Re: An arabo-romance conlang?

> I was looking for Maltese material on the web but have only found a
> few snippits so far. However, it appears that Maltese developed a
> special class of verbs for Romance loans that wouldn't fit into any
> of the Arabic patterns. If this is true it might provide some
> suggestions for arabised Romance.
That's only half-true. Maltese treats italian/english verbs as class 1
arabic verbs with a weak third (ie final) (ie J, but not W or Gh) consonant.
There are some oddities within this rule, but it generally works. The
exeptions have rules of their own - this is one of the few areas where
Maltese can claim a modicum of regularity.

btw, who is making this arabesque/romance conlang? And do you want help? Im
kinda partial to Maltese you see.

> Another point is that Sicily had a large Arabic speaking population
> at one time, has it left it's mark on the local Romance? Would it be
> a suitable place for an Arabo-Romance to have developed in another
> time-line?
I can imagine an ATL where Suleiman chooses to invade Sicily instead of
Malta, and ultimately these two islands are united as one more arabic nation
sometime in the modern era. I guess this would result in 'Sicilo-Maltese'
being closer to classical Arabic than present Maltese, perhaps still written
in Arabic script, perhaps with both scripts in use. The English vocabulary
should be almost non-existant. The final product would probably sound like
colloquial Libyan. Italian would probably have more Arabic influence,
something like the influence al-Andalus had on Spain, but maybe less so.

mmm... a Maltese nation encompassing Sicily and coastal Libya... nice...

(Hey, we micro-state imperialists can dream can't we?)

--
Fabian
Find your enemy's weakest point, and destroy it.
But remember who your own worst enemy is.

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