Deacarsic Language

Deacarsic (Standard Deacarsic: Descertach [‚dɛʃ'kɚ.dɪk]), also known in English as Deacarsic Gaelic, is a Goidelic language of the Insular Celtic branch of the Celtic language family, itself a part of the Indo-European language family.

Deacarsic developed in Deacarsia out of Old Irish and has been the dominant language of the Deacarsic people for most of their recorded history.

Deacarsic has been written in Latin script since the fourth century, and its spelling has been greatly influenced by Classical Latin, unlike other Celtic languages. There is little dialectical variation in Deacarsic, with both speech and orthography being very uniform throughout Deacarsia. The “standard written form” of Deacarsic was devised by a royal commission starting in the eighteenth century. The distinct Deacarsic alphabet is a variant of the Latin alphabet with twenty-one letters, though diacritical marks are sometimes used to mark vowel length.

Deacarsic has legal status as the national and second official language of the Kingdom of Deacarsia after Latin. The public body Academia Riga inna Deacarsica is responsible for the promotion of the language throughout Deacarsia. Deacarsic has no regulatory body but the standard modern written form is guided by a royal service and new vocabulary by a voluntary committee with university input.

History

Based on medieval traditional accounts and the apparent evidence from linguistic geography, Old Irish has been commonly believed to have been brought to Deacarsia by continuing contact with Ireland, as, in the late-second century, settlers from western Ireland founded the five Gaelic kingdoms of Seánachta, Cóemtír, Seltír, Saratír, and Macliam, which later were united by King Patrick the Great.

By the tenth century, Old Irish had evolved into Middle Irish, which was spoken throughout Deacarsia and in Ireland, Scotland, and the Isle of Man. It is the language of a large corpus of literature, including the Ulster Cycle. From the twelfth century, Middle Irish began to evolve into Deacarsic in Deacarsia, into modern Irish in Ireland, into Scottish Gaelic in Scotland, and, with admixture of Norse elements, into the Manx language in the Isle of Man.

Modern Deacarsic developed in the thirteenth century, and, unlike other Gaelic languages, it had developed a highly Latinate spelling system. Deacarsic first was standardized in 1763 with the promulgation of the first edition of In Caidan Eficafíl (The Official Standard) by a royal commission called by King James III, which later developed into the Academia Riga inna Deacarsica (The Royal Academy of the Deacarsic Language).

Today, about sixty percent of the population is capable of speaking Deacarsic with about half of the population being native speakers and nearly one-fifth of the population being regular daily users outside of the education system. It is mandatory to learn both Deacarsic and Latin in all Deacarsic schools, with some schools offering classroom instruction exclusively in Deacarsic. Knowledge of Deacarsic and Latin is required for all public service jobs in Deacarsia, and all legislation must be passed in Latin, Deacarsic, and English, in order of precedence of interpretation.

Phonology

In pronunciation, Deacarsic is distinct from the other Gaelic languages. There are twenty-four consonant phonemes, and a particularly large number of vowel phonemes.

Deacarsic is a stress-timed language. Stress usually falls on the first syllable, though there are certain exceptions.

Syntax and Morphology

Deacarsic is a fusional, verb-subject-object, nominative-accusative language. Deacarsic is neither verb nor satellite framed, and makes liberal use of deictic verbs.

Nouns decline for three numbers: singular, dual, and plural; three genders: masculine, feminine, and neuter; and five cases: nominative, accusative, genitive, ablative, and vocative. Adjectives agree with nouns in number, gender, and case, and have positive, comparative, equative and superlative forms. Demonstrative adjectives have proximal, medial, and distal forms. Adjectives generally follow nouns, though some precede or prefix nouns.

Verbs conjugate for three tenses: past, present, and future; three aspects: simple, perfective, and imperfective; three numbers: singular, dual, and plural; four moods: indicative, subjunctive, conditional, and imperative; two relative forms, the present and future relative; and in some verbs, independent and dependent forms. Verbs conjugate for three persons and an impersonal form which is actor-free; the third person singular acts as a person-free personal form that can be followed or otherwise refer to any person or number.

There are two verbs for “to be,” one for inherent qualities with only two forms, is “present” and ba “past” and “conditional,” and one for transient qualities, with a full complement of forms except for the verbal adjective. The two verbs share the one verbal noun.

The passive voice and many other forms are periphrastic. There are a number of preverbal particles marking the negative, interrogative, subjunctive, relative clauses, etc. There is a verbal noun and verbal adjective. Verb forms are highly regular, many grammars recognise only eleven irregular verbs.

Prepositions inflect for person and number. Prepositions govern different cases depending on intended semantics.

Numerals have three forms: abstract, general, and ordinal. The numbers from two through ten (and these in combination with higher numbers) are rarely used for people, numeral nominals being used instead.

Orthography

Deacarsic orthography is distinct from other Gaelic languages, being based largely on Latin. Modern Deacarsic uses the Latin alphabet without the letters k, q, w, y, and z. One diacritic sign, the acute accent (á é í ó ú), sometimes is used in the alphabet to mark vowel length. All vowels have two lengths, called short and long, with u having an additional middle length that may be marked either as long or short; it always is middle length before l. The same sound may sometimes be expressed with a long o before l. Short vowels also may be used for a schwa, especially at the end of a word. Except when used for a schwa, short and long a instead are differentiated by stress rather than phonemically. Silent letters are uncommon in Deacarsic, and usually occur in names.

While most consonants represent only a single sound, certain consonants may represent a second phoneme in certain words, which is described as “long” in the table below.

There are twelve digraphs in Deacarsic, representing nine different sounds: ae, ai [äɪ]; ar [ɑɹ̠]; cc (medial), cs (word-initial) [tʃ]; dj [dʒ]; dr [dʒɹ̠]; gn [ŋn]; oe, oi [ɔɪ]; ss [z]; and tr [tʃɹ̠]. There also are three trigraphs, all representing the same sound: ael, ail, aul [aːɫ]. R-colored vowels are common in Deacarsic, but they occur irregularly. L-vocalization also is common in Deacarsic; a [ɫ] then sounds like a [w] or a cross between a vowel and a [ɫ] at the end of a syllable.

Gaelic type traditionally is used to write the Deacarsic language.