[YG Conlang Archives] > [romconlang group] > messages [Date Index] [Thread Index] >
----- Original Message ----- From: "Benct Philip Jonsson" <bpj@hidden.email>
To: <romconlang@yahoogroups.com> Sent: Wednesday, January 30, 2008 6:22 PM Subject: [romconlang] Northern Romance chronology and phonology
## Date of the Gallo-Romance/Northern Romance POD. (I'm posting this also to <blog.melroch.se>) IMHO the 2nd century is too late a date for the GRmc.-NRmc. divergence. It is important to remember that two dialect areas which remain in contact with each other don't break, but rather slide apart. Moreover I think we want Germanic phonology to have an influence from the outset, since that's rather the idea with a substrate: when a language spreads into an area where it wasn't spoken before the first generation will speak it with a broken accent, part of which will transfer to the native accent of the second and third generations. Also there is no need to assume that all Gallican innovations during the first century spread into Germania.
'Jein' as the Germans say.The first of the two stages of sound changes are not intended to be strictly diachronic, rather they are a set of changes that attempt to shift the CL lexicon - which we have - to something approximating VL - which, on the whole, we do not. To that extent at least the changes are 'instantaneous' at the start of the time period indicated, i.e. around about the beginning of the Common Era.
As you mentioned, we are not dealling with a sudden break and change of direction, but a gradual growing apart of two dialects. For that reason (and a few later sound changes I slipped in under the mat) I extended this initial period out to 200 CE. In doing this, I also was mindful of a couple of points: - The date of the conquest of Germania, which was as 'recently' as 57 BCE cis-rhine, and 9 CE trans-rhine. So even with a date as late as 200 CE, that only leaves space for 6 generations or so. - Initially, the only Latin speakers are going to be the Roman invaders. Until the Roman presence moves beyond invasion/occupation to actual colonisation, the language is not going to 'break out' and spread among the aboriginal inhabitants of the area through trade, fraternisation, cultural assimilation etc. - 200 CE in my mind marked an arbitrary point by which the two dialects (WRom / NRom) have become unintelligble to some degree or other following a couple of centuries of development, not the point at which this process begins to take place. The 200 - 500 CE timeframe is then the period during which a now fully separate NRom continues to develop. There is a cut off at 500 CE, which is the point some of the AHD changes begin to take place that will ultimately split NRom into two groups.
So to that extent, I think I would disagree about the date being too late. IF we cannot fire the starting pistol for a Roman Germania until early in the 1st century, then if we start bringing the 200 CE date forward we are going to end up with an unlikely situation of grandparents not understanding their grandchildren. I don't believe sound change can be quite so rapid.
It is perhaps instead my labelling of the two periods that needs adjusting. Perhaps if you think of stage one as being Pan-Roman changes attested by 1 CE, with stage 2 being the changes that separate W- and N Rom between 1 and 500 CE. 200 CE would still seem a reasonable date for drawing a line between West and North, but this date now becomes an indeterminate point sometime during the 2nd stage.
Where I do agree though, is that the Gmc phonology needs to have more of an effect from earlier, so perhaps we need to look at moving some of those features back in time slightly.
So we have some 'Germanican'[^Germanican] innovations right from the outset and some Gallican innovations which do reach Germania as well as some which don't. To a degree this means that we can pick and choose, but in so doing we should keep an eye on what was universal VL, what was only Western Romance and what was only Gallican.
I think we could sum the adoption of sound changes up as: VL changes: all WRom changes: most GRom: someGermanican sounds a good way to distinguish the conlang group from OTL Germanic. I also try to remember to refer to (OTL-)Gmc as 'teutonic', but I do so hate the word...
Also the Germanic substrate would not be common Germanic anymore, but Early West Germanic. Some changes like rhotacism, the loss of -z and gemination before *j may probably be under way already. Which means that Latin [z] from simple /s/ between vowels will probably be equated with substrate voiceless [s] as Scandinavians do to this day.
Yes. I have assumed /z/ has already been lost by the time the Romans arrive, so I have /z/ > /s/ accordingly. I have the C/j/ gemination late in stage 2, perhaps this is one of the features that needs to be brought forwards.
[...]
So we can be quite assured that at some time OTL Western Romance had the following sibilant system: | ts_m s_a (tS) S | dz_m z_a dZ (Z) where the parenthesized items were either rare or lacking in some areas. Comparing this to the pre-West Germanic fricatives system I'd not be the least surprised if Germans learning Gallo- Romance would equate the foreign [ts_m] with their [T], especially if there wasn't yet any /ts/ in their Germanic language. The biggest problem to me is what they'd make of [S]. There was perhaps no x to equate it with any more, since Old High German consistently keeps /h/ from Germanic *x and /x/ from Germanic *k distinct, in which case I'd have [S] merge with /s_a/ in substratization. OTOH with a time of contact as early as the first century I'd slate [S] to be equated with *x and then develop to a /h/ distinct from the lost Latin *h.
At the moment I don't seem to have /S/ arising from anywhere, but I'm still reading up on the palatisations so it may yet appear. If it does, I think WRom /S/ > NRom /x/ is best - especially as /x/ is an important Gmc phoneme that will otherwise disappear (?). As to /h/, AHD is still 500 - 800 years away at this point - worry about that later!
[...]
I wonder how Romance lengthening of vowels in stressed open syllables — in Iberian of all stressed vowels — and subsequent diphthongization would affect Northern Romance. The rising diphthongization of low mid [E:] and [O:] to /ie/ and /uo/ or similar is well nigh universal in Romance, but Old French also had high mid [e:] and [o:] become /ei/ and /ou/. Since OHG had both types of diphthong it is tempting to copy the Old French pattern in Northern Romance. OTOH Germanic had a very different vowel system from the VL one, so that it seems moot whether Northern Romance would preserve the distinction between two heights of mid vowels or merge them in the first place.
A very important point that needs considering. Waterman ('A History of the German Language') even suggests some of the AHD diphthongs may hve come about through close contact with GRom/Old N French. It seems in any case a feature that is very likely to be present in NRom.
Matching the vowels systems is difficult, but important because of the role vowel length plays later in the development of the language. Somehow, length distinctions need to remain, or be reintroduced. At the moment I'm working on the following basis:
VL lost vowel length distinction but this was replaced by tenseness as formerly short vowels became more open.
WGmc retained vowel length.So: NRom inherits the tenseness distinction, which moves back towards a length distinction under the substratic influence of Germanic. So we end up with a system of short open vowels and closed long vowels -
i: u:
I U
e: o:
E O
a
[...]
Pete