Brujeric

From Langmaker

Conlang	Brujeric
Author	Gregory H. Bontrager
Year Began	2003
Language Type	fictional language
Lexicon Size	N/A
Etymologies	No
Grammar	Yes
Sample Texts	Yes
Primer	Yes

In its broadest sense, Brujeric refers to either of two distantly related languages used by the magically-endowed descendants of the ancient Atlanteans in Brujerland, the "Magna Patria Magorum" (Latin: "Great Homeland of the Witches/Warlocks"). Romangic, which is essentially a streamlined form of classical Latin, is the language in which spells and incantations are uttered. Franco-Castilian, to which the simple term "Brujeric" is most often applied in common usage, is the language of conversation, literature, official documents, and overall communication among Brujeric citizens. The Brujeric language and its accompanying conculture was created by Gregory H. Bontrager for a yet-to-be-written epic fantasy. For an extended example, see the Brujeric Babel Text.

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Language sources

Brujeric is predominantly a blend of French and Spanish influences, with a few direct Latin derivations and a handful of Italicisms. The name Brujeric itself comes from the Spanish word brujería, meaning "witchcraft".

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Design principles

In its grammar and idiom, Brujeric is rather typical of Western Romance. Its phonology is nearly identical to that of Spanish, from which Brujeric also inherits phonetic spelling. Brujueric spelling is further streamlined, however, with the use of diacritics (instead of buffer letters) to make the sound of 'g' or 'c' hard where it would otherwise be soft or vice versa. Following the Gallo-Iberian tradition, there are three types of verbs distinguished by the infinitive ending. There is a distinct indicative and subjunctive mood, and verb conjugation is such that the inclusion of a subject pronoun is optional. Nouns are either masculine or feminine, and adjectives are modified to agree in gender and number with nouns.

French influences are seen most vividly in the Brujeric lexicon, in which one of the primary design principles is adapting French words to a Spanish-based phonology. For example, the word meaning "much/many" in Brujeric is "bocupo," which is essentially a transcription of French "beaucoup" into Iberian phonetics. In addition, many irregular preterit (i.e. simple past) verb forms are largely based on the French passé simple, and several irregular past participles are also derived from their French counterparts.

Brujeric does have a few unique, emergent attributes. An excellent example of this is the divergence of the Gallo-Iberian third-person reflexive pronoun "se" into gender- and number-specific forms, ("so" is masculine singular, "sa" is feminine singular, and "sen" is the plural for both genders).

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Interest of others

Brujeric can be found in the Files archive of the Yahoo group RomConLang, a group devoted to fictional Romance languages and Romance linguistics. A few members of this group have shown particular interest, one of them even saying it looks like a real language.

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