Re: Judean Romancelang Plans

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.