Mencprekenn ("human language"), also called Noidoitc ("New German") is a conlang i made for the world of an RPG called AFORA, created by a friend of mine. it's a world of dystopian sci-fi and cosmic horror

It's a language that emerged among the English workers of the Anglo-German space colonization company STAG, during the decades they spent on the Moon after the near-total destruction of the Earth in 2020. After that, it was appropriated by the Interstellar Division, an authoritarian government that would rule humanity's planets for the next few centuries, creating a standard norm that it considers “logical” for the language (while further distancing Mencprekenn from the languages of pre-collapse Earth)

"[...] das ge'manic cprekenn ,in nictainzaintenn mainung fon aler vahrer mencenn ,habenn am moralstenn rictiger suh gehbenn suh Mencaht helfenncprekenn bohn fon zain vuhm ,junivahsellcprekenn in gaist fon logik" -Wacher Celon, 2080

Translation of the quote: “[...] that Germanic languages, in the impartial opinion of all true humans, have the most moral right to give humankind an auxiliary language born of its womb, a universal language in the spirit of logic.” Note that it can be translated into english almost 1 to 1.

Mencprekenn can be classified as a creole language with an English substratum and a German superstratum. Around 90% of its vocabulary comes from German, especially the exact and objective terms (e.g. ve'ksoik, “tool”, from the German "Werkzeug"), while English has left its legacy mainly in words related to the emotional (e.g. drihm, “dream”). Similar to English, New German is an analytical language with a dependency on term order, having a relatively fixed Subject-Verb-Object order. The language has little inflection and extensive use of auxiliary verbs to express concepts such as time.

Here's a link to a (portuguese) article i wrote on the AFORA wiki, the page you're reading right now is essentially a translation of it

Mencprekenn was a very interesting challenge because I had never done an entire conlang before it, and on top of that this is an a posteriori language that uses complex concepts such as creolization (though I haven't explored it much in depth) and it also is in a way a retcon of the AFORA canon. I don't think the language is perfect, far from it, there are still a lot of things missing, but I think I've done a good job so far.

backstory:

In the first lunar colonies, British workers at STAG found themselves in a precarious situation where the company's management was mainly made up of German speakers who highly cherished their language. They developed a pidgin (a type of simple mixed language used temporarily) that used the German words, but with a sound and general grammar more similar to that of English. This way of speaking became extremely common, especially in informal contexts, and by the mid-2050s, with the first generation of Lunar natives, it had already become a creole language (a stable mixed language with its own identity) spoken by part of the population.

Gradually, the language became slightly closer to German, changing its vocabulary, phonology and, above all, becoming more used by the ruling families. Between 2050 and 2080, Wacher Celon's government created an interest in the language as a way of appearing more connected to the people and creating a new “human” identity, separate from the cultures of old Earth. Based on Wachernist principles, the form of New German recently adopted by the native German-speaking upper classes was used as the basis for the creation of the Human Language, a standardized form, understandable to most dialects, declared in 2080 the administrative language of the Division, with compulsory teaching in schools. The standard pronunciation became known as Standaht.zagenn (SZ), “Standard Saying”, in a literal translation.

With the colonization of the solar system, the language spread to the worlds colonized by STAG and later CALAL, starting with the wealthier ones, such as Europa, Mars and Venus, where dialects closer to the government standart were most common specially among the upper classes. Forms more similar to "old" English continued to be used in everyday life by the majority of the lower or middle class population and on worlds such as Mercury and various moons. Practically everyone who lives on Division worlds, and a significant proportion beyond those, knows New German, but most speak it with non-standard accents, blurring the line between the new “Human Language” and local dialects, more similar to English.

culture and dialects:

There's a big difference between the forms of New German spoken depending on the planet or person. Forms close to the standard, such as SZ, are popularly called “German”, while colloquial dialects in regions where the New German envisioned by Wacher Celon has only partially taken root are popularly called “English”, and have a high degree of intelligibility with the English language proper. For example, “German” is more commonly spoken on Mars and the Moon, while “English” is more commonly spoken on planets such as Mercury and Pluto. Most of the content of this article refers to “German”.

“English” uses a much higher percentage of English-originated words and tends to lose verb conjugations, often using only the infinitive form of verbs, as well as having a much greater tendency to use pronouns of English origin. One of the main differences is also the presence of articles, which have been extinct in the standard form; the indefinite ain (from the German “ein”), and the definite (both synonymous) zer (from the English “the”) and dih (from the German “die”) are the most common.

text samples:

phonology:

New German typically has an almost identical phonology to southern British English, with some features directly from German in SZ. Depending on the pronunciation, it has 11 to 13 vowels and 19 to 24 consonants.

Epenthesis works identically to British English, including the presence of the intrusive-R (regardless of how the R is pronounced).

Standaht.zagenn (SZ):

The standard pronunciation of New German, sometimes simply referred to as “speaking with a German accent” or sometimes just “German”. It's basically just used by announcers, media hosts and politicians in formal situations. Nevertheless, it should be noted that it is the basis of the Human Language's orthography. It is essentially characterized by the rejection of phonemes that only occur in English, replacing those with phonemes that have German equivalents, albeit with a sound now coming from English, as an attempt to imitate the neo-German accent spoken by wealthy families who were originally German speakers (which is also popularly called “German”).

In simple terms: casual neo-German (the name for it when it's very “vulgar”, also called “English”) is like a Brit imitating a German. “German” (as in a more German-sounding accent) is like a German imitating a Brit imitating a German. SZ (an artificial accent used by announcers for example) is like a Brit imitating a German imitating a Brit imitating a German.

For the purposes of this article, we will use SZ, as it is considered by Division grammarians to be “the most correct way of speaking”.

In SZ, the phoneme /w/ becomes /v/; /θ/ and /ð/ (the sounds of the English “th”) become /s/ and /z/; /ʒ/ and /dʒ/ (for example, the sounds in the English words “asia” and “jam” respectively) become /ʃ/ and /tʃ/ (for example, the sounds in the English words “shade” and “chair” respectively); /ʌ/ (as in English “up”) becomes /æ/ (as in English “cat”); and /ə: / (as in English “curtain”) becomes /a:/ (as in English “car”). In addition, you may hear /r/ (normally pronounced as in English) being pronounced as in German.

orthography:

As a way of combating illiteracy and at the same time detaching the new language from the identity of its ancestors, the spelling of Mencprekenn is relatively phonetic and has some unusual features.

Older first names, especially of people, usually retain their original spelling.

The vast majority of phonemes are represented with a single letter each, with great similarity to phonological transcription. Long vowels are represented as a short vowel followed by <h>. The phoneme /ə/ at the end of a word is written as <er>, before a vowel it is written as <e> and doubles the following consonant, and as part of diphthongs or tritongs it is written as <'>. The phoneme /ʃ/ is written as <c> and /j/ is written as <j>.

Note that spelling is based on SZ, so a word like “fahzer” (pronounced identically to the English “father”) is written with Z, as that is the closest German phoneme.

punctuation:

Sentences are always started with a semicolon, but it can be omitted if there are no sentences before it. Question marks and exclamation marks fulfill their usual role but are used at the beginning of sentences. When typing, any of these are written after a space, i.e. adjacent to the next word.

Proper nouns are the only ones to be capitalized. Adjectives that form them should be written together, but any other components of the name should be separated by a period.

Commas are used in the same way as in German, including to separate all subordinate clauses, but in typing they are used after a space. Quotation marks are identical to English.

It should be noted that the apostrophe refers to the phoneme /ə/ when joined to other vowels, and therefore does not represent a form of punctuation.

grammar:

Although very similar to English, New German grammar has notable differences, such as changes in verb conjugation and the absence of articles in most dialects. Subject-Verb-Object (SVO) order is fixed even in subordinate clauses, with the only exception being the inversion of subject and verb in interrogative and imperative clauses. There is no morphological case or gender, with the exception of pronouns.

nouns:

They behave essentially like English nouns, i.e. there is inflection only for number, with the plural expressed by the suffix “-enn”. Other inflections, such as grammatical gender and the German morphological case system, have not been inherited.

pronounss:

The New German personal pronoun system is broadly similar to pre-collapse German, but with the notable difference of including the pronouns juh (from English “you”) to occupy the niche of an informal second person pronoun, and the addition of zei (from English “they”) for generic individuals and non-binary people. In regular verbs, these pronouns have associated verbs conjugated in the same way as, for example, zih and e' respectively, but in certain irregular verbs they can have conjugations derived from English verbs. The other pronouns derive more or less directly from German.

Both the pronouns zih and juh refer to the second person singular or plural, but zih is generally considered the standard second person pronoun, while juh is only used in extremely informal situations.

Pronouns after prepositions (e.g. “for me”) take their accusative form.

The indefinite pronouns are an interesting case because they actually originated from pre-collapse German articles. The singular indefinite pronoun ain (from the German “ein”) means “some” (as in "some object"), and the plural dih (from the German “die”) means “some” (as in "some objects").

verbs:

There are indicative and imperative moods, but no form of subjunctive. The imperative is indicated by the inversion of subject and verb, with the subject sometimes being omitted if the subject is a second person pronoun.

There are three verb tenses: present (jets); past (foh), formed with the auxiliary verb habenn followed by a participle; and future (nahk), formed with the auxiliary verb ve'denn followed by an infinitive. Verb conjugations in the present and auxiliary verbs vary with person and number. In general these conjugations derive from German, but for some verbs that are notably similar in their English and German cognates, there has been a fusion of their conjugations and sometimes some pronouns, especially juh and zei, have their conjugation derived from English.

adjectives:

On the surface, most adjectives are similar to German, but due to the lack of grammatical gender and morphological case, they essentially behave like English adjectives.

Many adjectives can be formed from nouns by adding the suffix “-enn”. Relative comparisons are formed with “[adjective]-er als” and superlative comparisons are formed with “am [adjective]-stenn” in regular verbs. Negative comparisons are formed with “veniger [adjective]” (for comparatives) or “am venigstenn [adjective]” (for superlatives), with the adjective in its normal form. Most adjectives can be used as adverbs without changing their form. Possession can be expressed identically to the English “ 's ”, but without an apostrophe.