Re: OT: Semi-OT: Romance Comparisons

--- Joe <joe@...> wrote:
> Benct Philip Jonsson wrote:
>
> > At 00:52 24.4.2004, Roger Mills wrote:
> >
> >> Interesting-- could it have to do with ancient
> Celtic and/or later
> >> Germanic
> >> influence (the Langobardi)?? Perhaps the southern
> idioms ("Eastern
> >> characteristics") are what Western Rom. would
> have looked like
> >> without the
> >> Germanic influx?? Just speculating.......
> >
> >
> > IIRC it is mostly a question of which vowels merge
> with each other:
> > in western /U/ merges with /o/, while in eastern
> it merges with /u/.
> >
>
> What about Sardinian?  I believe it merges with /u/
> there.  But
> Sardinian's weird.
Sardinian (and a swath of Italian just north of the
toe) simply merge all long vowels with their short
counterparts.

Sicily does some odd things too.  Appearantly, at some
point it was moving toward a three vowel system /a/,
/i/, /u/ but the invasion of Italian borrowings has
probably dumped enough new /e/ and /o/ phones into the
language to keep them active for a good long while.

ObConlang:  Carrajena uses a Sardinian vowel system,
but merges /e/ with /i/ and /o/ with /u/ word finally
and before /n/ or between any two nasals.

Adam


=====
Indjindrud edjuebu ul Azor ad ul Sadoc. Indjindrud edjuebu ul Sadoc ad ul Acim.
Indjindrud edjuebu ul Acim ad ul Eliud. Indjindrud edjuebu ul Eliud ad ul
Eleazar. Indjindrud edjuebu ul Eleazar ad ul Matan. Indjindrud ul Matan ad ul
Jagovu. Indjindrud edjuebu ul Jagovu ad ul Jozevu ul maridu djal Maja dji fin
ninadud ul Jezu fin nicuamad Cristu.

Machu 1:14-16