[YG Conlang Archives] > [romconlang group] > messages [Date Index] [Thread Index] >
--- In romconlang@yahoogroups.com, "habarakhe4" <theophilus88@h...> wrote: > The two proposals are quite different. > Siciliote Greek, as deduced from latin loans, is a generic Doric > Greece, for which Syracuse's founder Corinth could serve as a model, > while Masaliote Greek is derived from the Ionic of Phocaea in Asia > Minor. Both, however, were extremely early foundations from their > mother cities. Any Romanceoid development, however, would occur after > Hellenistic influence and the spread of Koine to both place > (especially Sicily, which always attracted new mercenaries and > settlers). A timeframe before the loss of quantity and multiplicity > of [i] in Greek would be ideal; in that way, the distincitions > between [e] and [E:] and [o] and [O:] could be used to enhance the > Romance quality. Diphthongs, of which Greek has many, could be a > problem. Would you want the aspirates [p_h] to become fricatives [f]? My bad. Sicilote Greek is later Doric Koine with local features, while Masaliote Greek is probably Attic koine (what most people call Koine) plus distinctive local features from its originally Aeolic mother city. In Sicily, you'd have to pick a specific city for domination and examine its ethnic history ; for Massilia and Ampurias, I suspect a Celtic substrate would be apropriate, similar to that which has affected Latin in vocabulary and French in penultimate stress. The good news is that, due to the migration of Greeks throughout Hellas, local colour is not had to find. Syracusan Greek is original Doric Corinthian swamped by Doric Rhodian and the Doric Koine; Tarentum is Doric Laconian; Thurii is Classical Athenian. BTW, Punic, although a Semitic language, began to lose its distinct sibilant during its later history; I wonder if this was not due in part to exposure to Latin and Greek, which limit sibilants to /s/ and /z/(which Romans often pronounced as /s/)?