Re: OT: Christmas/Holidays

On Mon, 26 Dec 2005 06:53:59 -0500, R A Brown <ray@...>
wrote:

> Paul Bennett wrote:
>>  Greek, I've got as Ιησος Χριστος (Iēsos Khristos), more or less,
>
> More, actually. It is Ιησους Χριστος (Iēsous Khristos)
> and I
>> think his Aramaic/Hebrew name is something like Yeshua,
>
> Yep - with a long e (and IIRC the u is long also)
Gah! I really don't know how I'm going to cope with a long e *and* a long
u in one source word, especially since they both appear in both my primary
sources. Ordinarily, vowel harmony is based on the first vowel in the
root, but it can be overridden if a later vowel is long. If *both* are
long, I'm faced with something of a dilemma. I suppose the rule could
refer to the earliest long vowel, or the earliest vowel if none are long.
That ... hmm ... it's dissatisfying, to some extent, and I'm afraid I'll
end up with some words that no longer fit my "native" intuitions of what
is euphonious.

The basic pattern bearing all that in mind seems to be /je:Su:/ > /jESu:/
> /jeSu:/ > /j7Su:/ depending on exactly *when* the length > height >
iotification > harmony processes occurred relative to when the name was
borrowed (presumably it was a known name in the Levant prior to 1 CE).
It's impossible to tell from the Demotic script (which was quite bad at
showing vowels), but the process was clearly complete by the Alphabetic
script, which starts to appear near 600 CE, by which time the population
was almost all Christian. Iotification could be detected in Demotic, I
suppose, from the influence on consonants.

It's a minefield, to be sure. I need to apply a *lot* more brainpower, and
more a rigorous timeline, and more rigorous sound change rules. Why is it
that all my projects end up turning insanely byzantine? Even Br'ga is
starting to get less and less freeform.





Paul