Ten Years of Danetian: An External Timeline

I was infatuated with Latin, particularly its declensions and the way a few endings could express so much. But I also found things I wanted to change, from the spelling and pronunciation of old Latin forms to particular choices in its morphology. I wanted a personal Latin of my own: a classical language whose sound, grammar, and appearance I could shape without having to conform to centuries of established usage. These experiments supplied the impulse behind Danetian.

Rather than continuing with Latin, I began looking to Proto-Indo-European itself. The sound-change rules and inherited vocabulary recorded as “CONLANG #1” pointed toward a new solution: derive an independent daughter language, retaining the features I admired while allowing it to develop on its own terms.

The date 21 Mar 2016, corresponding to 15 Tau 3342 in the Danetian lunar calendar, was later treated as Danetian’s birthday. The language is still embryonic, but the project has begun to separate itself from earlier general conlanging and to assume an identity of its own.

A more elaborate grammar appears, with historical derivations and nominal paradigms. The language is becoming less a sketch and more a serious attempt at an independent Indo-European daughter language.

A systematic exploration of sound changes from Proto-Indo-European, using Mark Rosenfelder’s SCA2. This is one of the first moments when Danetian begins to feel methodically derived rather than merely imagined.

An early translation of the opening of Genesis begins antiterman denot dīwos djuns pe xeθomam. Its long vowels and ⟨θ⟩ place it unmistakably in Early Danetian.

Recognizable Early Danetian emerges, with long vowels and conspicuous aspirates inherited from PIE voiced aspirated stops bʰ, dʰ, gʰ. They appear in the old orthography as ⟨φ⟩, ⟨θ⟩, and ⟨x⟩. The result is an archaizing language, closer in appearance to an ancient grammatical reconstruction than to modern Standard Danetian.

A substantial dictionary of Early Danetian, preserving the older vowel lengths and aspirates. Forms such as dranom ‘grain’, later sjdranom in Standard Danetian, show how even familiar inherited vocabulary could change its appearance as the treatment of the palatovelars was reconsidered.

Inflection and syntax are worked out more seriously. Danetian is trying to become usable prose, not merely a system of etymologies and declension tables.

A later grammatical description of mature Early Danetian. The language still retains its old aspirated series and long vowels. I would eventually become dissatisfied with this antique appearance, especially the treatment of PIE bʰ, dʰ, gʰ as ⟨φ⟩, ⟨θ⟩, ⟨x⟩, and begin experimenting with their development.

Alternative sound changes are used to derive Eastern and Western Danetian dialects from a common Proto-Danetian. The language is increasingly imagined historically, not just statically.

The earlier reflexes of the Proto-Indo-European palatovelars are reconsidered during the phonological overhaul. The older spellings ⟨d⟩ and ⟨t⟩ eventually give way to ⟨dj⟩ and ⟨sj⟩, an important step toward the recognizable sound of modern Danetian.

A major phonological rethink begins. The PIE voiced aspirates bʰ, dʰ, gʰ, formerly represented by ⟨φ⟩, ⟨θ⟩, and ⟨x⟩, become a particular source of dissatisfaction. Transitional experiments explore Latin-like fricative outcomes, including ⟨f⟩ and ⟨v⟩, before the modern treatment settles on ⟨b⟩, ⟨d⟩, and ⟨g⟩. Vowel length is reconsidered as well. These were experiments, not a single reform. Compare also the broader reshaping of familiar words during this transition, such as donvos in an older experimental form to modern djombos ‘number’.

A new dictionary survives from December 2019, following the autumn sound-change experiments. Its forms offer a concrete glimpse of the language in transition, when the older classical appearance was being reconsidered but no settled replacement had emerged.

In November 2021 I began a large lexical notebook and a separate collection of verb conjugations. The verb notes include present, imperfect, aorist, subjunctive, imperative, and active and passive forms. These working materials show that Danetian was being developed in considerable grammatical detail, even during a period that otherwise left relatively few finished texts.

A surviving translation of the Nicene Creed, entitled Symbolom bisties, shows Danetian in sustained religious prose. Accent marks and forms such as Diví, Patrí, and djumós reveal a language still far removed from the present standard, yet already capable of handling a demanding inherited text.

Notes on Danetian cosmology describe the Earth, the elements, and the divine order. The work is primarily cultural, but it begins to give Danetian words and religious ideas a setting beyond a grammar table.

A list of surnames experiments with the linguistic texture of everyday identity. These are naming materials rather than evidence of a permanent grammatical reform, but they make the imagined speech community more tangible.

CORDATES, a small collection of roughly twenty test sentences, is compiled. It is a convenient testing ground for grammar and vocabulary, not yet a substantial corpus of continuous writing.

A lunisolar calendar is worked out in detail. This matters to the language as a cultural project: dates, festivals, and chronology begin to be expressed from inside the imagined civilization.

Around this time I began writing longer passages without constantly consulting my grammar or dictionary. Where inherited vocabulary was missing, I could draw freely on Greek, Latin, and Romance material and adapt it to Danetian. This was a practical kind of fluency: the language had become something I could think and compose in, not merely analyze. This marks the beginning of Late Danetian, when the language increasingly served as a medium for original prose.

A surviving sample writes Danetian using Coptic letters. It belongs to a wider period of orthographic experimentation, when scripts and sound systems were still far from settled.

A revised collection of test sentences documents forms near the emergence of Late Danetian. Like the earlier CORDATES, this remains a modest set of examples rather than a large text corpus.

A dated note proposes writing Danetian in the Cyrillic alphabet. It belongs to a broader phase of script experimentation, testing whether another writing tradition might suit the language’s sounds and its location in the Balkans. The Latin standard ultimately prevailed.

More running Danetian is preserved. The modern phonology is becoming easier to hear on the page, and the language looks less like a reconstruction exercise and more like something livable.

As the Danetians acquire a fuller migration history from the steppe to the Balkans, the lexicon opens up. Borrowings begin to flow in from Turkic, Perso-Arabic, Greco-Latin, and the Balkan world, giving the language a denser and more lived-in texture.

Work begins on an extensive Late Danetian dictionary. Its spelling and morphology preserve a useful snapshot of the language immediately before the changes that would establish the modern standard.

The schwa-like vowel that had often been written ⟨a⟩ increasingly comes to be written ⟨y⟩. The change reshapes familiar stems and gives Danetian a distinctive modern appearance. I regard it as an important precursor to Standard Danetian.

Written proposals and resolutions begin formalizing questions of standardization. Danetian is now being treated less as a private experiment and more as a language that can be codified.

Alternatives such as ⟨sh⟩ and ⟨zh⟩ are weighed against ⟨sj⟩ and ⟨zj⟩. The question concerns not only phonetic accuracy, but the appearance and consistency of the writing system. The latter digraphs ultimately enter the standard.

By October 2024, the older spelling ⟨c⟩ in forms such as diccionariom had given way to ⟨tz⟩, as in dictzionariom. The new spelling is attested in October 2024 and marks the beginning of Standard Danetian.

Work begins on a concise dictionary of the standard language.

New grammatical and concise dictionary documents are compiled. Standard Danetian is increasingly presented as something worth publishing.

A survey of the lexicon brings the language’s layers into focus: inherited Indo-European vocabulary, a Tungusic substratum, Turkic military terminology, Iranian and Arabic loans, Syriac religious terms, and later Greek, Latin, and Balkan influences. Danetian’s history is now expressed as much in the vocabulary as in the sound laws.

Work on a normative dictionary continues the move from word collecting toward lexicography. The task is no longer just to coin attractive forms, but to decide which forms and senses belong in the written language and how to describe them consistently.

I brought together my personal Danetian compositions and translations into CORDAN, a corpus of continuous writing containing tens of thousands of tokens. Unlike the small earlier CORDATES exercise, CORDAN preserves substantial texts and makes it possible to study vocabulary, constructions, and usage across the history of the language.

Further work begins on a structured dictionary and the Academy website. The language is now supported by editorial infrastructure, not just notes and inspiration.

Advances in large language models make a new translation workflow practical. By supplying an AI assistant with the existing Danetian corpus, I can obtain a substantial first draft of a long text, then review and correct it.

A substantial set of test sentences is assembled for constructions and inflection. The language is now being probed analytically, almost like a subject of philological study.