Re: Brithenig/Aelyan North America (was: Re: Languages in theBrithenig universe)

On Fri, 7 Apr 2000 16:15:56 +0600 Eric Christopherson
<raccoon@...> writes:
> At 11:19 AM 4/7/2000 -0400, Steg wrote:
> >Hmm...that could lead to interesting conculturoreligious
> issues....Judea
> >would follow the Yerushalmi tradition, Zêpará (possible Judean name
> for
> >the Sephardic American place) would be Bavli....Ashkenazic and
> Khazaric
> >traditions could fuse, or not...
> Zêpará? I assume that comes from Separad, but how's the <Z>
> pronounced? If
> it's voiced, how did it become voiced?
.

It's pronounced [s.ePa'ra], where [s.] = emphatic/pharyngealized and [P]
= bilabial fricative.
In Judean Romance (before it went into hibernation it's native name was
Jûdajca), [s] only exists as an allophone of /t/, and can't be
word-initial.
The Sephardic pronounciation of "sepharad" is [sefa'rad], but as my
Spaniard-Puertorriqueño roommate has shown me, Spaniard word-final
consonants, especially /d/, can be very weak.  Sepharad is a Hebrew
place-name, so in it's natural state it would be pronounced [s@PA'rAD] by
Judeans, but due to mixing between the Judean Hebrew-pronounciation and
the very different Iberian pronounciation, and it's use as a secular word
divorced from it's Biblical Hebrew roots, it becomes approximated as
[s.ePa'ra] when Judeans try to reproduce the Iberian pronounciation.


-Stephen (Steg)
 "kibbeh, kibbeh, lahhmajin!  lahhmajin!  lahhmajin!"