn-i-Lehtese States. There are about 276 million native speakers of the language in Ruhn-i-Leht (78% of the population), with 4 million speakers abroad.

Letto-Ruhnese is very closely related to Latvian. They are practically mutually intelligible.

Classification

The classification of Letto-Ruhnese is disputed, and multiple opinions have been expressed.

Indo-European

Officially, Letto-Ruhnese belongs to the Baltic branch of the Indo-European language family. This means, that this is the third Baltic language, that isn't extinct, with the other two being Latvian and Lithuanian. Here it is in the language tree.

Uralic

Some believe that Letto-Ruhnese belongs to the Baltic Finnic branch of the Uralic language family. This means, that the language is put closer to languages like Estonian and Finnish, but this opinion is very unpopular due to the fact, that Letto-Ruhnese and Latvian are mutually intelligible languages. Here it is in the language tree.

Eurasiatic

Many people put Letto-Ruhnese to simply be a Eurasiatic language. Eurasiatic combines Uralic and Indo-European, as well as Macro-Altaic languages. Whilst many people do think that this is a logical opinion, the language is still too close to Latvian, which makes many people frustrated that the language would be so far away from Latvian in the language tree. Here it is in the language tree.

Dialect

Though, notably, many believe Letto-Ruhnese isn't even a language, as many consider it a dialect of the Latvian language. Mutual intelligibility is often named to be the reason. This theory also explains why Letto-Ruhnese is often called Ruhnese Latvian / Finnic Latvian. Though, the fact, that Letto-Ruhnese itself has dialects, pushes many people away from agreeing to this opinion.

History

Letto-Ruhnese as a language developed in the 20th century by the Latvians who moved to Ruhnu. As the Latvians did not know Estonian, they thought how to simplify the language, so that it would be easier for the Estonians to understand the Latvians, and to make it easier for Estonians to learn Latvian. This thought developed the writing system that Letto-Ruhnese uses these days. Notably, at that time, schools in Ruhnu were not that developed, and notably, many of the newborn kids were not able to even spell some letters. This caused the removal of the letter 'R' from the alphabet. That remained to be the only change made to speech.

In 1977, Sandis Kristiāns Pavlovs created the official Letto-Ruhnese language, and was the first president of the Ruhnese (today - Ruhn-i-Lehtese) Speech Comittee, made to protect the Letto-Ruhnese language.

In 1986, Letto-Ruhnese became an official language of the Republic of Ruhnu.

Dialects

Letto-Ruhnese has 3 dialects - English, Modernized and Latvianized.

Anglo-Lettish

Anglo-Lettish is the English dialect of Letto-Ruhnese. This dialect mostly changes words, like, for example, box (kaste to bokse). This dialect also brings in the letter 'Y' and 'W' into the language, like, for example, world (pasaule to woljde) and York (Joljka to Yoyka).

Modernized Letto-Ruhnese

Modernized Letto-Ruhnese is a dialect of Letto-Ruhnese, though disputed, as this dialect is even more popular than traditional Letto-Ruhnese. This dialect fully changes the writing system of Latvian diphthongs, as usually these diphthongs are written differently then the two letters that make them. For example, the Latvian letter "Ī" is a Latvian diphthongs in the Letto-Ruhnese language, which traditionally is written as ü, is modernized to ii. This dialect is so popular because some of the Latvian diphthongs can not even be written on many devices, and it is easier to learn for Latvians.

Latvianized Letto-Ruhnese

Latvianized (also known as Speechless) Letto-Ruhnese removes all changes to speech. Latvianized Letto-Ruhnese and Latvian are fully mutually intelligible. All this dialect affects is the letter 'R', which is brought back into the alphabet, as well as in writing. So, for example, seal is normally written as "Jonis", but, when Latvianized, "Ronis".

Grammar

Letto-Ruhnese is an inflecting language with many analytical forms. Primary word stress, with a few exceptions, is on the first syllable. There are no articles in Latvian, however definiteness is expressed by inflection of adjectives. Basic word order in Letto-Ruhnese is subject–verb–object; however, word order is relatively free.

Nouns

There are two grammatical genders in Letto-Ruhnese (masculine and feminine) and two numbers, singular and plural. Nouns and adjectives decline into seven cases: nominative, genitive, dative, accusative, instrumental, locative, and vocative. There are six declensions.

Verbs

There are three conjugation classes in Letto-Ruhnese. Verbs are conjugated for person, tense, mood and voice.

Ortography

Letto-Ruhnese is based upon the Latvian and English alphabets. This alphabet only consists of letters, that are in both - Latvian and English alphabets, excluding the letter 'R'. The Letto-Ruhnese standard alphabet consists of 21 letters:

A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P S T U V Z

a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p s t u v z

All of the letters in the alphabet are unmodified letters of the Latin alphabet (letters R, Q, W, X, Y). The 11 modified letters of the Latvian alphabet are replaced by the Latvian diphthongs aa (ā), ch (č), ee (ē), gj (ģ), ii (ī), kj (ķ), lj (ļ), nj (ņ), sh (š), uu (ū) and zh (ž).

Examples of the language

In the table, you can see that, depending on the dialect, many changes can happen to the words.

The first row holds 'Good morning!', which, in Latvian, is 'Labrīt!'. Traditionally, 'r' is replaced by 'j' and 'ü' replaces 'ī'. When modernized, 'ī' is replaced by 'ii', and 'r' is replaced with 'j', again. In Anglo-Lettish, 'r' is replaced by 'y' and 'ii' is used to replace 'ī'. When Latvianized, the only change is that 'ī' is replaced by 'ii'.

The second row holds 'Let's play!', which, in Latvian, is 'Uzspēlējam!. Traditionally, 'ē' is replaced by '₠'. When modernized or latvianized, 'ē' is replaced by 'ee'. The biggest changes happen in Anglo-Lettish, where the word 'to play' translates to 'pleeyeet' not 'speeleet'. This change means, that the word only keeps the begginning (uz-) and the ending (-jam), as 'speelee'/'sp₠l₠' is replaced by 'pleeyee'.

The third row holds the nation of Lebanon, which translates to 'Libāna' in Latvian. Here is an example of the term angljievedums, which means, that a word is translated from a language that isn't Latvian. Here, the word 'Lebanona' is made from the word 'Lebanon' not 'Libāna'. Also, this word is written in the same way in all 3 dialects of the language and the traditional language.