Yorskr Tunguh
Yorskr Tunguh is an auxiliary language aimed at providing an alternative to English for the inhabitants of the County of Yorkshire (England). Yorskr Tunguh (hereafter YT) was designed by Philip Eygarth, himself a Yorkshireman.
Contents
Background
The major premise behind the creation of YT, as maintained by Eygarth himself, was to provide an awareness amongst Yorkshire people of their cultural debt to the Danish Viking. Eygarth maintains that these ancient forebears defined Yorkshire's borders, culture and even, in some areas, racial background. In creating YT he states that he believed he would help to create a better understanding amongst native Yorkshire people of their Danish Viking ancestry.
Categorization
It is difficult to define exactly where YT fits in amongst the existing categories of constructed and planned languages. Eygarth has termed YT a reconstructed language, or sometimes a surmised reconstruction, an attempt to paint a picture of the language that might have existed had pockets of Danish speakers survived into later ages, using Old Norse remnants in Yorkshire dialect and place names to discern its possible evolution. In the absence of any category which specifically caters to these idiosyncracies, however, Yorskr Tunguh is probably best referred to as a standard auxiliary languge.
Design principles
Yorskr Tunguh owes its formation to a careful examination of Yorkshire dialect. By looking at those words of Old Norse origin in Yorkshire dialect and cross-comparing them with their original forms, Eygarth claims he was swiftly able to see certain highly regimental patterns arising, patterns, which he realised, could be applied to any Old Norse word, whether existing in Yorkshire dialect or not, to create a more comprehensive lexicon.
Having created such a lexicon, Eygarth then set about creating the structure that would turn his list of words into a usable language. This latter task was accomplished, to use his own words, by “erring heavily on the side of simplicity”.
Yorskr Tunguh has only 41 sounds, all of which are familiar to the native of Yorkshire. These sounds are represented by 23 letters, either singularly or combined. YT is entirely phonetic, only the letters “r” and “y” representing more than one sound, although even these perform according to strict and easily understandable rules. Consequently, the simplicity of YT pronunciation is such that it is claimed one may gain reasonable familiarity with its workings after only a single hour of study.
Current speakers
Currently, it is believed that only a small number of people are learning YT, around one hundred according to Eygarth.
