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On 2012-02-22 23:57, Thomas Ruhm wrote:
To Adam: Did you already make some stages of your language for different times? I am trying to make different registers, but only for one time, about one thousand years ago. Maybe I will be trying to make up a country. Did you think of changing influences?
I'm not Adam, but I think this is a thing worth discussing: what the (dis)advantages are or would be of working linearly Latin --\> Modern (or Modern --\> Latin) or to work in parallel on different stages like I do. One advantage I can see with the parallel mode is what I mentioned in my last post: forms which are 'too regular' for the modern language can be 'demoted' as historical, and conversely a 'too analogical' form may be better for the modern language than for the old. BTW I think that however liear you strive to be there will be 'leakage' between 'historical' stages for precisely such reasons. I started out with a fairly full picture of what I wanted Rhodrese to be like from a phonaesthetic POV and developed sound changes accordingly. In the process some things suggested themselves and I developed a picture of a more 'advanced' language, and so modern Rhodrese/Borgonzay was born, although I originally had thought that Rh. would not have any modern descendant. One 'problem' (actually part of the fun!) is that the language starts developing on its own accord, doing things which I definitely hadn't planned for, like umlaut -- I *really* had no inkling of that when I started out; it just felt natural at one point, and then spread like wildfire --, developing an obligatory plural indefinite article from UNAS/UNOS, merging unstressed mid and high vowels and palatalization of dentals before */i:/. On this last the jury is still out. ATM I tend to think that it's a feature of the 'core Rhodrese' dialects, and more more pronounced with S (and /z/) and L, so that I can basically decide on a form-to-form basis whether I like the palatalized or the unpalatalized version better, although that borders on cheating! The mid-high vowel merger made a distinction between sg. _el_ and pl. _il_ as masc. definite article impossible, and palatalization comes to the rescue suggesting _gli_ /LI/ or _igl_ /I(\L)\/ as the plural, and some forms like _peuntx�_ < *PUN(C)TINU 'diactitic dot' beside _euntx�_ < UNCINU 'cedilla' are *too* nice! (Admittedly NCT could become /tS/ anyway, but should SANCTU become _santx_?) /Bendetx