Re: New Conlang: Þrjótran

R A Brown skrev:
> Henrik Theiling wrote:
>
>> Hi!
>>
>> Benct Philip Jonsson <bpj@...> writes:
>
> [snip]
>
>>
>>> Also I see that Latin AE becomes e:.  Actually AE merges with
>>> *short* E in all the Romance languages: CAELUM > ciel etc.
>>
>>
>>
>> Ah, I see.  Thanks for spotting that!
>>
>> Do you happen to know when this happened?
>
>
> 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.

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, but probably a social
rather than a regional dialect, since it attracted
such ridicule.  But how widespread may it have been,
and is it connected to AV > o in Western Romance?

--
/BP 8^)>
--
Benct Philip Jonsson -- melroch at melroch dot se

    "Maybe" is a strange word.  When mum or dad says it
    it means "yes", but when my big brothers say it it
    means "no"!

                            (Philip Jonsson jr, age 7)

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