Re: a King's proverb

Am 06/16 16:34  Dan Jones yscrifef:
> andrew wrote:
>
> > Am 06/15 07:55  Wade, Guy yscrifef:
> >
> > > "Before you choose your enemy, speak his language."
> > >
> > Inawant yno ceos sew inifig, parolath sew llinghedig.
> >
> > before one choose.pres.sg pron.reflex.poss enemy, speak.pres.2.pl.
> > pron.reflex.poss language.
>
> Andrew, I feel like a right ffeil di pudan for saying this but this sentance
> really jars my romance ears. Brithenig doesn't have to conform to western
> romance norms by any means, but "inawant" by itself should mean "before" in
> a strictly spatial sense- when used in a temporal sense I would expect
> something like "inawant ke" followed by the subjunctive or "inawant di" with
> an infinitive.
>
There is no need to feel a ffeil di pudan (is it putana(m) or
pu:tana(m)?) but something I needed to be corrected on.  That means it
should be:

Inawant k'yno ceos sew inifig, parolath sew llinghedig.

or:

Inawant di cheosar d'yn inifig, parolar sew llinghedig.

> I presume that -awant is cognate to the French "avant". If so, the form I
> would have expected from VL *abante would be afant, not awant.
>
Inawant comes unchanged from the ur-text.  I have never corrected
although I have some times wondered about it.  I guess it comes from
in-abante.  Following a rule not yet written up, it should have become
ino/ant in the modern language (/aw/ becomes /o/ before a stressed
vowel), similar to a rule in Welsh, but applied in reserve order.  The a
is marked with dieresis.

> BTW, what is the spirant mutation of "k"?
>
{ch}, the difference between {c} and {k} is purely orthographic.

I had toyed around with a new Romance language using avant for spatial
and devant for temporal.  Would this still have to be devant que... to
feel right to you?



- andrew.
--
Andrew Smith, Intheologus                       hobbit@griffler.co.nz
alias Mungo Foxburr of Loamsdown
http://hobbit.griffler.co.nz/homepage.html

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