Re: Vowels in Finlaesk

On 9/3/07, Paul Bennett <paul.w.bennett@...> wrote:
> I'm having a small crisis over the vowels in Finlaesk.
>
> The two-penny tour: It's what happened to the Old Icelandic spoken by the
> settlers of Vinland (North America) in its AU.
>
> [snip]
>
> It is, in short, the kind of environment in which I suspect my
> nicely-laid-out Germanic vowel grid just would not stay stable. Worlds are
> colliding, and things are going to collapse. The only problem is: which
> things?
See what vocabulary gets borrowed into Finlæsk and make adjustments
from there. You could build in "ripple effects" which would sweep
through the lexicon changing vowels as they go; but the ripples have
to start somewhere, and borrowed vocabulary seems to me to be a
logical place.

Another scenario is that the indiginous Algonkian/Iroquois learn
Norse. They of course will speak it with an accent. What would that
accent be like? You could even set up an Iroquois/Algonkian/Norse
creole which would then feed back into the original system. As the
creole and Norse converge, lots of things will happen, including the
emergence of a continuum of varieties, from basilectal (barely
recognizable as Norse with radically stripped down grammar and greatly
simplified phonology) to acrolectal (barely indistinguishable from
Norse with a full complement of typically Norse grammatical and
phonological features and a healthy dose of borrowed vocabulary).

Such a scenario strikes me as being the most realistic, but also the
hardest to work out (but perhaps all the more rewarding for that). Of
course, this doesn't help you with the specifics, which you seemed to
be asking for. But if you're interested in pursuing the creolization
line, look at Michif, which is an Algonkian/French creole. You might
get some ideas on what will change and in what direction.

Dirk