Re: Breton (WAS: first try at conlanging)

On Tue, 8 Jan 2002 20:26:29 EST
Elliott Lash <AL260@...> wrote (> > >):
> Stephen Mulraney <ataltanie@...> (> >):
> > Elliot Lash <AL260@...> wrote (>):
> > a probably wrong guess at a cognate -
[to the Breton word 'ya' for 'yes']

> > In Irish (and maybe in scottish gaelic) in answering a question one can
> > sometimes say 'sea' "it is" , pronounced /Sa/, but the S is probably
> > slightly palatalised.
> >
> > Then again it's likely a contraction of 'is ea' in speech (I don't really
> > know how to pronounce 'is ea' convincingly except to make it like 'sea'.
> > In this Ir. 'ea' is Eng. 'it' and Ir. 'is' is the copula ( ~ Eng. 'is').
> >
> Yes, well known to me. Pronounced /ISe/ at least in my book.
I think this verifies that 'sea' is just a contraction of 'is ea', especially
because I feel uncomfortable about writing 'sea' and uncomfortable about saying
'is ea'. In practice I'd use one in speech and the other one in writing, pronouncing
'is ea' as 'sea', i.e. /Sa/ [you could be right about the vowel being /e/, but
I haven't really got the hand of SAMPA yet - the vowel I want is a little back
from the a of 'hat', but not very near the a of 'father']. O, there's a little
glide between the /S/ and the vowel, at least in my idiolect [which is not to
be trusted really, since it's the result of learning (badly) as a child from
multiple teachers with multiple dialects, forgetting it for 8 years and then
learning more systematically.... ;)]

>
> > If I have a point it might be that since in Irish the word for yes (typically
> > you'd just repeat the verb with or without negation, to answer a question)
> > probably comes from the copula, might it be the same in Breton?
> > I know that Irish & Breton aren't really so closely related, despite being
> > both Celtic, but I'd still be suprised if the Brythonic/p-branch side of
> > the family didn't have a copula. Anyway how would you say 'it is' in Breton?
> > Anything like 'ya' or 'sea'
>
> eo /e/ or /ew/.
[snip]
> Though I doubt they're cognate to the copula, since they are not used where
 copular repitition conveys affirmation. And also, the Welsh copula is /iw/, from /@diw/.

Ah, that's what I was rummaging for ;). So if you're right the Brythonic langs actually
have a non-verbal non-copula word for yes... though I think my Irish copula-derived 'yes'
(sea) is attaining this status, in that it might be alright to use it in response to
a verb-question too.


> Now that I'm back in my University, I think I'll go to the library and check this out.
Tell me what you find!

> But..surely 'yes' is a basic vocabulary member?
Yes, sorry, I didn't phrase it very well. I meant you shd look for cognates in, especially
nouns, verbs, and adjectives rather than (slightly) more 'functional' words like 'yes' -
since languages' development is more likely to preserve 'meanings' than 'structures' -
in the sense that it would be a loss for a lang to drop the word for 'fire' while
no-one (but linguists) would really miss e.g. the loss of one way of answering in the
affirmative in favour of another. Warning: this argument is unstable and likely to
topple at the slightest investigation.

Stephen Mulraney