This also offers a clue to the demise of distinct feminine forms, for surely the feminine plural article was originally le but became homophonous with the masculine li. The abolition of le was surely one of Bernual’s reforms.

However this rises the question whether the plural indefinite article should be ni with an old feminine ne, and a prevocalic gn’ I think it’s possible unless neque becomes [nɪ], and I think it becomes nec! ‘Not’ also most likely does not become ne [nɪ] but no [nʊ], with ‘no’ being nó [no] or even nau.

The form eun can live on with the meaning ‘some’, with n’eu(n) meaning ‘not any’ as in Tu tin eun menit? — Nó jo no tien n’eu. “Have you got some coins? — No I haven’t got any”. Of course there will also be aocú — aocune — eochéu for ‘some’ in the sense where it can’t be replaced by ‘any’: Txi daift estre aocun’ explanaçáu!

/BP 8^)>

Related posts

• Philological near-omniscience (1)
• The Rhodrese indefinite article (0)
• Kijeb verb inflection (0)
• Mærik: Deriving nouns from verbs and the word amn (1)
• MGR-Northern Romance (2)

Once more I find myeself torn, BP, between awe at your philological near-omniscience, and despair as yet again I find myself reconsidering linguistic points I thought I had firmly pinned down….

Trying to sort even the bare bones of this language is like trying to herd cats.

P

I sure hope I haven’t achieved even near philological omniscience. For one thing the leading passion of my life would be spent already in mid-life, and for the other I know best how many books I’ve read only cursorily or not at all — I do hope they were not written in vain!

I’m sure I can come across as a nitpicky bore — or even boor I’m afraid. I have no right, of course to hold others playing the game to the same rules of perhaps excessive naturalism as I hold myself to. To me the laws of linguistic universals and phonetic plausibility in a sense are the rules of the game of altlanging, and perhaps the point of the game to me is to explore the limits of those laws in a way that mere observation of their operation in real life cannot afford. I once said that I wouldn’t accept a hypothetical prehistoric linguistic change which didn’t have an attested parallel in the known history of some language, but as a rule for artistic development that might well be too limiting.

To other artlangers aesthetic expression, be it euphony or cacophony, is the only principle, and that is of course their prerogative. What to me is plain dadaism or even stale formalism may to its creator be the height of whatever they are out to express, and if so more power to them of course!

When people develop a game together they must of course all have a say over the rules, and it is natural that at times there is disagreement. As soccer developed they came to the realization that it was a good idea not to have trees and bushes growing on the field, but some found the no hands rule too restrictive, and so rugby parted company. If my rules don’t fit your lang you should by all means say so!

BP

Related posts

• Rhodrese articles and indefinite pronouns (0)
• MGR-Northern Romance (2)

With the sound changes now more or less in place, I’ve also been working on some grammar basics (pronouns, articles, etc) but I’m too tired to write up all of that right now!

Pete

Well, since I’m playing around with a Romanised ‘High German,’ and you are interested in a Roman Low German / English analogue, it seems obvious we need a common Proto-dialect, which I think of as “Northern Romance.” It’s clear these northern dialects are going to evolve from Western/Gallo-Romance, with a POD sometime in the first 2 or 3 centuries CE.

I’ve been working on phonologies and a ‘GMP’, as you know. To take us up to the point where our high and low dialects diverge sometime in the middle of the first millennium, I have two stages. The first stage applies the sound changes attested in VL to the CL lexicon. Not ideal, as the one language does not evolve from the other of course, but you need to make the best of what you have. Naturally, where there are known CL/VL differences I’ve gone with the VL and slotted it in as best I can.

The second stage considers the phoneme inventories of VL and Germanic and melds the one to the other. Hopefully, the result is the sort of Latin pronunciation that might come about from the substantial Germanic substrate that would have existed. Once that has been achieved it then continues onward, applying the OTL West Germanic sound changes (I then continue further with AHD, MHD and NHD changes, but these of course are irrelevant in the Low German areas).

Stage 1 (CL > VL, BCE up to circa 200 CE)

/j/ > /jj/ V _ V

/a, a:/ > /A/

/e, ai/ > /E/

/i, oi, e:/ > /e/

/o/ > /O/

/u, o:/ > /o/

/u:/ > /U/

/i:/ > /I/

/au/ > /o/ _ C

/I, E, e/ > /j/ _ V

/I, E, e/ > /j/ V _

V > 0 C _ /l, r/

/E/ > /e/ _ $ /i/ #

/O/ > /o/ _ $ /i/ #

/e/ > /I/ _ $ /i/ #

/o/ > /U/ _ $ /i/ #

/h/ > 0

/m/ > 0 _ # Except monosyllables

/w/ > /B/ (i.e. semivocalic /) /kw, gw/ not affected