Re: qis iscijat a linuva "afer?"

Leo Caesius

Liu Cèshu a iscritu:

>     Afer, a hypothetical Romance language, is my first organized
> attempt at
> language construction ("costrutijo de linuvas") - as a tribute to my
> interest in the culture(s) of the Maghreb, I envisioned a language that
> would have developed among the Latin speaking inhabitants of North Africa,
> based upon colloquial varieties of Latin that did develop among that
> population ("*GASP*" - I can hear my detractors already -
> "another Neo-Latin
> conlang?!?!?").
Yes! Hooray! I love romance (or romance-esque) languages! My query about the
fate of the words for compass points in that group is in aid of my new
Conlang, Rumáno. More about Rumáno in the next post, by the way.

>     For starters, I have about 8000 words derived from Latin, a loose idea
Classical Latin or Romance? Do you have a word derived from albus for white
or one from a Gmc *blank-?

> of the grammar, and a few texts which I have translated into Afer.  The
> standard written form of the language was created by Afer's greatest
> iscrithur, M. Porcius Iasucthan, a centurion in the area of what is today
> Algeria and was then Numidia.  Naturally, the pronunciation has changed a
> bit since then, but the written form remains the same.
>
>     I thought it most appropriate to quote St. Augustine (or, as
> he is known
> in Afer, Sathus Ogustinus) in Afer, regarding the pronunciation
> of Latin in
> North Africa in his time:
>
> "Ores afares non judicat a curetijo bel a produtijo de bocales."
>
>     The original Latin text is:
> Afrae aures de correptione uocalium uel productione non iudicant – St.
> Augustine, De doctrina christiana IV.10.24. "African ears do not judge
> between shortening or lengthening of vowels."
>
> A few notes on the text:
>     This constitutes a (bad) translation of a learned text.  IMO,
> bel (while
> extant in the vocabulary of Afer) is unlikely to be the most
> common word for
How about something from "aut", which gives French ou and o in most other
languages?

> "or," just as the meaning given here for words like "curetijo" or
> "produtijo" would probably be unknown to the Afer-on-the-Street.  The word
> afares is the adjectival form of "Afer;" generally, in Afer, Lat. *e > a
> /_r, but the word Afer itself is borrowed from Classical Latin.
>     Vowels are pronounced as in Italian or Spanish; "b" is a
> voiced bilabial
> fricative, "j" is an approximant as in German.  I have yet to
> decided if c,
> g, t, and d have become affricates before front vowels (as you
> can see, I'm
> leaning towards a semi-etymological orthography, so this would not
> necessarily be represented in the script).
Yep, that's the way I do things. Orthography first, then sounds I still
don't know how Rumáno ò (from stressed short o in Latin) is pronounced.

>     Scholars of Romance languages will note two unusual features in this
> text: 1) the nouns here are all derived from the Latin nominative form; 2)
> Afer conserves all of the vowels of Latin, even if length has been lost,
> diphthongs have collapsed, and vowels in hiatus have been
> eliminated through
> a variety of strategies;  these two traits occur in Sardu (the language of
> Sardinia) as well as colloquial texts from North Africa, so I thought them
> appropriate enough for Afer.
>
>    The subject of this letter, qis iscijat a linuva "afer?", means "who
> knows the 'Afer' language?" -- note that "v" should be pronounced as a
> bilabial approximant /w/.  I'm debating whether I should substitute
> something for the etymological "q" (perhaps ch? the h in Afer indicates
> aspiration) as it only appears in words that contain the Latin *qu, and
> whether the Afer would use the verb iscijare for languages (perhaps
> itejulegare, Lat. intellegere? I'm trying to avoid polysemy).
How about something from cognoscere (Fr. connaître) or sapere (Fr. savoir)?

>    Naturally, I'm very eager to hear any suggestions, comments, or other
> observations.  Thanks,
No es obreyado!

> Chollie
What is Chollie short for?

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Lo deu nu preca êl'aisún necoui.  God prays at noone's altar.

Dan Jones: www.geocities.com/yl_ruil/
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