Re: Slovanik, my new romlang

Dag, Jan! Hoe gaat het?

(Yeah! Pulling out my 5-word command of Dutch! In yer face)

> The result are some ideas about a Romance conlang with Slavic
> substratum, that would be a Slavic equivalent of languages like Brithenig,
> Kernu, Germanech, and Judajca.
At first my brain said "...Like Romanian?" ;-)

But then I realised there was a key difference: Romanian is a Romance
language which has absorbed lots of Slavic loanwords, whereas Slovanik is a
Romance language over a Slavic substrate. The results could be quite
different!

> Still I believe that both names are a bit dull. Right
> now, I am considering to call it either after some Slavonic tribe or after
the
> region where it would be spoken. Any thoughts?
Afraid I can't help you there. Are there any, say, medieval Latin sources
which give Latin names for any Slavic tribes? Perhaps you could adapt one of
those.

> Orthography?
> This is my major concern right now. The script of Slovanik will definitely
be
> Latin; Cyrillic is out of the question, though it would fit the language
well.
> But I have difficulty choosing between "common Slavic" orthography (more
or
> less Czech and Croat, with haczeks and the like) and Polish orthography.
The
> latter makes me feel much more comfortable, but I'm in doubt whether that
is
> really what I want.
Polish orthography is much more conservative; Old Czech orthography was
quite similar. The modern Czech orthography with the haceks and all, later
adopted by Slovak, Croatian and other languages, was due to the reforms
of... oh, heck, my memory's lousy. Either Jan Hus or Jan Amos Komensky
(known as Comenius in Latin). One of the two, I forget which. In any case,
the "common Slavic" orthography you refer to is a later invention; older
Czech (and presumably other Slavic langs too) orthography was very much like
Polish.

I have to run off to work now so I don't have time to comment on your Grand
Master PlanT, but keep posting! It's quite interesting so far!

Best,

Thomas

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