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--- In romconlang@yahoogroups.com, "Jamie Holm" <jimholm@...> wrote: > > I'm trying to create the bones of a language with a mostly French > flair. I'd like it to be similar to French enough to sound as > beautiful as FIench does, but not to look like I just rearranged > syllables from a map of France. We're all game players here, Jamie! As Marion Bradley used to say, "You're never too old to have a happy childhood". You need to keep your creations within the limits of natural languages if they are to look plausible (let alone look French). You could try creating your own French dialect by altering some of the features of standard French. For instance, Latin <k> becomes French <ch> before <a>. But you could keep it as in Picard: that's how we get both "catch" and "chase" from a Latin *captiare. Notice how the standard has also got ti > ts > s, but Picard had ti > ch. So instead of the standard "chasser" you could have "cacher". Similarly, you can alter the vowel system. Retaining stressed <a> would give "cha�ar". Modern "avoir" was once pronounced as it is spelled, and developed from an earlier "aveir"; suppose the latter had changed instead so that the <ei> was pronounced as in "Eiffel". Get a book on the history of French from the library and experiment. Just a few ideas, but if you just need a naming language for people and places, or a few tourist-style phrases, this appreach misght help. David PS that "cha�ar" should have a c-cedilla in the middle! Perhaps some ome could tell me what went wrong! Why can't Google join the 21st century and use Unicode?