Re: Ebb and flow (was Re: Naisek Pages Updated)

On Thu, 31 Jul 2008, Jörg Rhiemeier wrote:

> > This did not put me off the least, however, because all those ideas
> > seemed so interesting to be expored by myself.  �rj�trunn is a
> > typical example: there are zillions of romlangs and many, many
> > diachronical conlangs applying which sound shifts you can imaging
> > to Vulgar Latin, but I had not done it myself.  And it turned out
> > to be one of the most interesting and entertaining things to do in
> > the past few years.
>
> Sure.  Making a romlang now is not the same as making a
> romlang in '96 (or whenever Andrew came up with Brithenig).
> Yet, the possibilities are not entirely exhausted, even if
> many of the more plausible scenarii such as Britanno-Romance
> or Germano-Romance have been taken.
>
Hmmm, Thrjotrunn must be something like the great-grandchild of
Brithenig.  I wonder what Romlangs look like plotted out on a flow
chart?

I am debating with myself over two changes to make to Brithenig.  Both
will have to be retconned.  The first is to drop soft c, /ts/,
becoming /tS/ in favour of /s/.  That seems to go go more naturally
into the language, and makes it sound to my ear more 'Welsh'.  It will
mean a spelling reform of the lexicon and soft mutation /tS/ to /dZ/
will mostly disappear.  I will still need it for some words
like 'ceosir', to choose, which like  choisir French is borrowed from
the Saxon neighbours.

The other change I consider making is to follow a suggestion Ray made
once and introduce 'ou' as a digraph for /u/ and give 'u' the value for
barred-i.

My reluctance to making changes to Brithenig is that it is embedded into
the Bethisad shared-world project.  That's a lot of work, and a big
surprise to foist on anyone!

Then I looked at my journal language Zealandish, for which I had started
creating a lexicon at Frathwiki.  I realise that I have given 'e' the
value of /I/ as I'm told happens in my dialect NZEnglish (my ear is not
tuned to hear it, so I take it as a given), and I have given 'ee' the
value of /e/ so the longer sound has not shifted (it does not occur in
my dialect).  It's one that I will have to think about.

I shall stop thinking aloud now (or the typing equivalent of loudness),
and end by pointing at today's Questionable Content webcomic.  Keyboard
enthusiasts might find it pertinent to recent discussions;
http://questionablecontent.net/view.php?comic=1200

- andrew.

--
Andrew Smith  --  hobbit@griffler.co.nz  --
http://hobbit.griffler.co.nz/homepage.html

"If you are gonna rebell you have to wear our uniform."

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