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--- Jan van Steenbergen <ijzeren_jan@hidden.email>
wrote:
> Great great great!
:)
> So, what's the difference between
It'll be described more fully in a little while!
> "il" and "ill",
Archaic baggage (ill is from Brithenig
influence).
> "y" and "ils", etc.
Whether the noun starts with a consonant or
vowel.
> Speaking of non-standard spelling: I already
> found six versions of the word
> "fifteen": "couintheck", "cyntheck",
> "pymptheck", and "pyngthack" in the
> vocabulary, and now "cuyntheck" and "couenze"
> in the grammar.
Gosh. That many? You can add "fifenten", which is
from the 'Numereirs lor nOgun Giganz', or Giants'
Numerary. The race of Giants in Kemrese folklore
speak a language not at all dissimilar to
English.
Let's see: couintheck / cuyntheck and pymptheck /
pyngthack are variant spellings for the same
word. Cyntheck is an old dialect variant (noted
for [kw] > [k]); couenze is simply a parallel
formation, that is found as regular numbers in
French and Spanish (onze, douze / once, doce),
though they don't carry the series up to 19 as
far as I know.
The [kw] > [k] dialect is one of the big
Questions remaining in British dialectology. One
of the favoured theories is that it reflects a
hypercorrection of all initial [kw] to [k], based
on the Brithenig model. It makes some sense given
that lots of Brithenig words were imported as
well as spelling conventions and other
pronunciations. Detractors cite the lack of an
eastern center for the phenomenon (it's found
equally from Pensang to Sorbadunon) and the
ultimate demise of the phenomenon, even though
other Kemrecisms survive and thrive to the
present day. Of course, supporters will shoot
right back with the "ke" spelling and
pronunciation of the pronouns. That just smacks
of Kemrecisation and supports their contention.
The pronouns are the only [kw] > [k] that have
really survived to become entrenched.
> And only in the
> case of "pymptheck" you add the text "prov.".
> It seems that Kerno is really on the verge of
> Romance, P-Celtic and Q-Celtic.
Well, the Celtic substrate was certainly
P-Celtic. Early migrations of Q-Celtic Irish in
the 5th century and thereafter have left their
mark as well. The p- shows up with some
frequency, even affecting Latin roots that are in
general considerably resistant to the effect.
That K has liberally borrowed from Gaelic since
early times, it is not a surprise to find a
P-Celtic, Q-Celtic and at times even a Q-Romance
and P-Romance word-node. It's also hard at times
to figure out whether a word is native, but
affected, or borrowed. Take pedns, quenerz,
xefes, cató and patió.
Pedns is native and means "head"; quenerz is
apparently borrowed in part at least from Irish
and means "snooty, high headed"; xefes is from
Spanish and means "boss, chief"; cató was native
meaning "head", but was lost then reborrowed from
Book Latin as "stream head"; patió is native and
means, er, "glans penis". Pedns in early texts
sometimes comes out as cedns; patió reflects an
early conformation of a Romance word to the
Celtic pattern and early on also shows up as
captió. Quenerz shows up very early as a name
component, and may well reflect a Romanisation of
the Celtic penos. What a mess!
Similar doubling of c- and p- shows up in other
words. This pedns complex is astoundingly
singular, mind. Usually, you find only two
members: couemper / pemper (whatsit, whosit); cas
/ cies (cheese); couintheck / pyngthack (15).
By the way, couemper / pemper is the only modern
survival of the qu- / p- pronoun set, and more
remarkably is the only qu- pronoun left to be
pronounced with an initial [kw] - all the others,
even when spelled with a qu- are pronounced [k].
It's related to the relative-interrogative
pronouns somehow, but what the -per is I don't
know.
Padraic.
=====
Ories-si la Sulis couant goueniont y vathin, levont y vus des al trefoelea, levont y vrum
des y vagges; aie! mays couant levab-el il mew cords?
-- per tradicièn Quemrech
.