Re: Slovanik, my new romlang

 --- "Thomas R. Wier" wrote:

> > Historical plausibility?
> > We all know, that the Slavs have never even been near the borders of the
> > Roman Empire;
>
> Not so:  the Crimea was an Imperial vassal state for centuries,
> all the way well into the Byzantine period.  It is almost certain
> that slavic tribes also inhabited parts of the Empire itself,
> although not in great numbers until well after Constantine the
> Great.
That's interesting! Do you know where exactly? Maybe that could help me finding
a more exact location for my Slavo-Romans.

> According to Mallory, who quotes the Ukrainian archaeologist
> Vladimir Baran, the geographical center of the extensive Slavic
> "urheimat" was considerably to the south and east of Poland,
> somewhere in the western Ukraine, although it is true that Slavs
> (more specifically: Balts) inhabited the region immediately to
> the east of Oder.
Perhaps. I'm not an expert in this field. About which period is he speaking?
Please note that some Ukrainian scientists, notably historians of the
nationalist school, have the awful habit of politicizing their field by
obstinately viewing Ukraine as if it were the centre of everything, especially
the Slavic world, Christianity, Europe, Western civilization, or simply the
whole world. IMHO they do the Ukrainian cause more harm than good.
Which does not mean that I am suspicious of Mr. Baran, whom I don't know at
all. All I say is that I am curious about other opinions about the matter.

> > Diphthongs
> > /ae/    [Aj]
> > /oe/    [Oj], perhaps [jev]
>
> Any particular reason in having /e/ be the off-glide?
To be honest, I don't know when (and where) the pronunciation of Latin /ae/
shifted from [aj] to [e]. I guess [Aj] is erroneously based on Classical Latin,
while I am supposed to take [e] as a guideline.
My problem is that I know not much about Vulgar Latin. All I learnt at school
was Classical Latin. I was taught that /oe/ should be pronounced either [oj] or
[2].

> > /p/     before short /e/ for /i/ > [p'] (= [p_j])
>
> I was a little confused about this for a moment, because [']
> usually signifies glottalization on a preceding obstruent.
> I suppose as one learns the shorthand, though, it's not a
> bad thing.
This is how I understood it from the X-SAMPA home page: that ' and _j are
synonyms.

> What is the prototypical syllable type -- does it allow complex
> codas or onsets (presumably it does), and what kinds of segments
> may be codas, and how fast does sonority need to rise/fall in
> clusters?
Those are very good questions. I must admit that I haven't moved far enough yet
to answer them consciously. As for complex onsets and codas, I don't see any
problem in them. Both exist peacefully in every Slavic language. What kinds of
segments will be allowed as codas is something I will have to find out in
practice.
I think I must add a second part ("Old Slovanik -> New Slovanik") to my Master
Plan. It will cover the way consonants coexist in cluster, and how unstressed
vowels can change under each other's influence.

> Also, is stress partially morphologically driven, like some analyses of
Russian?

I don't think so. I prefer to keep it more or less stable, like in Polish (the
only Slavic language that I can speak sort of fluently and makes me feel
comfortable).

> What about the kinds of voicing assimilation that is common in Russian
> obstruent (but not: sonorant) clusters?
In this case I will follow the Polish example as well.

Thank you for your feedback,
Jan


=====
"Originality is the art of concealing your source." - Franklin P. Jones

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