On Mon, 19 Feb 2001 Fabian <lajzar@...> wrote :
> 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 a> 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.
<j> = [j], <gh> = Arab. 'ayn ? or ghayn ? or both ???
Could you give some examples, as I don't quite understand how these
words were adapted, did the result look Arabic or Romance?
> 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.
I didn't realise it was as bad as that.
> btw, who is making this arabesque/romance conlang? And do you want
> help? Im kinda partial to Maltese you see.
Christophe, I think, and Steg is looking at doing a Judeo-Romance
lang.
>> 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
Indeed we can and must! But I'm thinking if Hanabal had had a few
extra elephants and the Romans hadn't trashed Qart Hadax ...
Keith