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--- Greg Bontrager <GregBont@hidden.email> wrote: > Let me just begin by saying that I am amazed at > how deep many RomConLang > members delve into their craft. I am a foreign > language nut (I speak > Spanish and French and am now teaching myself > Italian) and am very schooled > in parts-of-speech terminology and very > basic/introductory linguistic > terminology (i.e. phonetics, syntax, > inflections). I also have an amateur > yet avid interest in etymology and something I > call comparative linguistics. Is it similar to actual comparative linguistics (aka Historical Linguistics)? > Compared to most eighteen-year-olds, I believe > I am significantly more > advanced when it comes to foreign language > studies and linguistics. But you > guys really give me a run for my money! > These latest discussions about a > Romance family tree and the reason for the deus > --> dios transformation > could not have been more up my alley! Most of > you are so knowledgeable and > skilled at deductive reasoning! :) Actually, a number of us simply looked in Boyd-Bowman's "From Latin to Romance in Sound Charts"! Or any similar work that details the changes languages took on the road from Vulgar Latin to Romance to one of the modern languages. > Okay, that having been said, let me try to get > to the point of this message. > On top of being a foreign language nut, I am > also an aspiring writer. These > two hobbies came together quite nicely when I > began developing the idea for > an epic fantasy in which warlocks/witches use > their own language to cast > spells. I thought it would be very interesting > if this language was a > Romance language. Thus was born the Brujeric > language. As an aside, you might want to check out Old Hyksos, <http://www.valdyas.org/hyksos.html>, to see how another conlanger dealt with the mage language issue. > Brujeric is, I think, somewhat different among > romconlangs in that it is not > descended directly from Latin at all. Instead > it is a roughly equal blend > of two of Latin's natural descendants (French > and Spanish). A language doesn't have to be a direct descendant of Latin to be descended from Latin! > This is largely > because I may be the only member of this group > who, while he knows three > Latin-descendant languages, does not know a > word of Latin itself. We won't hold that agin thee. > A basic overview of Brujeric: Almost all of its > phonetics is borrowed from > Spanish, with a few distinctions thrown in that > will hopefully give the > language a unique."flavor," if you will. > Grammar is about evenly split > between Spanish and French. Most of Brujeric > vocabulary is French derived, > usually adapted to fit the very Iberian > phonetic system (For example, > "much/many" in Brujeric is "bocupo/bocupos" > from French "beaucoup."). You might consider adding Catalan and Proven�al to your repertoire - as those languages fit geographically between your extremes of Castilian and Francien. > Wherever I can I also use my combined knowledge > of French and Spanish as > well as English derivations to surmise an > "estimation" of what the original > Latin word was and then use some derivation of > that estimation in Brujeric. :) It might be interesting to invest in a Latin dictionary just to see how close you come! > I currently have 12 pages of linguistic > information and basic vocabulary. I > have, to date, determined such things as > pronunciation, formal titles (i.e. > Mr., Mrs., etc.), all cases of pronouns, Monsenyor / Miadama by any chance? > familial terms, common names, > interrogative words (i.e. how, when, where, > when, why), regular verb > conjugation (in the indicative mood), and the > inflected forms of each of the > five "primary irregular verbs" (what I call the > first five verbs most of us > learn in a foreign language class): estir (to > be), avir (to have), alir (to > go), faicer (to do; to make), and dir (to say; > to tell). I will probably > very soon be contemplating the subjunctive > tenses. Any reasony why BE and HAVE end up with -ir and not -er? Just curious. > I am quite proud of the work I've done so far, > but I also crave feedback. I > am not quite ready to launch a website (largely > because I'm not sure if my > computer has the proper software), so I'm > offering to e-mail the 12 page > outline of Brujeric (in Microsoft Word format) That we can not but hold agin thee! M$ word sux! If you can demicroquash it and send it in something sensible like plain text (unless Br has got lots of diacritics), then I'd be interested. Otherwise, there's absolutely no reason you can't get free webspace at Geocities or similar and slap that twelve page manifesto of magerie up on the web for all of us to easily look at. Your language doesn't need to be perfect to display on line - otherwise, none of us would have anything up. Padraic. ===== 'n aon le prims, bes et vrach; 'n aon le cerch, fucieoir et lugh; 'n aon le ters, dofert, afert; 'n aon le coueart, y chorn ce quei 'm tetulli-el! [Dumnonian] -- Ill Bethisad -- <http://www.geocities.com/elemtilas/ill_bethisad> Come visit The World! -- <http://www.geocities.com/hawessos/> .