Wenedyk

Wenedyk (in English: Venedic) is a made-up language. Jan van Steenbergen, a linguist and translator from the Netherlands, made it in 2002. The idea behind it is this: what would have happened if the Polish language had developed from Latin instead of Old Slavic? Wenedyk is a possible answer to that question. It is a Romance language, so almost all words are family of words in French, Italian, Romanian, and so on. But they look very different and much more like Polish. The rules for spelling and pronunciation are completely based on Polish. Other parts of the language, like grammar and sentence structure, are a mixture of Polish and Romance.

Wenedyk
Created by	Jan van Steenbergen
Date	2002
Setting and usage	A thought experiment in the alternate history, Ill Bethisad, if Latin had replaced Polish's ancestor.
Purpose	constructed language Indo-European Italic Romance Italo-Dalmatian Wenedyk
Sources	constructed languages  a posteriori languages (Romance language based on Polish)
Language codes
ISO 639-3	None (mis)

Together with other made-up languages like Brithenig (which does the same thing with Welsh), Wenedyk is part of the group of so-called "alternative languages", languages that could have existed if history had been different. With Brithenig, it is the best known example of this sort of languages. Wenedyk became known in Poland after it was written about on the Internet and in the monthly paper Wiedza i Życie ("Knowledge and Life").

Wenedyk is used in Ill Bethisad, a made-up world in which the Roman Empire was stronger than in real history. It is the most important language of the Republic of the Two Crowns, a country similar to the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, but not broken up by partitions like Poland was.

Spelling and pronunciation

Wenedyk uses the same letters as Polish does:

A Ą B C Ć D E Ę F G H I J K L Ł M N Ń O Ó P R S Ś T U W Y Z Ź Ż

Also, there are seven sounds written by two letters:

Ch Cz Dz Dź Dż Rz Sz

Wenedyk is pronounced just like Polish. Stress almost always falls on the second-last syllable. A preposition and a pronoun are treated as one word, so when the pronoun has only one syllable, the preposition is stressed.

Grammar

Wenedyk does not have articles, words like "a" and "the". This is an important difference with the other Romance languages and also with made-up languages like Esperanto and Ido. The reason is that Polish and most other Slavic languages do not have those words, and even in Vulgar Latin they were not so strong yet.

Words in Wenedyk can have many forms. English words have only a few (cat, cat's, cats; work, working, works, worked), but in Wenedyk a lot of forms exist where English would have used other words, like prepositions or modal verbs. In the case of nouns, pronouns and adjectives these forms are called "cases". Wenedyk has three cases:

• the direct case: used for both the subject and the direct object of a sentence. In the sentence: Miej poterz leże libier "My father reads a book", Miej poterz "my father" and libier "a book" are both in the direct case.
• the genitive: used when English uses 's or of, for example: siedź potrze "my father's chair", rzejna Anglie "the queen of England".
• the dative: used when English uses (or can use) to, for example: Da mi ił libier "Give me that book", Da mi łu "Give it to me".

Wenedyk also has a vocative (used for calling someone). Often it has the same form as the direct case, but not always: O potrze! "Oh father!"

There are three genders and four declensions (different ways of making forms). They are very much like the declensions in Latin:

• the first declension are all words on -a, almost all of them are feminine;
• the second declension are mostly masculine and neuter words ending with a consonant. It is a mixture of the second and fourth declension in Latin;
• the third declension are mostly feminine words ending with a soft consonant;
• the fourth declension are words on -ej, it matches the Latin fifth declension.

Here is a chart of the pronouns (words like I, you, we, they, and so on) in Wenedyk:

Pronouns

	singular (one)					plural (more than one)
	first	second	third			first	second	third
			men	women	things			men	women	things
English	I me mine to me	thou (old), you (modern) thee, you thine, yours to thee, to you	he him his to him	she her hers to her	it it its to it	we us ours to us	you you yours to you	they them theirs to them
Wenedyk	jo mie miej mi	ty cie ciej ci	ił łu łu li	ła łą lej lej	łu łu łu li	nu nosz nosz nów	wu wosz wosz wów	li łosz łór lew	le łasz łar lew	le le łór lew

Verbs have a lot of forms, too. Every pronoun has its own form:

jemu – I love

jemasz – you love

jema – he/she loves

jemamy – we love

jemacie – you love

jemą – they love

Most tenses have special forms:

jemar – to love

jemu – I love, I am loving

jemawa – I loved

jemie – I have loved

joru jemar – I will love, I will be loving

jemaru – I will have loved

jemarsi – I would love, I would have loved

jem – love!

jemęć – loving

jematy – beloved

Word list

The word list of Wenedyk, made public on the internet, has more than 4000 words. This chart of 30 words shows what Wenedyk looks like when compared to other Romance languages:

Ten Romance languages compared

English	Latin	Portuguese	Spanish	French	Italian	Rhaeto-Romance	Romanian	Brithenig	Wenedyk
arm	brachium	braço	brazo	bras	braccio	bratsch	braţ	breich	brocz
black	nĭger	negro	negro	noir	nero	nair	negru	nîr	niegry
city, town	cīvĭtas	cidade	ciudad	cité	città	citad	oraş	ciwdad	czytać
death	mŏrs	morte	muerte	mort	morte	mort	moarte	morth	mroć
dog	canis	cão	perro	chien	cane	chaun	cîine	can	kań
ear	auris	orelha	oreja	oreille	orecchio	ureglia	ureche	origl	urzykła
egg	ovum	ovo	huevo	œuf	uovo	ov	ou	ew	ów
eye	ŏcŭlus	olho	ojo	œil	occhio	egl	ochi	ogl	okieł
father	pater	pai	padre	père	padre	bab	tată	padr	poterz
fire	ignis, fŏcus	fogo	fuego	feu	fuoco	fieu	foc	ffog	fok
fish	pĭscis	peixe	pez, pescado	poisson	pesce	pesch	peşte	pisc	pieszcz
foot	pĕs	pé	pie	pied	piede	pe	picior	pedd	piedź
friend	amīcus	amigo	amigo	ami	amico	ami	prieten, amic	efig	omik
green	vĭrĭdis	verde	verde	vert	verde	verd	verde	gwirdd	wierdzi
horse	ĕquus, cabăllus	cavalo	caballo	cheval	cavallo	chaval	cal	cafall	kawał
I	ĕgo	eu	yo	je	io	jau	eu	eo	jo
island	īnsŭla	ilha	isla	île	isola	insla	insulă	ysl	izła
language, tongue	lĭngua	língua	lengua	langue	lingua	linguatg, lieunga	limbă	llinghedig, llingw	lęgwa
life	vīta	vida	vida	vie	vita	vita	viaţă	gwid	wita
milk	lac	leite	leche	lait	latte	latg	lapte	llaeth	łoc
name	nōmen	nome	nombre	nom	nome	num	nume	nôn	numię
night	nŏx	noite	noche	nuit	notte	notg	noapte	noeth	noc
old	vĕtus	velho	viejo	vieux	vecchio	vegl	vechi	gwegl	wiekły
school	schŏla	escola	escuela	école	scuola	scola	şcoală	yscol	szkoła
sky	caelum	céu	cielo	ciel	cielo	tschiel	cer	cel	czał
star	stēlla	estrela	estrella	étoile	stella	staila	stea	ystuil	ścioła
tooth	dĕns	dente	diente	dent	dente	dent	dinte	dent	dzięć
voice	vōx	voz	voz	voix	voce	vusch	voce	gwg	wucz
water	aqua	água	agua	eau	acqua	aua	apă	ag	jekwa
wind	vĕntus	vento	viento	vent	vento	vent	vînt	gwent	więt

Sample

The Lord's Prayer:

Potrze nostry, kwały jesz en czałór, sąciewkaty si twej numię.

Owień twej rzeń.

Foca si twa włątać, komód en czału szyk i sur cierze.

Da nów odzej nostry pań kocidzany.

I dziemieć nów nostrze dziewta, komód i nu dziemiećmy swór dziewtorzór.

I nie endycz nosz en ciętaceń, uta liwra nosz dzie mału.

Nąk twie są rzeń i pociestać i głurza, o siąprz. Amen.

References

• Dorota Gut: Now@ Mow@ ("New Language"), Wiedza i Życie, February 2004.
• Tilman Berger: Vom Erfinden Slavischer Sprachen Archived 2013-10-31 at the Wayback Machine.
• Ziemowit Szczerek: Świat, gdzie Polska nie jest Polską Archived 2008-10-19 at the Wayback Machine, Interia.pl, 26 September 2008.

Other websites

• Wenedyk
• The Republic of the Two Crowns
• Romance glossary (a list of common words in all Romance languages, also Wenedyk and Brithenig)