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En réponse à Jan van Steenbergen <ijzeren_jan@hidden.email>: > > So what about Réman? (You see, I've been a frequent visitor of your > website) > The ethymology seems pretty obvious... Indeed, but since I never associated the language with a conculture, it never received any internal justification. Like "Roumant", it's not much more than a working title. I've sometimes toyed with the idea that it could be a language that evolved completely in isolation from Classical Latin, among a group of Romans who for some reason were separated from the kingdom (yes, it separated very early) and, after passing through a Semitic-speaking area (the influence of Semitic languages is not strong, but it's there, like the creation of duals for object appearing in natural pairs, which are made by vowel changes mostly), settled as troglodytes in a montainous region (this is to explain their strong isolation from any other kind of influence). Given this (highly unlikely) history, it's little wonder that the language never got a name more precise than this one. The fact that it is Reman instead of Roman may mean that those people consider themselves followers of Remus, and thus would have fleed from the Romans at legendary times, around the foundation of Rome. Of course, it would probably be an internal legend, the truth would probably be different. Well, it's not that bad an idea is it? I might think of working it in more details... Although I doubt it would have any likelihood. > By the way, is there any connection between Réman and Narbonósc? For > what I > have seen from both, all they have in common is that they are both > Romance. > Indeed, that's their only connection. Even their actual ancestor tongue is different. Narbonósc is based on Vulgar Latin, like all Western Romance languages. Reman is supposed to have separated much earlier, like Sardinian, and is thus a daughter of Classical Latin. > > I still think "Slavonik" is cheap; it could have worked if the language > had > replaced Polish and Czech, but otherwise it just doesn't feel right for > a > language that isn't Slavic. > I'm considering to rename it to "Wenedyk", in accordance to the name the > Romans > gave to the Slavs (Venedi). > Why not a toponym? But for that, you have to decide exactly where the language is spoken ;))) . Still, knowing the history of the language names I know, it's true that a tribe name stays the best idea (it needn't even be the name of a tribe who spoke the language, see French, named after the Franks, who were a Germanic tribe, whose language is the ancestor of Dutch and Flemish ;)))) ). So your idea is quite good. Christophe. http://rainbow.conlang.free.fr Take your life as a movie: do not let anybody else play the leading role.