Re: R: Re: R: Re: Latin loans in Welsh

On Wed, 13 Jun 2001, Mangiat wrote:

>>
>> Means beard. Though the meaning "uncle" is quite interesting! How
>> did (presumably) Latin barba come to mean uncle? Did all uncles
>> have beards or something?
>
>My Italian vocabulary lists it so:
>
>_barba_, male noun, invariable, archaic and septentrionalism (does this word
>exist in English?):
It does now! We might usually say "northern regionalism", though.

>1. uncle 2. in the valdese (and this? the vocabulary is
>not at hand, at the moment!) communities of Piedmont, priest; every member
>of this religious community. [etym.: _barba_ meant 'adult male member of the
>family different from the father']
>
>> The process is this: In the oldest levels of the language, there were
>> the same five vowel declensions Latin had plus three special consonant
>> declensions (-n, -t, -r/-s) which were largely declined like -i stems.
>> By the 15th century or so, the -o and -u stems are largely coalescent;
>> by the late 19th, the current state of affairs is found where there's
>> essentially one declension. What's happening is that -r, -n, -s, and
>> -t are becomming reanalysed into (official) plural terminations.
>
>Were the five decl. still alive in the 15th cent.? Interesting...
I have to work at revising the  ancient and medieval paradigms...

The -a declension has always been the strongest and most resistant
to loss or change of forms. Even now, you hear -a as the accusative
ending with frequency - while all the other declensions have levelled
to silent -e:

/la kanta       i xanti         il kants        i xanti/
/la~ ganta      i xants         le~ gant        i xants/

La canta (f) = song; il cantes (m) = language. In spelling, the 5
declesnions lasted quite a while, though the pronunciation changed.

>
>> It should be noted that what facilitates this is the loss of the case
>> endings in casual speech:
>>
>> WRITTEN                         SPOKEN
>>
>> il murs         y vurores       /Il murs        i vUror/
>> li muri         lis murib
>> le mmurre       y vurores       /le~ mur        i vUrors/
>
>It is nom/dat/acc, isn't it?
Yes.

>
>> [You don't get the dative in daily speech. I'm also sure that [o]
>> isn't the right IPA for the second vowel in the plural, but you
>> get the idea.]
>>
>> Probably what's going to happen is _all_ nouns will end up in one of
>> these four new declensions, with reworking of the case endings.
>
>This is a great idea. And does the present stage of the written language
>reflect this?
No. Well, maybe. :) There are approximately 6 semi-official
orthographies and writing systems in use at this time (and I'm not
going to bother trying to keep them straight). On the fringe is, in
fact, a written / grammatical variety that reflects the current state.

For the most part, the literary situation would be about like seeing
"As hyt ys yknowe hou3 meny maner people buth in this ylond, ther buth
also of so meny people longages and tonges; notheles Walschmen and
Scottes, that buth no3t ymelled with other nacions, holdeth wel ny3
here furste longage and speche, bote 3ete Scottes, that were som tyme
confederat and wonede with the Pictes, drawe somwhat after here
speche." while actually reading "As it is i-known how many manner
people be in this Island, there be also many languages and tongues.
Netheless Walshmen and Scottes that be not meddled with other naciouns
keep yet nigh their first langage and speeche, but yet tho scottes
that were sometimes confederate and dwelled with the Pyctes draw
somwhat after their speche."

There is talk of actually getting everyone together to come up with
a balanced Official Formula that will constitute "good" Kerno.

Padraic.

>Luca

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