Re: Franj Travellers' Phrasebook
| From: | Geoff Horswood <geoffhorswood@...> |
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| Date: | Sunday, February 6, 2005, 8:19 |
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On Sat, 5 Feb 2005 18:57:31 +0100, Benct Philip Jonsson <bpj@...>
wrote:
>Geoff Horswood wrote:
>
>> Byzantine Greek Bizintiq /bi.z&:~n'tiq/
>
>Note: the Byzantine Greeks *never* called themselves anything
>other than _Rhomaioi_ /rO'mEi/, and the Arabs called them /ru:m/.
Ah. Thanks. That had escaped my notice.
But what did they call their language? Greek, I assume. And if the Greek
of Achaea diverged from the Greek of Byzantium, as I'm postulating in this
universe, the +language+ might well get known as _Bizintiq_.
Romaix would be Latin, or perhaps Romany.
>BTW is _gn_ /J/ as in French?
Exactly like French, yes. But it retained the Old French habit of being
written _ng_ when word-final.
Also, I made a couple of errors:
1) _ualrox_. It should be spelled _walrox_ and pronounced /gwal'roS/.
2) I forgot about the tendency to conflate words ending in ù/u with the
next word, especially if it begins with a vowel. Thus _Jù esti_
becomes /dZwEs'ti:/
Geoff
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