Re: New Conlang: Þrjótran

Benct Philip Jonsson wrote:
> R A Brown skrev:
[snip]
>> AE  became monophthongized in unaccented syllables in Republican
>> times, i.e. during the 1st cent BCE. It spread to accented syllables
>> during the 1st cent CE.
>>
>> The change was to [E]. i.e. as Philip says, it merged with short e.
>
>
> But strangely Germanic borrowed CAESAR as *kaisar, cf.
> German Kaiser and Old English cásere, where á /A:/ < *ai.
The retention of initial /k/ does strongly suggest that these are
learned borrowings, or remodelings. We could also expect a "posh"
learned pronunciation of this name/title to be used which was archaic by
normal spoken standards. The initial sound of Russian Tsar' shows a
derivation from spoken form (I am not competent to comment whether
Russian -ar' would reflect /Eri/ or not).

> h less common OE also merged with [e:], long e, at about the same
>
>> time.
>>
>> On the other hand, AV (au) was retained in Vulgar Latin, and still
>> survives in Romanian. It generally monophthongized in Romance langs,
>> but the treatment is not uniform and is post-VL.
>
>
> What about Claudius/Clodius and plaustrum/plostrum?
> I understand this was perceived as a *dialectal*
> difference by the ancients,
It was - it was confined, as far as we know, to rural dialects in north
& central Italy.

> but probably a social
> rather than a regional dialect, since it attracted
> such ridicule.
Because the dialects were _rustic_ ones. Urban dwellers IME always tend
to make fun of 'country bumpkins'. One thing lower class urbanites do
*not* want to sound like are 'country bumpkins' or 'yokels'!

> But how widespread may it have been,
> and is it connected to AV > o in Western Romance?
There is no evidence that it is connected with AV > O in the various
Romance langs; its retention in Romanian (and Brittonic borrowings) and
its different treatment in the various Romance langs make it clear IMO
that the diphthong was retained in VL. I think the "regional country
bumpkin" stigma would have been enough to ensure /o/ did not become
widespread in VL, whatever the social rank of the speaker   :)

--
Ray
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