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Re: Received Wisdom on Waponi (LONG)

From:Leo Caesius <leo_caesius@...>
Date:Tuesday, July 25, 2000, 16:57
    Well, I've managed to establish a series of sound changes which
establish the lexicon of the language, and am looking for a few good
suggestions on the name.  Here are a few words that might evoke the Waponi:

vuwkano (where v = RM's w1 and w = RM's w2) "vulcano"
fofuwu "people"
isuwa "island"
isuwa fawa ku vuwkano nano "Waponi Woo" ie. Little Island with a Big Volcano
[insula parva cum vulcanum magnum].

    There are still a few problems to be worked out.  The first problem is
that several consonants have managed to cling for dear life to the end of
various syllables despite all the effort we've made to eradicate them.  The
culprits include the letter n - which I will probably eliminate through
assimilation, unless there are any good reason to keep this letter.  The
letter w appears all throughout the lexicon, often ending syllables or
following stops without an intermediate vowel (NB vuwkano above, or kwaceu
/kwatseu/ "sword" [gladius]) Is this permissable within the phonological
constraints of our language?
    A second question - when vowels occur in hiatus (as in kwaceu), should
we leave them be, eliminate one of the vowels through some strategy (as I've
done with Afer), or insert a glide (or stop) to break them up (another
strategy from Afer).  That would give us kwaceu, *kwacu, *kwaceju, or
*kwace?u - which one suits our purposes best?
    A final query - we now have a basic vocabulary for this language, based
on Latin.  What are some Greek, Aramaic, Celtic, and Hebrew terms that might
survive in this language?  I want to subject them to the same treatment that
I've given the Latin terms.  I assume that the Polynesian terms will be
borrowed "as they are" and not modified heavily.
-Chollie
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