Re: Recreating English: Request for information.

Joe wrote:

> Right, well, I've been working on a story, which is set in a parallel
> universe, but at the same time, it's set in England.  Being an alternate
> universe, I would say things didn't quite work out the same, so it would
> have a different language, but, it being similar in many respects, I
> want it to have an English-oid feel.
>
> So, I've outlined a number of steps:
>
> 1. Randomly generate a list of roots in alternate-PIE, using their word
> structure.
> 2. Apply sound changes, first into alternate-Germanic, then into
> alternate-Old English, and finally into alternate-Middle English.
> 3. Go through great vowel shift, but largely retain spelling from
> alternate-Middle English.
>
> I'm not sure, but this should produce something that looks like English,
> but is a priori.  Finally I go and ascribe words to things.
>
> So, to accomplish these aims, I need to know a few things:
>
> How did Ablaut actually work?
> What sound changes happened from Germanic to OE?
> What grammatical changes happened from PIE to Germanic?
>
>
> And any other information I might find helpful...

Roger Lass's

Old English
A Historical Linguistic Companion
Cambridge University Press

Has a lot of detail about sound changes from Germanic to OE
and on the ablaut plus a lot of other stuff

David