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Re: Droppin' D's Revisited

From:Christophe Grandsire <christophe.grandsire@...>
Date:Thursday, October 26, 2000, 13:52
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. >
:)