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--- eamoniski <robertg@hidden.email> wrote:
> --- In romconlang@yahoogroups.com, Padraic
> Brown <elemtilas@...> wrote:
>
> > It looks and apparently operates much like
> Latin.
> > "Bad Latin", perhaps, but I wouldn't say
> > unintelligible!
>
> Right, I purposely chose transparent examples,
> without a lot of
> non-Latin words (i.e. I used a more neutral
> register of the language.
Always a good idea. The first iteration of Kerno
turned out to be the literary register; the
spoken (and anymore written) register is quite
radically different.
> I imagine it as having different registers,
> including poetic, which
> tends to use more foreign words; perhaps the
> psalm I translated should
> be in the poetic register...); though I think
> when I use a lot of
> forms presumed to be Popular Latin or Vulgar
> Latin, it would be hard
> to understand for a Classical Latin speaker.
>
> > 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.
>
> You certainly would! :) Actually, I called it
> a cryptogram because
> it's as much a cryptogram as a Romance language
> with Icelandic
> phonology and orthography would be (a judgement
> I don't share). In
> some ways, though, it's a cipher for French.
I guess I always thought of a cryptogram as a
sort of code, like a good old substitution
cypher. Like where A=C, B=D, C=E and so forth:
LATIN CRYPTOGRAM
NCVKP ET1RVQITCO
sort of thing, or perhaps a word for word
substitution.
> > Those are always dangerous, as a seemingly
> > obvious and innocuous reading of a text can
> be
> > blown right out of the semantic sea.
>
> Right. I think if a Classical Latin speaker
> were to travel through
> itme and find some texts written in my
> language, they would read or
> decode certain words literally according to
> Classical Latin, and be
> stumped. Would, for example, subvenire be
> correctly interpreted by a
> Classical Latin speaker? I honestly don't
> know.
The same problem ensues for ANY Romance language
vis a vis CL. If there were ever such a thing as
a monoglot CL speaker -- after all, Cl was a
refined and erudite language of the educated
classes; everyone SPOKE VL! -- I'm sure he would
be equally perplexed by VL, PR and your as of yet
unnamed conlang.
> > 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.
>
> I'm not familiar with this (though I do know of
> the book), and indeed
> two of the major influences for me were
> Lunfardo and Hiberno-Latin,
> the latter being a monastic hodgepodge of
> languages in a more or less
> standard Latin setting. It contains Greek,
> Hebrew, Latin-based
> neologisms, and even Old Irish.
That could also be the inspiration for this
partiuclar monk's conlang.
> > > 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.
>
> It's something that I've been doing to all of
> my conlangs lately (or
> almost all), inspired mostly by Indonesian
> languages and Thai, where
> you have sacred registers, royal registers,
> polite registers, etc.
I've done it for both of my most elaborated
conlangs. Without tooting my own horn, I do think
it's a mark of a superior conlang (and therefore
a superior conlanger) to so artfully emulate a
real language. You are to be congratulated!
I note you mention "royal register" and "sacred
register". Both of those presuppose some kind of
religious and monarchical culture. Have you given
any thought to what sort of people would speak
your conlang? I at least find it helpful to form
a conlang within and around a culture (even if
it's your real life culture!), since languages
don't exist in vacuo.
> > Some examples there would be nice.
>
> I should put together a sample list of
> non-Latin vocabulary; in fact,
> I'd love to hear any ideas for how to
> "naturalise" some words,
> especially from Etruscan, where you have lots
> of -th and -z-...
What's unnatural about thorn and zed? ;) Spanish,
as good a Romance language as you'll find, has
both! Kerno has both, too, and so does Brithenig.
> How,
> for, example would one naturalise an Etruscan
> word like "zatlath"??
Satilatum? You might want to look into how Latin
deals with other Etruscan borrowings - - I know
there are several.
I suspect you already have a phology in mind.
It's a matter of devising rules for bringing in
foreign words. Talarian, for example, has no
voiced stops, so how to deal with foreign names
and the like? Since the phonology is set,
borrowing foreign words entails some reworking.
To the extent that some words are
unreckognisable.
> > So would just about any philologist!
>
> Admittedly, the lexica I've compiled of
> Etruscan consists mostly of
> academic guesses, but for my purposes they're
> just fine. I just think
> it adds a really neat level of mystery to the
> language.
Indeed.
> > > 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.
>
> I'd appreciate it that very much indeed!
>
> > Why "cryptogram"?
>
> Mostly I was responding to our fellow member's
> post; surely anything
> other than "pure Latin" would be a cryptogram?
If by "cryptogram" he means "something
unintelligible" (and I suspect that is what he
meant), then even CL is a cryptogram for most
folks!
> Which leads me to
> think... why not just use "pure" Classical
> Latin if anything else is
> merely a bastardisation?
You could. You could also use Greek or Sanskrit
or Gothic or any other natural language. You've
chosen to invent your own language, though.
> > 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.
>
> Perhaps, though the grammar also distinguishes
> it very much from
> Latin.
That's OK. Grammar changes, too! It wasn't so
long ago a simple question like "Do you like red
or green?" would be met with a blank stare (back
when "do" was not used to form questions).
> Essentially I wanted something that
> behaves like French and
> Italian, but looks like Latin... to the
> untrained eye of course. I
> think my Francophonic wife (who also has
> Italian, Spanish and some
> Greek) would have a hard time reading some
> texts... Posting here isn't
> as great a test, even of the transparent,
> standard register samples,
> because everyone here has such a vast working
> knowledge of different
> and diverse languages, and the practice and
> skills necessary to
> decipher the texts. My wife would probably not
> see at first that
> "apressum" is merely apr�s, and "quomo" is
> merely comme.
This is probably true. In the same way most
English speakers would have trouble with
Andersaxon.
> > > - The presence of definite and indefinite
> > > articles, declined for
> > > number and case
> >
> > A good addition!
>
> I've read (can someone confirm?) that the
> presence of articles in
> Greek and their absence in Latin drove some
> Latin authors batty...
Probably. I guess it might have allowed Greek
philosophers a certain amount of specificity that
Latin would have lacked.
> that's why I imagined my quirky, 5th century
> scholar cobbling this
> language together deciding to add those
> articles, probably influenced
> by their presence in his native vulgar
> speech...
>
> > Interesting. Kerno has the same case
> distinction.
>
> For some reason, direct and oblique fascinates
> me... and for this
> project it seemed natural after seeing that my
> pseudo-Italian
> pronunciation levelled most of the case
> distinctions... which is of
> course what happened in the real world.
Indeed. Though Kerno retains some fragments of
other cases.
> > 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.
>
> What are the etymlogies of cran and puleg?
Cran is something Celtic (I don't have the
etymology at hand); puleg is, as I recall, a
flea. I'll look them up later.
> > On the whole, I found your language quite
> > enjoyable and not at all incomprehensible, at
> > least on the surface.
>
> Thanks! I'll have to post some more cryptic
> texts sometime soon.. in
> fact, that'd be fun to see how well people can
> translate it... I'm
> 100% certain it's possible, but maybe with a
> little bit of difficulty.
>
> > A grammar and lexicon would cure that,
> however.
>
> By the way, I'll tell Mina that uncle Padraic
> commented on her
> intelligence. :D
:)
Padraic
>
> Cheers,
> Eamon
>
>
Camifi, Marusi, teterani, tester fuferios asteros; tamenio
vem Persaecion empuriase ed ec pasem emduriase!
--Pomperios Perfurios.
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