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--- eamoniski <robertg@hidden.email> wrote:
> Hello everyone,
>
> I'm emerging from lurk mode (it's been one of
> those of years... for
> two years straight...) because a post from one
> of our fellow group
> members encouraged me to share one of my recent
> projects, which is,
> oddly enough, a Latin cryptogram to a certain
> extent. Surely I'm not
> the only person with Asperger Syndrome to
> decide it would be a nifty
> thing to have a classical looking cryptogram
> serve as a brilliant
> journaling tool and method of self expression
> (autistic conlang
> indeed!). Here's a run-down:
>
> 1. As it is, I'm crafting it too look and
> "feel" very much like
> Classical Latin, but my high school Latin
> teacher would surely have
> called it 1) bad Latin and 2) mostly
> unintelligible.
It looks and apparently operates much like Latin.
"Bad Latin", perhaps, but I wouldn't say
unintelligible!
> 2. It is mostly unintelligible in spite of the
> fact that the majority
> of the vocabulary is in fact Latin.
I'm curious how you arrive at this judgement. On
first reading, I'd say I would get a passing mark
if I had to translate your intelligent cat's
responses to your voice.
> Much of it is perfectly good
> classical Latin (though sometimes with semantic
> shifts),
Those are always dangerous, as a seemingly
obvious and innocuous reading of a text can be
blown right out of the semantic sea.
> some of it is
> vulgar Latin (or, if you like, proto-Romance,
> Late Latin), some of it
> is New Latin (scientific), some of it Latin
> calques of French, Italian
> or Spanish.
A good hodgepodge, in other words! It reminds me
somewhat of the ideolanguage spoken by one of the
friars (forget the name) in Name of the Rose.
Sometimes Latin, sometimes Italian or another
language would surface.
> In many ways it is etymological
> French and Italian
> (etymological dictionaries of French, Italian,
> English and to a lesser
> extent Spanish have been the primary source of
> vocabulary). The
> result of this is predictable: many canonical
> Latin words are not used
> in the standard ways and many words are "good
> Latin" but not
> canonical. As an example, the word for "after"
> is _apressum_, reverse
> engineered from French apr�s. _Post_ is
> preserved, so far, primarily as a prefix.
Which itself goes back to appressum and then ad
pressum "close pressed" or "nearby".
> There are also, in some cases, words for
> different registers: sol
> "sun" but soliculum "sun (poetic)."
Makes sense. Probably all languages do this; to
work it consciously into a conlang is a nice
treat.
> 3. There is a significant amount of vocabulary
> borrowed from Greek,
> French, Standard Italian, Venetian, Tuscan,
> Occitan, Friulian,
> Milanese... An example is the word for "dew"
> which is "la rosata,"
> borrowed from Venetian. Greek vocabulary is
> spelled as pronounced in
> Modern Greek, making the Greek portion of the
> vocabulary less obvious
> in meaning on first glance.
Some examples there would be nice.
> 4. I've also thrown in vocabulary from Gaulish,
> Etruscan, Oscan,
> Umbrian, and Germanic. (In fact I'd love to
> find more Etruscan,
So would just about any philologist!
> Oscan and Umrbian)
There are grammars and translated texts of these
languages. If you like, I can find the list of
what I've got.
> An example off the top of my head
> is the verb guardare,
> of Germanic origin. There's also a bit of
> Hebrew and Aramaic. As
> this is, indeed, a bit of a cryptogram, there
> are words I've lifted
> from Hiberno-Latin and Lingua Ignota, where
> available.
Why "cryptogram"? I would say rather that your
language has a propensity for borrowing words
from other languages. My own Kerno does this with
reckless abandon; English is an accomplished
master absconder of unsuspecting verbiage.
> 5. All vocabulary is made to conform to the
> phonology and orthography
> of the language, which is based on
> Ecclesiastical Latin rather than
> Classical (in other words it's more like
> Italian). This does have a
> tendency to disguise loans.
Sure -- makes em look a little more Italian.
> 6. Grammar looks like Classical Latin, but
> there are big differences,
> some quite obvious.
>
> - The presence of definite and indefinite
> articles, declined for
> number and case
A good addition!
> - Two cases, inspired by Old French and Old
> Provencal: Direct and
> Oblique. (There are still three genders) In
> addition to regular
> declensions, there is a substantial list of
> irregular nouns.
Interesting. Kerno has the same case distinction.
> - A verbal system that looks Classical at first
> blush but much more
> like that of Romance (especially literary
> French)
>
> - A complicated set of negatives inspired by
> Old French where each
> negation carries a different implication... an
> example is the phrase
> "non ... punctum"
Exactly as does Kerno. Ne ... cran is quite
different from ne ... puleg, though both mean
"don't". One implies a small action, the other
implies a vast sweeping action.
> I suppose that's the long and short of it... If
> there's any interest
> I'll try to put up some translations shortly
> since that's the only way
> to really understand the result of the above
> design.
On the whole, I found your language quite
enjoyable and not at all incomprehensible, at
least on the surface. A grammar and lexicon would
cure that, however.
Padraic
>
> Cheers,
> Eamon
>
>
Camifi, Marusi, teterani, tester fuferios asteros; tamenio
vem Persaecion empuriase ed ec pasem emduriase!
--Pomperios Perfurios.
--
Ill Bethisad --
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Come visit The World! --
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.