Introduction

Nordsippisk is the formal name of a constructed Germanic-flavored language built around predictable morphology, transparent spelling, and easy construction and deconstruction of phrases.

The name is transparently analyzable:

• nord — north / northern
• sipp — family / kin group
• -isk — belonging to, originating from, or categorically associated with

The rough sense is of the northern kin/family.

Nordsippisk borrows freely from Proto-Germanic and its descendants when a historical root fits the desired sound and meaning. It does not attempt to be a historically plausible descendant language. Historical material is raw material, not a constraint.

The central goal is that a speaker should be able to:

1. see an unfamiliar derived word and mechanically decompose it;
2. take a known root and mechanically build useful new forms;
3. pronounce written forms predictably;
4. express ordinary thoughts without memorizing large sets of irregular forms.

A literal English gloss may sound strange. That is acceptable. Nordsippisk is not intended to be English grammar with Germanic-looking vocabulary.

Purpose of this book

The Reference is the clean statement of current canon. This Dev Book preserves the messier work around it: rationale, experiments, provisional forms, rejected candidates, usage discoveries, and questions that should be settled by actual use rather than premature specification.

A form appearing here is not automatically canon. Current proposals are labeled explicitly, and new material defaults to provisional until it is deliberately bound.

Design Principles

Regularity first

Rules should be consistent, explicit, and productive. Irregularity is not added merely to make the language appear natural.

Germanic raw material

Prefer historical Germanic roots when they fit. Sources may include Proto-Germanic, Old English, Old Norse, modern norsk, Swedish, German, Dutch, and related languages.

Borrowed roots become native immediately. Their original declension classes, irregular plurals, vowel mutations, grammatical gender, strong/weak verb classes, and other historical baggage are not inherited.

Historical roots may also be reshaped creatively when doing so produces a form that better fits Nordsippisk phonology or aesthetics.

Example:

njivv — new

This is inspired by Proto-Germanic material rather than mechanically copied from a particular descendant.

Roots remain visible

Roots are orthographically invariant under normal derivation and inflection.

timb
timb-er
timb-ing
timb-de

The root remains immediately recognizable.

Do not mark the same information repeatedly

Agreement and redundant marking are minimized.

Adjectives do not agree with nouns. Verbs do not agree with person or number. Subject/object roles are primarily identified by word order.

Context is allowed to work

Not every distinction needs a dedicated grammatical marker. If a construction is already clear from context, avoid adding machinery merely for formal completeness.

Formal grammar and vernacular speech are different things

The documented grammar should remain regular and conservative. Natural shorthand, contraction, omission, and reanalysis may occur in vernacular speech without being promoted into formal grammar.

New material is provisional by default

A useful-looking root, affix, or construction does not become canon merely because it appears in an example or survives one discussion.

New additions should normally remain provisional while they are tested in actual use. They become part of the Reference only after an explicit decision to bind or commit them.

This keeps exploratory vocabulary from silently hardening into the language and gives awkward forms time to reveal themselves.

Orthography and Phonology

Nordsippisk uses a deliberately small vowel inventory and a mostly familiar Latin consonant inventory, with þ and ð retained for the two English-like “th” sounds.

The letters:

c q x y

are not used.

Spelling is intended to carry useful pronunciation information rather than preserve historical accidents.

General principles:

• written consonants are pronounced;
• there are no silent consonants;
• fixed digraphs represent defined consonant units;
• consonant clusters are pronounced literally;
• vowel length is predictable from spelling;
• diphthongs are disallowed unless explicitly introduced later;
• stress is predictable;
• affixation does not rewrite roots.

Vowels and Vowel Length

The vowel letters are:

a e i o u

Each has one fixed short realization and one fixed long realization.

Approximate English anchors:

“Long” does not mean “pronounce the English letter name.” It means the fixed long member of that vowel’s pair.

Length rules

Vowel length is determined within the morpheme containing the vowel.

1. A vowel followed by one consonant unit is long.
2. A vowel followed by a doubled consonant is short.
3. A vowel followed by a consonant cluster is short.
4. A single vowel in an open syllable is short.
5. A doubled vowel in an open syllable is long.
6. A following affix does not alter the vowel length of the preceding morpheme.

Examples:

• bit — long i
• bitt — short i
• but — long u
• butt — short u
• timb — short i because mb is a cluster
• mann — short a
• ka — short a
• kaa — long a
• ne — short e
• tvaa — long final a
• þrii — long final i
• nii — long i
• frii — long final i
• tuu — long final u
• ogsaa — long final a

Doubled vowels

Vowel doubling is a special spelling device used only in an open syllable to select the long vowel.

It is not a general alternative spelling for a long vowel. If a syllable is closed, the ordinary consonant-based rules apply instead.

For example:

• mer is valid and already has a long e because it is followed by one consonant.
• meer is invalid because doubled vowels are not used in a closed syllable.
• hus is valid and already has a long u.
• huus is invalid for the same reason.

Doubled consonants

A doubled consonant is primarily orthographic information marking the preceding vowel as short.

It is not pronounced as a long or geminated consonant.

Diphthongs

Diphthongs are disallowed by default.

A doubled vowel used under the open-syllable length rule represents one long vowel, not two syllables. Other adjacent vowels represent separate syllables unless a specific diphthong is deliberately added to the language later.

Consonants and Clusters

Special consonant values

z, w, and r retain ordinary recognizable values.

Fixed digraphs such as tj, dj, sh, and ng count as one consonant unit when applying vowel-length rules.

ASCII fallbacks

Canonical Nordsippisk uses þ and ð, but plain-ASCII writing may substitute:

• th for þ
• dh for ð

These are accepted practical fallbacks, not alternate canonical spellings. The two forms remain distinct so the original spelling can always be recovered.

Examples:

• this → þis
• that → þat
• thurf → þurf

Foreign and proper names

Foreign and proper names are preferably adapted to Nordsippisk phonology and orthography when written for a Nordsippisk-speaking audience. Original spellings are also acceptable when preserving the source form is more useful for the writer or audience.

For example, a name spelled Luci may be naturalized as Lusi, while the original spelling may remain unchanged in a journal, quotation, formal reference, or other context where the original written name matters.

This policy does not expand the native alphabet: letters outside Nordsippisk orthography remain foreign material when retained.

Loanwords

Common loanwords that enter Nordsippisk vocabulary are normalized into legal Nordsippisk spelling. Normalization should be minimal: change only what directly violates the orthographic specification and otherwise preserve as much of the source spelling as possible.

Preserving recognizable source spelling takes priority over preserving the original pronunciation exactly. Once normalized, the loan follows ordinary Nordsippisk pronunciation and morphology.

Examples:

• English crucifix → krusifiks
• English update → update, because the spelling already uses legal Nordsippisk letters and sequences

A normalized loan takes ordinary morphology without repair:

• krusifiksar — crucifixes
• krusifiksen — the crucifix
• krusifikss — the crucifix’s

A final root s does not trigger a special possessive form; the ordinary -s simply stacks onto it. Optional hyphenation remains available at a genuine morpheme boundary if clarity benefits from it.

Normalized loans may also be used provisionally to fill lexical gaps without automatically becoming committed dictionary entries. Before adopting a normalized loan, check whether the resulting form collides with an established native word. Such collisions should be resolved deliberately rather than silently.

Consonant clusters

Broadly Germanic consonant clusters are allowed.

Clusters are pronounced literally unless a sequence is an established digraph.

Examples:

• timb — both m and b are pronounced
• hund — both n and d are pronounced
• stark — the cluster is pronounced literally
• hvem — both h and v are pronounced

No consonant is silently dropped merely because a historical source language would do so.

Natural blending, assimilation, and smoothing in ordinary speech are expected, but they do not alter canonical spelling or morphology.

Example:

timb-de

The bd boundary may blend somewhat in speech, but the written form remains unchanged and the underlying morphemes remain timb + -de.

No repair rules

Affixation may create awkward clusters. Nordsippisk does not insert vowels, delete consonants, or change affixes merely to make those boundaries smoother.

The written morphology takes priority.

Stress and Morpheme Boundaries

Stress

Stress falls on the first syllable of the root.

Affixes do not move stress.

Optional hyphenation

Hyphens may be inserted at genuine morpheme boundaries for clarity.

Hyphenated and unhyphenated forms are equivalent in:

• meaning
• pronunciation
• stress
• grammatical status

Examples:

efttag = eft-tag

wulflik = wulf-lik

timbde = timb-de

mannarens = mann-ar-en-s

Hyphens may not split a morpheme internally.

This makes the same notation useful in ordinary writing, teaching material, and grammatical documentation.

Morphology

Nordsippisk favors light-to-moderate agglutination.

Each productive affix should have a stable, narrow function. Affixes may stack when the resulting meaning is sensible.

A form may be grammatically parseable even when it is semantically ridiculous.

Root invariance

Affixation does not rewrite a root.

timb
timb-er
timb-ing
timb-de

Morpheme ordering

For nouns:

ROOT → NUMBER → DEFINITENESS → POSSESSION

Example:

mann-ar-en-s

• mann — man/person
• -ar — plural
• -en — definite
• -s — possessor

roughly: the men’s

Nouns

Nouns have no grammatical gender and no declension classes.

Number and definiteness

Example:

Another example:

Numerals and noun number

A numeral does not replace the noun’s ordinary number marking.

enn is the single exception because it describes one thing and therefore takes a singular noun. zero and every cardinal numeral greater than one take a plural noun.

Examples:

• zero hundar — zero dogs
• enn hund — one dog
• tvaa hundar — two dogs
• þrii husar — three houses
• tenn krigar — ten wars

The numeral supplies the quantity; the noun still marks whether it is singular or plural.

See Numbers and Quantity for the current numeral and quantifier system.

Collective nouns

folk means a people considered as a cultural, national, or social collective.

This is distinct from mannar, which simply refers to multiple individual persons.

nordsippisk folk — the Nordsippisk people as a collective
mannar — people / persons as multiple individuals

Because folk is itself one collective, ordinary plural morphology naturally gives:

folkar — peoples; multiple distinct cultural or national groups

Possession

-s marks the possessor.

No apostrophe is used.

Examples:

• manns hus — a man’s house
• mannens hus — the man’s house
• mannars hus — men’s house
• mannarens hus — the men’s house
• folks krigbund — a people’s war league / war association

The possessed noun normally does not require definite marking merely because it is possessed. Context is preferred over redundant definiteness marking.

Numbers and Quantity

The number and quantity system is deliberately regular and compact. Construction through 99 is currently specified; hundreds and larger place values remain deferred.

Cardinal numerals

The forms tvaa, þrii, and nii use doubled vowels under the open-syllable long-vowel rule.

Eleven through nineteen

tin is the productive ten-plus / -teen numeral element.

It follows the preceding numeral directly.

Optional hyphens may expose the morpheme boundary: enn-tin, tvaa-tin, and so on.

tenn remains the standalone numeral ten.

Tens

-tigg forms a multiple of ten from the preceding numeral.

The doubled gg keeps the i short under the ordinary vowel-length rules.

Optional hyphenation is allowed at the morpheme boundary: tvaa-tigg, þrii-tigg, and so on.

For non-round numbers, the tens form comes first and the ones numeral follows as a separate word.

tvaatigg enn — 21
tvaatigg tvaa — 22
þriitigg seks — 36
niitigg nii — 99

Numerals with nouns

The numeral does not suppress normal noun number marking.

• enn takes a singular noun.
• zero takes a plural noun.
• every cardinal numeral greater than one takes a plural noun.

Examples:

zero kattar — zero cats
enn katt — one cat
tvaa kattar — two cats
atta hundar — eight dogs
þriitigg seks jarar — thirty-six years

One is simply the odd member of the system: it describes one thing, while zero and all other cardinal quantities describe how many things there are.

Age

Age may be expressed directly with the copula, a numeral, and plural jarar.

Ik ett þriitigg seks jarar.
I am thirty-six years old.

No adjective equivalent to English old is required. gammal retains its ordinary descriptive meaning:

Ik ett gammal. — I am old.
Ik ett zer gammal. — I am very old.

Quantifiers

The current invariant quantity words are:

faa and mang do not have separate count and mass forms. The noun and context determine the intended reading.

Examples:

zumm hundar — some dogs
zumm mat — some food
faa hundar — few dogs
faa watr — little water
mang hundar — many dogs
mang watr — much water
all hundar — all dogs
all mat — all food
mer watr — more water
ferr hundar — fewer dogs

zero and null

zero is the numeral 0.

null expresses none / no quantity.

They are intentionally separate words even though they overlap conceptually.

Degree

Degree words modify adjectives and other suitable expressions without changing form.

Examples:

tuu kald — too cold
tuu stor — too big
zer kald — very cold
zer stor — very big
zer god — very good

tuu indicates that a degree exceeds what is appropriate or desired. zer intensifies a quality without implying excess.

tuu also combines with quantity words:

tuu mang hundar — too many dogs
tuu mang watr — too much water
tuu faa hundar — too few dogs
tuu faa watr — too little water

Deferred decisions

The following are intentionally not yet specified:

• hundreds and larger place values
• ordinals
• fractions and decimals
• the ordinary word for enough

Adjectives

Adjectives precede nouns and are completely invariant.

They do not change for:

• number
• definiteness
• possession
• gender
• syntactic position

Examples:

• redd hus — a red house
• redd husar — red houses
• redd husen — the red house
• redd husaren — the red houses

Predicative adjectives

The same adjective form is used after the copula.

husen ett redd

The house is red.

Multiple adjectives

Multiple adjectives may appear in any order.

The adjective closest to the noun is understood as the most tightly associated quality.

No rigid English-style adjective-order hierarchy is required.

Comparative compounds

Comparatives are formed through ordinary qualifier + root compounds rather than a dedicated comparative inflection.

mer expresses a greater degree of the following quality, while ferr expresses a lesser degree. Each acts as the first root in an ordinary compound.

Examples:

• mergod — better; literally more-good
• merstor — bigger / more big
• merhard — harder / more difficult
• ferrgod — less good
• ferrstor — less big
• ferrhard — less difficult

Because these are compounds, the components remain visibly recoverable. Spacing may distinguish scope:

mergod mat — better food
mer god mat — more good food

Superlatives have not yet been defined.

Pronouns

The committed personal pronouns are:

Pronouns are invariant for subject and object roles.

Examples:

han zin ik

He sees me.

ik zin han

I see him.

Gender

Nouns have no grammatical gender.

Gender distinctions appear only semantically in the third-person singular pronouns:

• han
• hun
• det

Possessive pronouns

Pronouns use the ordinary possessive suffix -s.

There is no separate possessive-pronoun paradigm.

Verbs

Verbs do not conjugate for person or number.

The same form is used with every subject.

Present and ordinary verb use

The bare root is the ordinary present-tense verb form.

ik timb — I build
han timb — he builds
de timb — they build

The bare root is also used when one verb directly governs another. Nordsippisk does not insert an infinitive marker merely because English would use to.

ik vil far — I want to go
han kan timb hus — he can build a house

Explicit infinitive

at + VERB forms an explicit infinitive phrase.

It is used when the verb itself is being treated abstractly or occupies a noun-like syntactic role and the bare root would not clearly function as the clause’s verb.

at liv — to live
at sterf — to die

At liv ett at sterf.
To live is to die.

At skriv ett god.
To write is good.

The marker is not required when ordinary clause structure already identifies the verb.

ik liv — I live

The common case therefore remains short and unmarked.

at is not a general noun-modifying particle. English constructions such as things to do are not mechanically copied as þingar at mak; Nordsippisk prefers transparent compounding where possible, such as makþingar.

Past

-de is the universal past-tense suffix.

There are no irregular past forms.

timb → timb-de — built
far → far-de — went
zin → zin-de — saw
kom → kom-de — came
sterf → sterf-de — died / ceased functioning

Affixation does not trigger spelling repair.

Present perfect

The present perfect is now committed as:

hav + VERB-de

The -de form keeps its ordinary completed/past-event role. hav supplies the present connection rather than creating a separate participle morphology.

ik hav skrivde — I have written
han hav komde — he has come

This was preferred because it adds useful aspect with no new verb form.

Future

skal is the invariant future auxiliary.

SUBJECT → skal → VERB → OBJECT

ik skal timb hus

I will build a house.

han skal zin husen

He will see the house.

Copula

ett is the regular copular verb meaning to be.

It follows ordinary verb rules.

han ett timber — he is a builder
han ett-de timber — he was a builder
han skal ett timber — he will be a builder

husen ett redd — the house is red

Clause negation

ne is the invariant clause-negation particle.

ik ne timb

I do not build.

ik ne timb-de husen

I did not build the house.

ik skal ne timb husen

I will not build the house.

This is distinct from lexical un-, which forms opposites or reversals.

ik un-timb husen

I dismantle the house.

Verb chaining

When one verb governs another, the governed verb remains in its bare form.

No at is used in ordinary verb chains.

ik vil far

Literal: I want go.
Natural translation: I want to go.

han kan timb hus

Literal: he can build house.

han skal kan timb hus

Literal: he will can build house.
Natural translation: he will be able to build a house.

Literal English awkwardness is not considered a problem.

Clause Structure

Basic clause order is strict:

SUBJECT → VERB → OBJECT

Word order identifies subject and object roles.

Examples:

ik timb husen

I build the house.

mannen timb husen

The man builds the house.

kwennen timb husen

The woman builds the house.

Because syntactic role is carried by position, nouns and pronouns do not require nominative/accusative case distinctions.

Prepositional phrases and temporal expressions may be added without changing the internal SVO order of a clause.

Questions and Interrogatives

Question particle

Questions do not alter normal clause structure.

The invariant clause-final particle:

ka

marks a clause as interrogative.

han timb husen.
He builds the house.

han timb husen ka?
Does he build the house?

han ne timb husen ka?
Does he not build the house?

han timb-de husen ka?
Did he build the house?

The written question mark is punctuation. ka is the grammatical question marker.

Interrogatives

Interrogatives remain in the normal syntactic position of the requested information.

Examples:

hvem timb husen ka?

Who builds the house?

du timb vat ka?

What do you build?

du timb hvar ka?

Where do you build?

han skal timb husen nar ka?

When will he build the house?

du un-timb husen hvi ka?

Why do you dismantle the house?

Prepositions and Temporal Relations

Prepositions are invariant and precede their noun phrase.

Spatial and relational prepositions

Examples:

in husen — in the house
med han — with him
fra hem — from home
mellom krigaren — between the wars
þur husen — through the house
bok ov krig — book about war
vi sprek ov nordsippisk — we speak about Nordsippisk

ov is not a general possessive of. Possession remains the job of -s.

Direction words

Cardinal directions:

Relative directions:

Some direction words overlap with spatial prepositions. Context and syntactic position distinguish above from up, behind from back, and so on.

Temporal relations

The temporal system broadly distinguishes:

• vor / eft — ordering
• sid / til — starting and ending boundaries
• medan — temporal containment

Examples:

vor krigen — before the war
eft krigen — after the war
medan krigen — during the war
sid krigen — since the war
til natt — until night

med and medan are intentionally allowed to feel related: with and during/while.

Conjunctions

The conjunction set is currently provisional.

Conjunctions do not alter normal SVO clause order.

Example:

om han timb husen, þan ik un-timb det.

If he builds the house, then I dismantle it.

These forms are retained for now and may be revisited if they do not fit the language well in actual use.

Core Roots

This page lists committed lexical roots. Function words, numerals, quantifiers, and productive affixes are documented separately.

People, animals, and body

folk is collective. Its ordinary plural folkar means multiple distinct peoples, not merely multiple individual persons.

Places and things

General concepts

Directions

upp, ned, fram, and bak are documented with the spatial relation words because they also function as up, down, forward, and back.

Adjectives and states

The no-cost sense of English free is not currently specified by frii.

Verbs

sprek and sprak are intentionally related in form while remaining separate roots: speak versus language.

dodd and sterf deliberately separate death as a concept/state from to die as an event or process.

Working vocabulary not yet formally committed

The following forms have appeared as strong candidates in discussion but should remain visibly provisional until explicitly committed:

The exact semantic boundary between kraft and makt remains to be recovered or settled through use; neither should be given a more specific meaning until that distinction is deliberately re-established.

Keeping provisional forms separate prevents example scaffolding from silently becoming canon.

Function Words

Pronouns

ik — I / me
du — you
vi — we / us
han — he / him
hun — she / her
det — it
de — they / them

Demonstratives and location

þis — this / these
þat — that / those
hir — here
þar — there

þis and þat are invariant for number and may stand alone as pronouns.

Examples:

þis hus — this house
þis husar — these houses
ik vil þis — I want this

Tense, infinitive, negation, and interrogation

skal — future auxiliary
at — explicit infinitive marker
ne — clause negation
ka — clause-final question marker
ett — to be / copula

at is used when a verb is explicitly treated as an infinitive phrase, especially in noun-like syntactic positions. It is not inserted into ordinary verb chains.

At liv ett at sterf. — To live is to die.
ik vil far — I want to go.

Responses

ja — yes
nin — no

nin is the standalone negative response. It does not replace ne, which negates a clause.

Degree

tuu — too / excessively
zer — very / highly

See Numbers and Quantity for examples.

Addition

ogsaa — also / too / as well

Sequencing

furst — first / firstly
nest — next
þan — then
sist — last / finally

Transparent multiword sequencing expressions include:

eft þat — after that
vor þat — before that

Interrogatives

hvem — who
vat — what
hvar — where
nar — when
hvi — why
hur — how
vilk — which

Derivational Affixes

-er

timb-er — builder

-ing

timb-ing — building / construction

-lik

wulf-lik — wolf-like

X-lik means that something resembles X or possesses qualities characteristic of X.

-isk

wulf-isk — pertaining to wolves

X-isk means belonging to, originating from, or categorically associated with X.

This is deliberately distinct from resemblance expressed by -lik.

-nes

stark-nes — strength / the state of being strong

-vis

stark-vis — strongly / in a strong manner

un-

un-stark — not strong / weak

un-timb — dismantle / reverse building

un- is lexical. Ordinary clause negation uses ne.

Example Sentences

These examples are intended to use committed vocabulary unless explicitly noted.

Basic clauses

ik timb hus.
I build a house.

ik timb-de husen.
I built the house.

han skal timb hus.
He will build a house.

ik zin-de husen.
I saw the house.

ik werk-de nutag.
I worked today.

ik ett trett nu.
I am tired now.

ik vil rest.
I want to rest.

han kan timb hus.
He can build a house.

han skal kan timb hus.
He will be able to build a house.

vi skal mak þat nu.
We will do that now.

Explicit infinitives

At liv ett at sterf.
To live is to die.

At skriv ett god.
To write is good.

The marker is unnecessary when ordinary syntax already identifies the predicate verb:

ik liv.
I live.

Everyday vocabulary

ik mog þis werk.
I like this work.

ik hass kald wedr.
I hate cold weather.

ik far pleg med iks kattar.
I go to play / I am going to play with my cats.

des namar ett Lusi og Abbi.
Their names are Lusi and Abbi.

ik sprek nordsippisk.
I speak Nordsippisk.

nordsippisk ett sprak.
Nordsippisk is a language.

Dodd ett livs end.
Death is life’s end.

mashin sterf-de.
The machine died / stopped functioning.

Bind þat ord.
Commit that word / lock that word in.

ogsaa may express also / too / as well:

ik mog þat ogsaa.
I like that too.

Collective people

nordsippisk folk
the Nordsippisk people as a cultural or national collective

folkar
peoples / multiple distinct collective groups

Possession

mannens hus
the man’s house

hans hus
his house

iks frend
my friend

livs end
life’s end

Questions

du timb vat ka?
What do you build?

hvem timb husen ka?
Who builds the house?

han skal kom hir nar ka?
When will he come here?

About / concerning

bok ov krig
book about war

vi sprek ov nordsippisk.
We speak about Nordsippisk.

Numbers and quantity

enn katt
one cat

tvaa kattar
two cats

zero kattar
zero cats

enntin kattar
eleven cats

tvaatigg kattar
twenty cats

þriitigg seks jarar
thirty-six years

Ik ett þriitigg seks jarar.
I am thirty-six years old.

zumm mat
some food

mang hundar
many dogs

tuu mang hundar
too many dogs

tuu faa watr
too little water

zer god
very good

all hundar
all dogs

mer watr
more water

ferr hundar
fewer dogs

Comparative compounds

mergod mat
better food

merhard werk
harder / more difficult work

ferrhard werk
less difficult work

Ik hav mergod makþingar.
I have better things to do.

Here makþingar is a transparent make/do + things compound rather than an English-style noun followed by an infinitive.

Direction

venst — left
rett — right
nord — north
vest — west

A drill cadence can therefore be rendered directly as:

venst, venst, venst rett venst

Prepositions

ik far fra hem.
I leave home.

han kom fra husen.
He came from the house.

mellom krigaren
between the wars / interwar

Habits and difficulty

Gammal wonntar end hardvis.
Old habits end with difficulty.

Time compounds

nutag or nu-tag — today, literally now-day

vortag or vor-tag — yesterday, literally before-day

efttag or eft-tag — tomorrow, literally after-day

vor-tid may be used transparently for before-time / ahead of schedule.

eft-tid may be used transparently for after-time / behind schedule.

The ordinary lexical words erl and latt remain early and late more generally.

Compounding

Compounding is intentionally being left somewhat laissez-faire while the language grows.

The current working assumption is that known roots may be combined when the resulting meaning is reasonably recoverable from context.

Examples that have arisen naturally:

nu-tag — today, literally now-day

vor-tag — yesterday, literally before-day

eft-tag — tomorrow, literally after-day

far-þing — vehicle / conveyance, literally travel-thing

far-mashin — mechanical conveyance; a transparent compound distinguishing a machine from the broader functional category farþing

werk-stedd — workplace, literally work-place

mellom krigaren — literally between the wars, usable for the concept interwar

latt-natt — late night

nordsippisk-sprek — Nordsippisk speech / speaking Nordsippisk, currently playful and provisional

Hyphenation remains optional at genuine morpheme boundaries.

No formal universal compound-order rule has been committed yet. Actual use should help determine what conventions are useful rather than designing them prematurely.

Transparent constructions and vernacular meaning

A construction does not need to become a dedicated dictionary entry merely because speakers can understand it or begin using it idiomatically.

Forms such as vor-tid and eft-tid remain transparent combinations of existing material even when context gives them convenient vernacular readings such as ahead of schedule or behind schedule.

The same principle applies generally: productive or playful compounds may acquire conventional meanings through use without requiring the formal grammar or lexicon to codify each one.

Examples such as godfel, farpa, and zummtag may be understandable or useful without becoming dictionary entries.

Morphology inside compounds

A compound element may itself carry ordinary morphology when that morphology contributes meaning. There is no rule requiring every non-head element to be a bare root.

For example:

skriv-bund — a writing-collection conceived as a related whole
skriv-ar-bund — a collection of multiple distinct writings

The contrast is not a rigid grammatical category. It is an emergent semantic tendency: the bare-root compound may foreground the collection as a coherent unit, while explicit plural marking may foreground the separate members of the collection.

A useful analogy is:

sang-bund — a coherent song collection, roughly album-like
sang-ar-bund — a collection of separate songs, roughly playlist-like

Both remain transparent products of ordinary morphology and compounding rather than separately lexicalized forms.

A larger transparent construction

Frii Nordsippisk Folks Krigbunden

may be mechanically decomposed as:

frii nordsippisk folk-s krig-bund-en

roughly: the Free Nordsippisk People’s War League / War Union.

The phrase is not a special grammatical construction. It simply demonstrates ordinary adjective use, possession, compounding, and definiteness operating together.

Verb roots as compound modifiers

Verb roots may modify noun roots in ordinary compounds when the relationship is reasonably clear from context. This allows Nordsippisk to express many ideas that English handles with noun + to-infinitive constructions without adding a special grammatical rule.

For example:

mak-þing — a doing / making thing; something to do

mak-þing-ar — things to do

Ik hav mergod makþingar.
I have better things to do.

The sequence NOUN at VERB is not a formal noun-modifying construction. The explicit infinitive marker at retains its narrow grammatical role; transparent compounding is preferred when it can carry the intended meaning.

Head inflection and classifier-like components

A useful clarification from actual compound-building is that a preceding noun may simply classify the head rather than possess it. No special linking marker is required.

krig-bund — war group / war league
krig-bund-en — the war group / the war league

The definiteness suffix belongs on the head and scopes over the compound. Possessive -s is added only when possession is actually intended, as in folk-s krig-bund-en.

This became useful while experimenting with military-style compounds. Mashiniskbund is transparently machine-associated group / mechanized unit from committed material. A more elaborate experimental form, Krigmannhimmelbunden, used provisional himmel to explore an airborne-unit style compound. The latter is a development example, not a lexical entry.

Vernacular and Colloquial Speech

Formal Nordsippisk should remain regular.

Hypothetical native or fluent speakers, however, are expected to shorten, contract, omit, or reanalyze material when context makes the intended meaning obvious.

These forms are vernacular shorthand, not changes to formal grammar.

A working example:

Du slip ka?

Are you asleep?

Ik-de. / Ikde.

I was.

Formally, a fuller answer would use the copula:

ik ett-de

The vernacular ikde attaches the past marker directly to the understood response and relies on context to recover the omitted predicate.

This kind of form should eventually be documented as a usage note rather than formalized into a productive grammatical rule.

The distinction is deliberate:

• the specification describes the clean standard;
• actual speech is allowed to be human.

Primitive Journal Sandbox

The immediate practical target is to make Nordsippisk usable for short personal notes and journal entries.

Currently possible

ik werk-de nutag.
I worked today.

ik ett trett nu.
I am tired now.

ik vil rest.
I want to rest.

efttag ik skal werk.
Tomorrow I will work.

ik zin-de husen.
I saw the house.

ik far fra hem erl.
I leave home early.

han kom eft-tid.
He came after the expected time / he arrived late.

vi skal mak þat nu.
We will do that now.

vi sprek ov nordsippisk.
We speak about Nordsippisk.

ik sprek nordsippisk.
I speak Nordsippisk.

Ik ett þriitigg seks jarar.
I am thirty-six years old.

ik mog þis werk.
I like this work.

Emerging journal-style constructions

Actual writing is expected to produce transparent compounds that need not become separate dictionary entries.

þis ett iks skrivarbund in nordsippisk.
This is my collection of writings in Nordsippisk.

Here skriv-ar-bund explicitly treats the contents as multiple writings gathered into one collection.

ik mak nordsippisk for godfel.
I make Nordsippisk for good-feeling / for enjoyment.

godfel is a transparent compound rather than a committed lexical root.

Ik vil kan sprek nordsippisk zummtag.
I want to be able to speak Nordsippisk someday.

zummtag is likewise an understandable transparent construction rather than a separately committed dictionary item.

Useful next vocabulary

The following areas are likely to give the largest increase in practical journaling ability:

• eating and drinking
• sleeping
• reading and hearing
• thinking / thought
• saying, asking, and answering
• buying and driving
• listening
• meeting and returning
• comparison
• enough / sufficient quantity
• simple evaluation: easy, interesting, boring

Current Proposals

Everything on this page is provisional unless explicitly stated otherwise. The purpose is to preserve active ideas without allowing them to masquerade as canon.

-iz: make or cause to become

A productive -iz suffix is under consideration for a causative / factitive sense: make X, cause to become X, render X.

Examples under discussion:

• hardiz — make hard / harden
• mashiniz — mechanize / make machine-based

This would be semantically distinct from committed -isk:

• hardisk — associated with or characterized by hardness
• hardiz — actually make something hard

No commitment has been made yet.

-te: ordinal marker

A compact ordinal marker -te is under consideration. It attaches to the final numeral element:

• ennte — first
• tvaate — second
• þriite — third
• attatigg tvaate — eighty-second

The attraction is complete regularity with no special first/second/third forms. Ordinals remain outside the Reference until this is explicitly bound.

Provisional roots

Recently proposed forms include:

The earlier exact semantic split between kraft and makt was not preserved in the recovered notes, so it should not be reconstructed by guesswork. The distinction can be re-established through later use.

Earlier provisional vocabulary remains listed on the Core Roots page.

Worship and church vocabulary

The ordinary words for worship and church remain open. dirk, durk, and kirk were considered but were not accepted. They should not be treated as provisional defaults merely because they appeared in discussion.

Loanword handling

The working policy has loosened from strict mandatory normalization. Foreign vocabulary may be naturalized into native spelling, but recognizable source-like spelling or pronunciation may also be retained when that makes more sense.

The important boundary is that foreign material does not silently rewrite the rules for native Nordsippisk roots. Loan treatment is a lexical judgment call rather than a single automatic algorithm.

Open Questions

This page is intentionally a scratchpad for decisions that should be driven by use rather than solved prematurely.

Everyday lexicon

High-value everyday vocabulary is still incomplete.

Strong provisional verb candidates awaiting explicit commitment:

• et — eat
• drink — drink
• slip — sleep
• les — read
• hor — hear
• þenk — think / thought or idea, potentially using the same root as both verb and noun

Other current proposals are collected on Current Proposals.

Useful everyday vocabulary still to explore includes:

• say / tell
• ask / answer
• buy
• drive
• listen
• look / watch
• meet
• return / come back
• love
• help

Larger numbers

Cardinal numerals from zero through ninety-nine are specified.

The current system uses:

• tin for 11–19
• -tigg for multiples of ten
• a separate ones numeral after the tens form for values such as 21 or 36

Hundreds and larger place values remain intentionally deferred. When revisited, the system should remain straightforward, decimal, and mechanically parseable rather than copying irregular historical patterns.

Fractions and decimals are also deferred. A regular ordinal -te proposal is being tested but is not yet canon.

Quantity

The basic quantity system includes null, zumm, faa, mang, all, mer, and ferr. Degree words currently include tuu and zer.

A general word for enough / sufficient has not yet been selected.

Comparison

Comparatives are formed through ordinary qualifier + root compounds using mer or ferr, such as mergod and ferrhard.

Superlatives remain intentionally undefined.

Imperatives

Imperatives have not yet been formally defined. The bare verb is a likely candidate.

Relative and complement clauses

Structures equivalent to:

• the man who…
• the thing that…
• I think that…
• I know that…

have not yet been defined.

Aspect

The present perfect is now committed as hav + VERB-de.

No dedicated progressive has been added. Bare present forms continue to carry ongoing readings from context where appropriate.

Further aspect machinery should only be added if actual usage shows that it earns its place.

Compounding

Compounds remain deliberately permissive. The final head normally carries whole-compound inflection, while internal morphology may appear when it contributes meaning.

Transparent compounds may develop vernacular meanings without automatically becoming formal dictionary entries.

Vernacular

Colloquial contractions, semantic drift, and ellipsis should be documented descriptively without being promoted into formal grammar merely because they are understandable.