Re: A new version of Genesis

Yes, great ! "Escazit", or "escasit" looks quite all
right. It gives the word a touch of Southern France
dialect. There are already several words beginning
with 'esca': escadrille, escadron, escarre, escabeau,
escalade, escalier, escargot (of course)... So the
verb could be "escazir", or "escasir". [Some of those
words come from Italian (escadron...)] True, usually,
new verbs have a tendency to belong to the 1st group,
so it could also be "escaser". It's just that I don't
like the idea that every new verb should belong to the
1st groupe: it makes the language poorer, IMO.

But in French, there are also words beginning with
"sc", pronounced "sk": scandale, scaphandre, scarabée,
scalp (supposing this is a French word), scabreux,
scander, scarole... People from Southern France don't
like such words and will probably add an "e-" at the
beginning of them. Then there are words where the
initial "sc" is pronounced "s", like "scène" or
"sciatique" (because an "e" or an "i" follows).

Maybe there wasn't a huge influx of Slaves around 400,
but it might start just by now: Poland, Czech and
Slowak Republics, Slovenia just joined Europe,
Bulgaria will soon... But Ukrainians didn't expect
this to be already present in France (wy wife was part
of the vanguard); neither did the Russian Mafia, which
feels already just like home on the Riviera... Will
this influence French language ? Maybe we'll lose our
articles, because Slavs have a very strong tendency to
drop them and to think that they are completely
needless and superfluous.

--- Roger Mills <rfmilly@...> wrote:
> Philippe Caquant wrote:
>
> > Thanks for comments. True, when I reread this
> version,
> > it very much reminded me of 'Clockwork Orange',
> > anyway, of its French translation. I also wondered
> > whether "Bogue squasit" wouldn't be better then
> > "skazit", because "k" is seldom used in French. I
> > tried to adapt the Russian verbs to French
> > conjugation. That's why, instead of "skazal"
> (said), I
> > wrote "skazit" - or "squasit", for ex.
>
> That hadn't occurred to me; but surely "c" would be
> better than "qu" before
> "a", no?  Historically of course French, like
> Spanish, avoided "impure s" by
> adding initial e-, then Fr. lost the /s/; sometimes
> this is indicated by the
> circumflex but I'm not sure how regularly-- maybe
> word-medial? as in bête,
> (e-circumflex) but not initially, so école
> (e-acute)??  Then later I suppose
> in learnèd vocabulary, the /s/ is preserved but
> still takes the e-:  escale,
> escadrille.
>
> So "skazit" should become perhaps "écazit" or
> "escazit" -- or even better,
> with -s- instead of -z-.  What would be the
> infinitive? e(s)cazir?
>
> An amusing idea:  imagine a huge influx of Slavs
> with the Hunnic/Gothic
> invasions in the 400's; the Slavs survived and
> stayed on.  Then, what would
> Slavic with Romance sound changes look like?  It
> could be the continental
> answer to Brithenig. :-))))))
>
> > I'm not too good at phonetic alphabet, but your
> > transcription doesn't look bad. I'm not sure about
> > "gn": actually, it's the same as Spanish "n" with
> a
> > tilde on it.
> Yes, I know; that X-Sampa [J]
>

=====
Philippe Caquant

"High thoughts must have high language." (Aristophanes, Frogs)


	
		
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