Re: Beijing, Zhongguo, etc. (was Re: 'out-' affix in conlangs?)

On Wed, Aug 13, 2008 at 10:41 PM, caeruleancentaur <
caeruleancentaur@...> wrote:

>
> The Senjecans were the first loquent inhabitants of Earth.  As Humans
> began to give names to their homes and to the physical features
> around them, Senjecas developed four ways to adapt these names in
> conformity to the sounds and pitches of the language.  Place names
> are viewed as abstract nouns and, thus, end in -as.  And the earliest
> known name of a place is used without change even though the name may
> change later.

Very coincidentally, place names in Cl. Arithide end in -as too! Because
that's the lexical class for places. Senjecan is less ambiguous in that it
simply takes the chronological order of the names' appearance, thoiugh Cl.
Ar. is more troublesome. E.g. Jamaica, who's to say whether "Jamaica" should
be the source (since it's ENglish-speaking) or "xaymaca" which begot Jamaica
that should have the honour.


> 1. -as is added to the stem of the place name after palatalizing the
> final consonant, e.g., ilîryas, i.e., Illyria, continues to be the
> name of Albania.

Albania is straightforward: <Albānias> [al'ba:njas], but the palatalisation
is due to the -ia ending than any regular process.

>
>
> 2. Sometimes the final consonant is not palatalized, e.g., ámerîkas.

Ditto, <Amerikas> [a'merikas]. I think all place names that originally end
in -a shall adopt the -as nominative ending of Cl. Ar., given the similarity
and unambiguity.

>
>
> 3. The word 'kűnyas,' country, is suffixed to the name of
> the "original" inhabitants, e.g., bélgëkűnyas, land of the Belgians.
>
I differ from you here: the word <myr> [myr] can only refer to a country in
the abstract sense, and not in compounds. Compounds will simply use the -as
ending. Belgium is <Belgias>.

>
> 4. Sometimes the name is a literal translation, e.g., lhénapęras,
> rich coast, i.e., Costa Rica.
>
Ditto.

>
> Geographic features have the -os ending of concrete nouns, e.g.,
> yhélďmôôros, i.e., the Greek Sea, or the Aegean Sea.
>
<As Aegīnos> [as aj'gi:nos] in this case.

>
> The -os ending is changed to -as if the geographic feature becames a
> proper noun.  Thus, mhészyengôes, western islands, would refer to
> any group of islands in the west.  But, mhészyengâes means the
> British Isles.
>
Cl. Ar. has no such distinction betweent he general and the specific, and
culturally, there is an avoidance of purely descriptive names. The Areth
like poetry.

>
> Charlie
>

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