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

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)?
<<<<<<

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.

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.


Not too inspiring, but HTH...




Pb






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