Re: Borrowing (Was Re: Re(2): Marmite and other "unique" foods)

On Mon, 4 Oct 1999, Paul Bennett wrote:

> Barry writes:
> >>>>>>
> How do you all incorporate foreign words into your conlangs? Are they just
> changed to fit the phonology, or do you do something special to the word
> to mark it as foreign (especially when the word matches a words already in
> your language)?
> <<<<<<
Kernu speakers generally take foreign words and reshape them to a more
suitable (and logical!) phonology.  Occasionally borrowing affects
grammatical formation, but usually not.  Thus far, most of the borrowings
have come from Brithenig, Spanish, French and English.

Brithenig _pligar a fas_ (to bow down), has been taken into Kernu as part
of a CN slogan, also used by rugby fans: _nonck lligravasa!_ (never
surrender!, perhaps used similarly to the allez chant.) The original
grammar of the verb pligar has been buried in the new verb lligravasar.
Spanish _Gitano_ (Gypsy), has been borrowed as _Jitanos_.  English _motor
car_ has been borrowed nearly intact as _motoercars_.  French
_d'esclandre_ (of slander) was borrowed as a phrase, but was
misinterpreted as de es clandur, with a double preposition that makes
perfect sense in K.; so the final form ends up _llandeors_.

A curious example of words already existing in the language occurs in the
area of food animals.  The word _muccus_, derived normally from Celtic
roots, means "pig" (the animal) throughout the Kernu speaking area.
_Porcs_, whether gotten directly from Latin or later from French, has come
to mean "pig meat".  In Esca (the Capital) and in many coastal areas,
_wercos_ (from Spanich puerco) has come to mean "cooked pig meat".  So the
farmer sells the butcher a mucce, the butcher sells the restauranteur a
porcce, and the restauranteur sereves the public some wercce.  The
two-sided Celtic/Latin-French phenomenon is common all over the country;
while the three-sided Celtic/Latin-French/Spanish phenomenon is mostly
restricted to areas around the port towns.  But like paella and
curry-n-chips, the words spread inland.  And why not?  Food is a very big
concern!

>
> Phew, what a question, and one that has been much on my mind recently.
>
> Wenetaic is supposed to be a believable con(nat)lang, so I try and
> figure out when in conhistory the word was borrowed, mangle it to fit
> the phonology at that stage of the lang, and then apply the remaining
> sound changes to make it "modern".  At this stage, I'm doing this more
> "by ear" than by any hard and fast rules, but I'm shaping and hardening
> rules as I go.
It's a bit of a chore, but I decided right at the start of looking into
Tallarian that I would make an etymological word list.  It necessitated
sorting out the sound changes first.  This has been a great help since
Tallarian is an IE language that has borrowed from non-IE languages as
well as other IE languages throughout its history.  These other languages
tend to have quite different sound systems, so for borrowing purposes,
having the Tallarian sound system worked out is something of a necessity.

>
> You can differentiate between a later and older borrowing by (eg) seeing that:
>
> In Earlier borrowings, (p, ph, f) -> /p/ and (b, bh, v) -> /ph/, whereas
> In Later borrowings, (p, b) -> /p/, (ph, bh) -> /ph/, and (v, f) -> /w/
>
> Likewise for other consonants.  There are more complex rules than these
> at work in certain ill-defined contexts, more research is required.
>
Isn't that always the case? :)

Padraic.

>
> Not too inspiring, but HTH...
>
>
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>
> Pb
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