Re: Droppin' D's Revisited

En réponse à Roger Mills <romilly@...>:

>
>     Isn't the common French surname/placename ending -(i)ac supposedly
> of
> Gaulish origin (via Latinate -iacus)?  Galhac? (The wines could compete
> with
> Paulliac.)
"-(i)ac" exists only with proper nouns, it's not a productive ending anymore.
Much more productive is the two forms ending -ais/-ois which derives names of
langs, people and adjectives from places (like France -> français - françois in
Old French -, Angleterre -> anglais, Hollande -> hollandais, Saint-Etienne ->
Stéphanois, Gaule -> gaulois, etc...).

> Or how about *-iscus?  Galhisc? Galhesc? Could suggest _a little_
> Germanic
> influence.......
That could be an idea, because through the language changes something like
"Galhesc" would be pronounced /gal'jE/ or /ga'ljEs/. I wonder, is the ending -és
like in Francia -> francés very much used in Spanish? I think it has the same
origin as -ais/-ois in French...

> I'm enjoying Roumant, Reman, and Montreiano (a good name, that!).  I've
> toyed with Romance conlangs-- it's really hard to come up with original
> sound changes!
True enough, there are so many Romance languages out there that it's difficult
to find something really original. I'd say it's also difficult with Germanic
conlangs...

> Equally hard to do Austronesian conlangs-- every reasonable sound change
> you
> can think of has happened somewhere in the AN world.
>
:)