Re: écagne, and ConLand names in translation (was: RE: RV: Old English)

On Sat, 1 Apr 2000, And Rosta wrote:

>Gzranq Gkhawn (John Cowan):
>
>What is the ungarbled version, and why is it a riddle?
The ungarbled version is has "g or y" in place of "-gry". I
think the riddle was "There are three words in the English
language that end in g or y; one is 'hungry' the other is
'angry', and if you're listening I've told you the third.
What is it?"  Of course, in normal speech, "g or y" tends
to get pronounced homophonously with "G-R-Y" - the names
of the three letters. Hence the confusion of the original
riddle (the answer of which, of course, is "listening") and
what makes it impossible for anyone who doesn't know how to
gry. :)

>> > Translations of these names into other natlangs and conlangs would be
>> > delightedly received by me...
>>
>> In Brithenig, they are Lleig and Yscyngr /Is'kiNgIr/, I think.
>
>O wow! Can you run through the history of these for me?
Livagia:
Initial l > ll; agia > eig (actually -aCj > -eiC); apparently
medial -v- disappeared; final -a disappears. The changes would
have taken place over centuries. I wonder if the -g should be
-g'. Of course, I never got any of that Mistarista straight,
and undoubtedly would speak horrible Brithenig if ever I tried.

Scungry:
Initial sc- > ysc- (actually init. sC > ysC); u: > y; ng is N;
final vowel drops off; -r is syllabic [-@r] or [-er] depending
on dialect, education, etc.

>I wonder what _Kemr_ is in Livagian. Is _Kemr_ just the normal development
>of _Cambria_?
Yes.

>Do other European lgs call _Kemr_ by their local reflex of _Cambria_?
That's a good question. The Kernow call it Pays Comror (a
reflex of borrowed Kemr); not exactly a reflex of "Cambria",
which would be Cammrea. Dan can tell us what it's called in
Arvorec! It's probably called "Wales" in Saxon.

>Because of the intrinsically dead character of Livagian, no
>sound changes would have supervened upon the earliest form of the word
>in the language, hence _Gkhambrya_, or conceivably _Kambrya_ (<k> = [k']).
>OTOH, if Kemr and Cambria are felt to be fundamentally different entities,
>so that Kemr is not just modern Cambria, then, given that Lyaco-British
Cambria is just the Proper Latin for Kemr, as in "X Rex Cambriarum"
style of thing.

>contacts would have existed during the Romano-British period, though
>dying out during the Dark Ages, the name for Kemr would probably reflect
>the form of the Brithenig name at the time either when Kemr first became
>a nation, if this was not too far into the Dark Ages, or else during the
>late Middle Ages when the sea traffic out of Europe was beginning and
>Lyaco-European contacts were resuming.
I don't think anyone's done any work on early midieval Brithenig.

Padraic.

>
>--And.
>