Re: Phaistos disk (was: boustrophedon)

sept ans tout(s?) pleins a été en Espagne ?

has been in Spain a full seven years.

or am i completely off the mark ?

-----Original Message-----
From: Constructed Languages List [mailto:CONLANG@LISTSERV.BROWN.EDU] On
Behalf Of Christophe Grandsire
Sent: Tuesday, July 16, 2002 8:47 PM
To: CONLANG@LISTSERV.BROWN.EDU
Subject: Re: Phaistos disk (was: boustrophedon)


En réponse à John Cowan <jcowan@...>:

>
> ObArgument: Christophe, is this .sig French?
>
>                 Charles li reis, nostre emperesdre magnes,
>                 Set anz totz pleinz ad ested in Espagnes.
>
Yep, Old French. You can recognise it as it still features the two-case
system of Old French (which was lost quite early on - by the XIIIth
century - mostly because it was less and less productive (only masculine
words had a case system working, in feminine words the -s simply marked
number) and had only one mark - the suffix -s - which was used in a very
ambiguous way - it marked both the nominative singular and the oblique
plural, while the nominative plural and oblique singular stayed
unmarked, at least for words which kept the full paradigm -).

Well, I don't seem to be able to translate the second line, its syntax
looks much too alien for me :(( . But the first line is pretty
straightforward: "Charles the king, our great emperor".

Christophe.

http://rainbow.conlang.free.fr

Take your life as a movie: do not let anybody else play the leading
role.

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