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Re: Judean Romancelang Plans

From:Eric Christopherson <eric@...>
Date:Friday, January 22, 1999, 4:58
Don Blaheta wrote:
> There are five vowels, each of which can be short or long. The length > is actually a time thing in Republic times, but already by early Empire > it was starting to become a distinction of quality as well; by about the > fourth century CE certain mergers had occurred to reduce the system to > seven vowels (/aeEioOu/, iirc).
Here's a chart of vowel changes in Vulgar Latin (IIRC): short or long a > /a/ short e or ae > /E/ (later diphthongized to /'i.e/>/je/) long e or oe or short i > /e/ long i > /i/ short o > /O/ (later diphthongized to /'u.o/>/wo/, in Spanish to /we/) long o or short u > /o/ long u > /u/ Y seemed to work the same as I, but I don't know if there was a difference between short and long Y as there was between short and long I. AE and OE also caused a preceding C or G to palatalize.
> I'm really not sure > where Z entered in, although I'm pretty sure it wasn't originally in > Latin.
No, it was borrowed from Greek for the sound of zeta in Greek words. Latin originally had no /z/, like PIE. I believe Z was /dz/.
> > Also, in order to test out this system, i'd like to know how to say > > "Judean" in Latin, so that i can mutate it into the name of the conlang > > itself. > > Well, "of the Jews" was "Iudaeorum", so "Iudaeus/Iudaea" (Jew, Judean) > would be what you're looking for.