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The orthography is a little... cosmopolitan. The vowels and consonants are broadly German (<ch> for example is /x/ or /kx/, not /S/). However, as a nod to the Romance languages' near universal 'kappaphobia' I decided it would be best if /k/ is almost always represented by <c>. Syllable structure and the method for marking long and short vowels is taken from Dutch, except for final <e>. Phonetically, final <e> is nearly always /@/. As there is no following consonant to shorten it, and since in any case there are very few words (other than a handful of monosyllables) where final <e> is actually /e:/, schwa has become to be regarded as the correct value. It is therefore necessary to mark when final <e> is actually /e:/, and this is done with an accute accent - perhaps a French influence?
"Kawel" is an interesting possibility. My phonology leans heavilly towards the 'highest' German dialects (Allemanisch, Schwabisch - although tempered somewhat by a strong Austro-Bavarian influence) purely because I wanted to maximise the amount of sound changes I could play with. So for that reason I have "Chapal" ( [kxapl] / [xapl] ). A more standard German phonology would of course keep the initial /k/, although my spelling rules would dictate I write that as "capal". My sound changes follow the development from Gmc to NHD, which gives me /b/ > /B/ > /b/ > /p/ for the middle consonant, but /b/ > /B/ > /v/ would perhaps be more typically Roman. I am not sure if the middle consonant would be written <w> though, as /v/ moved to /f/ in German a long time before /w/ moved to /v/ (which only happened comparatively recently). I suspect young schoolchildren might be wondering whether to write "kavel" or "kafel", but not "kawel" - unless of course there had been some kind of spelling reform. Or is /B/ > /w/ (and then > /v/ as in German) what you had in mind?
My stress and timing are purely German(ic). I start off with the Latin stress, but this moves to the initial/root syllable very early on, after I have applied a handful of sound changes to adjust the Latin to a Germanic phoneme inventory and implement Verner's Law. I'm "stuck" with the German phonological development, so I actually move the stress, but the idea of keeping the same stress as Latin, and collapsing initial syallbles is fascinating - somebody really should have a go at that!
~~ Peter----- Original Message ----- From: "Christian Thalmann" <cinga@hidden.email>
To: <romconlang@yahoogroups.com> Sent: Friday, March 23, 2007 2:09 PM Subject: [romconlang] Re: Lethino Pronouns --- In romconlang@yahoogroups.com, Henrik Theiling <theiling@...> wrote:
> sing plur > dir sa Zer s� Zerre > gen sei Zerressu saar Zerrer > dat sy Zer sy Zerre > >... > Example: "Chapal" (horse) m. > > sing plur > dir s� Chapal su Chapalle > gen sei Chap�lsu sure Chapaller > dat sy Chapal sy Chap�lle >... Nice! :-) Looks French. :-P
Not to me... but certainly not German either.
Interestingly, although I am planning a conlang with quite similar goals, I can already say that it will look completely different. E.g. I'd expect my lang to have 'Kawel' or something. :-)
That looks more like German.
Do you shift the accent to the first syllable? Or do you keep the Romance accent?
It would certainly need that to feel German. But the question is whether the pre-stress syllable should receive the stress flat-out, or collapse in order to make the stressed syllable initial? In other words, caballus > Kabel or Quall? Hom einspeckt nohn �une dohnte Qu�lle Buck! :D Ooh, I love this. Hmmm, I'm nearly tempted to launch a true Germanoromance myself. Are those the new romlangs, in the sense that everybody has to go through that stage at some point? ;) -- Christian Thalmann