Re: Shady Austronesian Linguistics

Roger wrote:
"Depending on where the Druids came from-- Gaulish or other Celtic.  Perhaps
Hebrew/Aramaic and Celtic could contribute to the religious vocabulary."

then Andrew wrote:
"If they're described as Druids with no specified Ps and Qs perhaps their
contribution may be purely cultural: oral transmission of religious
knowledge (Torah?) only, lengthy training for *kahunas, preservation of a
bardic tradition, use of Ogham as a secret script..."

   The inhabitants of Waponi Woo seem to practice some sort of animistic
religion (for example, in one scene the Chief carries a "tiki teddy bear;"
Joe asks "Is that a teddy bear?" and the Chief answers "no, that is my
soul."
   The human sacrifice that is practiced on Waponi Woo is sacrifice of an
entirely voluntary sort.  The Waponis believe that the fire god who lives
inside the Big Woo will sink the island unless he is appeased once every
hundred years.  However, fire god can only be appeased if a man jumps into
the volcano of his own free will.
    I suppose that one could be tempted to see shades of the Old Testament
in the God of the Waponis, although it would be a stretch.
    The Jewish contribution is no more apparent than during the procession
up the island, where the Waponis sing their own native version of the Hava
Nagila.

    "Having toyed with this idea in the past (but nothing concrete), I'd
envision something on the order of Brithenig (Latinate vocab., Celtic
phonology)-- so Latinate vocab. + Melanesian/Polynesian phonology and
structure.  It would be sad to see all those lovely Latin words reduced to
CVCVCV...."
    I think that's a good idea.  Lately I've been toying with a Romance
conlang for Tripolitania, Africa, and Numidia called "Afer," which is based
substantially upon the substandard variety spoken at Gholaia (today's Bu
Njem in Algeria) excavated by the French archaeologists Rebuffat and
Marichal.  The Vulgar Latin spoken there resembles no dialect so much as the
variety spoken in Sardinia, with, for example, most nouns using the
nominative instead of the accusative as the default case and preserving the
vowel quality of Latin while losing the quantity (whereas in most Romance
languages, long e and short i, as well as long o and short u, became
conflated).  I've been devising all of these strategies to eliminate vowels
in hiatus and adapt Latin to North African speech.

    Might I suggest that we eliminate approximants?  For instance, r could
be deleted, perhaps coloring neighboring vowels (like in Boston English) and
l could be velarized - with subsequent monophthongization of diphthongs?  I
think that would take us closer to CVCVCV.

"but so be it.  Lots of little monosyllabic particles would be necessary to
replace tenses and cases; perhaps the Greek contingent could contribute
those."
    Excellent idea.  I also like the idea of adapting the Latin
imperfective.

    "I'd suspect, a lot:  bear in mind this would be a major culture shock
for civilized Mediterranean folks-- no metal, maybe not even clay for
pottery depending on the island.  Maybe worst of all, no grapes!"
    What might be some core vocabulary for the area of Waponi Woo (see the
map at the URL below)?

"If we're dealing with the core PN area (Fiji - Tonga- Samoa) they'd be
pretty much on their own until the 18th Cent. CE.  Of course, if Roman
ship-building could survive......"
      According to some clues given by the film, the island of Waponi Woo is
probably somewhere in the area shown in this map:

http://members.aol.com/waponi/gif/map.gif

      The arrow on the map indicates where Joe's ship wrecked.
-Chollie

________________________________________________________________________
Get Your Private, Free E-mail from MSN Hotmail at http://www.hotmail.com