Does anyone know of an OpenJDK 11 build for Mac OS X 10.9.5, or whether it's possible to build it on that OS version?
Having only an X11 GUI would be fine.
EDIT: I've only found binary installers that require at least OS X 10.10 and no information that is specific to the minimum required OS version for building from source independently from the minimum required clang version. OS version 12 is advised but that is presumably because Apple's xcode only contains a new enough clang version starting from that release: one can build for 10.9. Conversely, 10.9 does have a 10.10 SDK and it is no problem to install newer clang versions (I have clang 5.0.1 and 9.0.1 installed). I did not find any information whatsoever on building for X11 instead of native graphics (IOW, treat the Mac as a regular BSD/Posix workstation). That should cut a large part of the "this requires a newer OS" code out of the equation but is evidently not something any of the regular vendors will consider.