There are 15 messages in this issue.
Topics in this digest:
1a. Re: vowels: five to three?
From: Leonardo Castro
1b. Re: vowels: five to three?
From: BPJ
1c. Re: vowels: five to three?
From: Jörg Rhiemeier
1d. Re: vowels: five to three?
From: BPJ
2a. Re: OT: Endangered Language research at US Universities
From: Leonardo Castro
2b. Re: OT: Endangered Language research at US Universities
From: Leonardo Castro
2c. Re: OT: Endangered Language research at US Universities
From: Leland Paul Kusmer
3a. Re: A Language For The (Asteroid) Belt
From: George Corley
4a. Easy-typing Arabic romanization (was: Not really a conlang...)
From: J�rg Rhiemeier
4b. Re: Easy-typing Arabic romanization (was: Not really a conlang...)
From: David McCann
4c. Re: Easy-typing Arabic romanization (was: Not really a conlang...)
From: Adnan Majid
5a. Odd use of "k" in Gawain and the Green Knight
From: Sam Stutter
5b. Re: Odd use of "k" in Gawain and the Green Knight
From: Daniel Myers
5c. Re: Odd use of "k" in Gawain and the Green Knight
From: Sam Stutter
5d. Re: Odd use of "k" in Gawain and the Green Knight
From: Patrick Dunn
Messages
________________________________________________________________________
1a. Re: vowels: five to three?
Posted by: "Leonardo Castro" [email protected]
Date: Thu Feb 7, 2013 3:36 am ((PST))
Au, saule miu!
Ma n’atu saule
cchiù bellu, ai ne’
’au saule miu
sta nfraunte a ti!’
au saule
’au saule miu
sta nfraunte a ti,
sta nfraunte a ti!
---
Mairica-Mairica
Mairica, Mairica, Mairica,
caussa saràlu 'sta Mairica?
Mairica, Mairica, Mairica,
un bail mazzulinu di fiaur.
----
Até mais!
Leonardo
2013/2/1 BPJ <[email protected]>:
> Now don't you go and give me any crazy ideas, you hear me! ;-)
>
> Den torsdagen den 31:e januari 2013 skrev Jörg Rhiemeier:
>
>> Hallo conlangers!
>>
>> On Wednesday 30 January 2013 18:35:00 BPJ wrote:
>>
>> > Sicilian comes close with
>> >
>> > ī ĭ ē > i
>> > ū ŭ ō > u
>> > ā ă > a
>> >
>> > Had only ĕ ŏ merged with a it would have been a done deal.
>>
>> That would be a lostlang idea. A romlang with only three vowel
>> qualities!
>>
>> --
>> ... brought to you by the Weeping Elf
>> http://www.joerg-rhiemeier.de/Conlang/index.html
>> "Bêsel asa Éam, a Éam atha cvanthal a cvanth atha Éamal." - SiM 1:1
>>
Messages in this topic (17)
________________________________________________________________________
1b. Re: vowels: five to three?
Posted by: "BPJ" [email protected]
Date: Thu Feb 7, 2013 6:22 am ((PST))
On 2013-02-07 12:36, Leonardo Castro wrote:
> Au, saule miu!
>
> Ma n’atu saule
> cchiù bellu, ai ne’
> ’au saule miu
> sta nfraunte a ti!’
> au saule
> ’au saule miu
> sta nfraunte a ti,
> sta nfraunte a ti!
>
> ---
>
> Mairica-Mairica
>
> Mairica, Mairica, Mairica,
> caussa saràlu 'sta Mairica?
> Mairica, Mairica, Mairica,
> un bail mazzulinu di fiaur.
I actually thought of that after Jörg's comment:
Sicilian had no diphthongization so that the product of
the merger of Latin _ĭ_ and _ē_ into /e/ just merged
with /i/ from _ī_, and stressed _ĕ_ just remained /ɛ/,
while unstressed _ĕ_ actually became /i/, and the
development of the back vowels was parallel. So I
imagined a language where stressed _ĕ_ and _ŏ_ also
just became /a/ so that you would have:
| rēge > ri(g)i
| pĕde > pedi > padi
| vōtu > vutu
| fŏcu > focu > facu
Now in a great part of Romance /ɛ/ and /ɔ/ diphthongize
either in open syllables or everywhere, or just under
certain conditions and in smaller parts /e/ and/or /o/
as well diphthongize in open syllables and/or under
other conditions so you may get results like
| rēge > rei(g)e > rai
| > roi > roe > rua
| pĕde > pie(d)e > pia(de)
| vōtu > voutu > vut / vaut
| > voatu > vuatu
| fŏcu > fuocu > fue- / fua-
I guess _roi_ could also have gone to /rui/ and then
on to /ruɛ/ > /rua/ but the fact is that results such
as /oi/, /o/, /(o)ɛ/ are attested but /ui/ is
attested nowhere.
So one would have to decide *when* and *where* this
language arose and get different *how*s depending. You
would also have to decide when this happened relative
to palatalization, and if one also adopted the (quite
unrealistic) idea that unstressed _ĕ, ŏ_ became /a/
before stressed vowels, relative to loss of final /u/
and /e/ if that occurred. You could get several
interesting languages on the proposition of "a Romlang
with only three vowel qualities"!
/bpj
>
> 2013/2/1 BPJ <[email protected]>:
>> Now don't you go and give me any crazy ideas, you hear me! ;-)
>>
>> Den torsdagen den 31:e januari 2013 skrev Jörg Rhiemeier:
>>
>>> Hallo conlangers!
>>>
>>> On Wednesday 30 January 2013 18:35:00 BPJ wrote:
>>>
>>>> Sicilian comes close with
>>>>
>>>> ī ĭ ē > i
>>>> ū ŭ ō > u
>>>> ā ă > a
>>>>
>>>> Had only ĕ ŏ merged with a it would have been a done deal.
>>>
>>> That would be a lostlang idea. A romlang with only three vowel
>>> qualities!
>>>
>>> --
>>> ... brought to you by the Weeping Elf
>>> http://www.joerg-rhiemeier.de/Conlang/index.html
>>> "Bêsel asa Éam, a Éam atha cvanthal a cvanth atha Éamal." - SiM 1:1
>>>
>
Messages in this topic (17)
________________________________________________________________________
1c. Re: vowels: five to three?
Posted by: "Jörg Rhiemeier" [email protected]
Date: Thu Feb 7, 2013 6:52 am ((PST))
Hallo conlangers!
On Thursday 07 February 2013 15:22:17 BPJ wrote:
> [...]
> I actually thought of that after Jörg's comment:
>
> Sicilian had no diphthongization so that the product of
> the merger of Latin _ĭ_ and _ē_ into /e/ just merged
> with /i/ from _ī_, and stressed _ĕ_ just remained /ɛ/,
> while unstressed _ĕ_ actually became /i/, and the
> development of the back vowels was parallel. So I
> imagined a language where stressed _ĕ_ and _ŏ_ also
> just became /a/ so that you would have:
> | rēge > ri(g)i
> | pĕde > pedi > padi
> | vōtu > vutu
> | fŏcu > focu > facu
Yes. The original idea of yours (and mine).
> Now in a great part of Romance /ɛ/ and /ɔ/ diphthongize
> either in open syllables or everywhere, or just under
> certain conditions and in smaller parts /e/ and/or /o/
> as well diphthongize in open syllables and/or under
> other conditions so you may get results like
>
> | rēge > rei(g)e > rai
> |
> | > roi > roe > rua
> |
> | pĕde > pie(d)e > pia(de)
> | vōtu > voutu > vut / vaut
> |
> | > voatu > vuatu
> |
> | fŏcu > fuocu > fue- / fua-
>
> I guess _roi_ could also have gone to /rui/ and then
> on to /ruɛ/ > /rua/ but the fact is that results such
> as /oi/, /o/, /(o)ɛ/ are attested but /ui/ is
> attested nowhere.
>
> So one would have to decide *when* and *where* this
> language arose and get different *how*s depending. You
> would also have to decide when this happened relative
> to palatalization, and if one also adopted the (quite
> unrealistic) idea that unstressed _ĕ, ŏ_ became /a/
> before stressed vowels, relative to loss of final /u/
> and /e/ if that occurred. You could get several
> interesting languages on the proposition of "a Romlang
> with only three vowel qualities"!
Sure. There are many ways of getting a plausible romlang
with only three vowel qualities. Alas, I currently do not
feel like starting a romlang. I still have enough to do with
Old Albic, Proto-Alpianic (a protolang for the League of Lost
Languages) and even with Roman Germanech which is pretty much
"done" but no complete grammar sketch or dictionary currently
online! Also, I have other, non-conlang projects such as
writing a book about progressive rock music and writing and
rehearsing songs for a band I hope to start later this year,
and a few other things.
--
... brought to you by the Weeping Elf
http://www.joerg-rhiemeier.de/Conlang/index.html
"Bêsel asa Éam, a Éam atha cvanthal a cvanth atha Éamal." - SiM 1:1
Messages in this topic (17)
________________________________________________________________________
1d. Re: vowels: five to three?
Posted by: "BPJ" [email protected]
Date: Thu Feb 7, 2013 8:33 am ((PST))
Bábilstuarn
Allir jarðarbúar tiuluðu siumu tungu ug nútuðu siumu
úrð. Svau bár viað ír hair fluttust að uistan að hair
fundu laugsliattu í Síníarlandi ug sittust hár að. Hau
sugðu hair wír viað annan: "Kumum nú ug búum tial
tígulstaina ug brinnum hau í ildi." Hair nútuðu
tígulstaina í stáð grjuats ug biak í stáð stainlíms. Og
hair sugðu: "Kumum nú, biggjum ukkr burg ug tuarn sim
naui tial hiamins. Hár míð virðum viað frágir in
tvístrumst ikki um alla jurðina." Hau staig Druttinn
niaðr tial hiss að sjau burgina ug tuarninn sim minnirnir
huvðu biggt. Og Druttinn ságði: "Nú íru hair ain hjuað
ug tála siumu tungu. Hitta ír aðains uppháf hiss sim
hair muanu táka siar fiarir hindr. Hiar iftir muan ikkirt
virða haim um mign sim hair átla siar. Stígum nú niaðr
ug ruglum tungumaul hairra svau að inginn skilji annars
maul." Og Druttinn tvístraði haim háðan um alla
jurðina ug hair háttu viað að biggja burgina. Av haim
siukum haitir hún Bábil að hár ruglaði Druttinn
tungumaul allrar jarðarinnar ug háðan tvístraði hann
haim um alla jurðina.
-----------------------------------------------------------
A collection of the more extreme developments observed
in outlying Scandinavian dialects applied to create a
trivocalic language. Can anyone with a knowledge of
Scandinavian/Norse spot the twists? There are no
grammatical changes For convenience I started from a
modern Icelandic text with the most glaring
innovations removed.
/bpj
On 2013-02-07 12:36, Leonardo Castro wrote:
> Au, saule miu!
>
> Ma n’atu saule
> cchiù bellu, ai ne’
> ’au saule miu
> sta nfraunte a ti!’
> au saule
> ’au saule miu
> sta nfraunte a ti,
> sta nfraunte a ti!
>
> ---
>
> Mairica-Mairica
>
> Mairica, Mairica, Mairica,
> caussa saràlu 'sta Mairica?
> Mairica, Mairica, Mairica,
> un bail mazzulinu di fiaur.
>
> ----
>
> Até mais!
>
> Leonardo
>
>
> 2013/2/1 BPJ <[email protected]>:
>> Now don't you go and give me any crazy ideas, you hear me! ;-)
>>
>> Den torsdagen den 31:e januari 2013 skrev Jörg Rhiemeier:
>>
>>> Hallo conlangers!
>>>
>>> On Wednesday 30 January 2013 18:35:00 BPJ wrote:
>>>
>>>> Sicilian comes close with
>>>>
>>>> ī ĭ ē > i
>>>> ū ŭ ō > u
>>>> ā ă > a
>>>>
>>>> Had only ĕ ŏ merged with a it would have been a done deal.
>>>
>>> That would be a lostlang idea. A romlang with only three vowel
>>> qualities!
>>>
>>> --
>>> ... brought to you by the Weeping Elf
>>> http://www.joerg-rhiemeier.de/Conlang/index.html
>>> "Bêsel asa Éam, a Éam atha cvanthal a cvanth atha Éamal." - SiM 1:1
>>>
>
Messages in this topic (17)
________________________________________________________________________
________________________________________________________________________
2a. Re: OT: Endangered Language research at US Universities
Posted by: "Leonardo Castro" [email protected]
Date: Thu Feb 7, 2013 3:53 am ((PST))
I don't know, but after you find your US university, a collaboration
with the Peruvian-Brazilian group below could be interesting, since
South America has very many endangered languages:
http://www.lias.laliunb.com.br/
Até mais!
Leonardo
2013/2/6 George Corley <[email protected]>:
> I'm currently doing research for a project involving endangered languages,
> and one of the things I've been asked to research is universities in the US
> that have strong fieldwork programs. Does anyone know of some good places
> I can look?
>
> I'm also exploring funding sources for a potential grant proposal on
> documenting endangered languages, as well as software to assist in
> documentation (heh! We all know how hard it is to find a good dictionary
> database :P ).
Messages in this topic (5)
________________________________________________________________________
2b. Re: OT: Endangered Language research at US Universities
Posted by: "Leonardo Castro" [email protected]
Date: Thu Feb 7, 2013 4:01 am ((PST))
I just notice there is an American collaborator professor in the group
LALI I mentioned: Terrence Kaufman, from University of Pittsburgh.
Até mais!
Leonardo
2013/2/7 Leonardo Castro <[email protected]>:
> I don't know, but after you find your US university, a collaboration
> with the Peruvian-Brazilian group below could be interesting, since
> South America has very many endangered languages:
>
> http://www.lias.laliunb.com.br/
>
> Até mais!
>
> Leonardo
>
>
> 2013/2/6 George Corley <[email protected]>:
>> I'm currently doing research for a project involving endangered languages,
>> and one of the things I've been asked to research is universities in the US
>> that have strong fieldwork programs. Does anyone know of some good places
>> I can look?
>>
>> I'm also exploring funding sources for a potential grant proposal on
>> documenting endangered languages, as well as software to assist in
>> documentation (heh! We all know how hard it is to find a good dictionary
>> database :P ).
Messages in this topic (5)
________________________________________________________________________
2c. Re: OT: Endangered Language research at US Universities
Posted by: "Leland Paul Kusmer" [email protected]
Date: Thu Feb 7, 2013 5:12 am ((PST))
On Wed, Feb 6, 2013 at 8:21 PM, George Corley <[email protected]> wrote:
> I'm currently doing research for a project involving endangered languages,
> and one of the things I've been asked to research is universities in the US
> that have strong fieldwork programs. Does anyone know of some good places
> I can look?
>
I'm currently in the middle of the application cycle for linguistics
graduate programs, and given that fieldwork (and endangered language work)
is my personal top priority, this is a fairly familiar question!
The "top three" programs that everyone usually cites for this are:
* U Hawaii at Manoa – basically the home of the documentary linguistics
sub-field. Enormous support for endangered language documentation, both
from faculty and from other students.
* U Oregon – Lots of fieldwork, though some of the professors are
interested in it primarily as a means to get data for historical analysis.
* UC Santa Barbara – A department with a strong discourse-functional
theoretical outlook. While they very much see documentation as something
that's done primarily to support the broader science, they take the
attitude of document first, theorize later.
Depending on where in the world you're working and how
much generatively you can stomach, you've got a variety of other options.
If you're interested in southwestern American languages, U Arizona's a good
bet. Berkeley has a lot of support for native Californian (and West Coast
in general) languages. UT Austin is often cited, but I don't know much
about their program. Yale has Claire Bowern, who's beyond awesome, but the
rest of the department is very generativist and will want you to at least
do some work in that direction.
-Leland
>
> I'm also exploring funding sources for a potential grant proposal on
> documenting endangered languages, as well as software to assist in
> documentation (heh! We all know how hard it is to find a good dictionary
> database :P ).
>
Messages in this topic (5)
________________________________________________________________________
________________________________________________________________________
3a. Re: A Language For The (Asteroid) Belt
Posted by: "George Corley" [email protected]
Date: Thu Feb 7, 2013 4:40 am ((PST))
What language is this derived from? It looks vaguely semitic. I would
think that many languages would be represented in future space exploration,
as so many people around the world colonize different areas.
On Wed, Feb 6, 2013 at 9:05 PM, Anthony Miles <[email protected]> wrote:
> When the waters rose, the small nations, those closest to the water,
> suffered and vanished. Their people struggled to hold their identity
> against the Way of Every Person and the Good Language which it imposed. The
> world government tired of their complaints and offered them emigration to
> the other bodies of the Solar System. The largest of these was Mars; the
> second largest was Ceres. The Dal-Ikris (male Dal-Keres, female Dil-Kersa),
> the settlers of Ceres, established Calvino Cities anchored above Dil-Bar,
> the interior ocean of Ceres, and prospered. After a half-century, the
> Dal-Ikris colonized Vesta, whose inhabitants became known as the Dal-Vosot
> (male Dal-Ivsat, female Dil-Vesta).
>
> The language of the Dal-Ikris and the Dal-Vosot was not the same as that
> of their ancestors, despite the efforts of their teachers and scholars. The
> articles were kept, but the demonstrative combined with the definite
> article, leaving a typical male-female-plural pattern �dal-dil-dal�. The
> difference between �dal � singular� and �dal � plural� appeared in the
> distinct forms of the noun, e.g., �dal-ktib� �the book�, �dal-kotba� �the
> books�. Diminution devastated the regularity of the personal pronouns. The
> affirmative pronouns became �ina, ti, u, i, nana, tom, uma� �1s, 2s, 3ms,
> 3fs, 1p, 2p, 3p�, while the negative pronouns became �nish, tish, mush,
> mish, tomsh, umish�. The verb also suffered simplification: the seven forms
> of the ancestral language reduced to three: male-female-plural. An example
> is �to write�: past �kiteb, kitbet, kitbu�, imperative �ikteb, iktbu�,
> non-past �yikteb, tikteb, yiktbu.�There were also negative forms �ma
> ktibsh, ma kitbitsh, ma kitbush, ma tiktibsh, ma tiktbush, ma yiktibsh, ma
> tiktibsh, ma yiktbush� and interrogative �shkiteb, shkitbet, shkitbu,
> shyikteb, shtikteb, shyiktbu.� Simplification, however, was not universal:
> the reduction of the verbal paradigm forces each combination with the
> personal pronoun to indicate gender; the speaker of �ina ma ktibsh� �I will
> not write� could only be a girl.
>
Messages in this topic (2)
________________________________________________________________________
________________________________________________________________________
4a. Easy-typing Arabic romanization (was: Not really a conlang...)
Posted by: "J�rg Rhiemeier" [email protected]
Date: Thu Feb 7, 2013 6:53 am ((PST))
Hallo conlangers!
On Monday 04 February 2013 22:00:52 Jeffrey Brown wrote:
> J�rg Rhiemeier said:
>
> > And for Arabic, we have a pretty serviceable transcription
> > system developed by the Deutsche Morgenl�ndische Gesellschaft,
> > which is in international use. There really is no good reason,
> > in these days of most computers being capable of handling the
> > required diacritics, not to use that for a morphologically
> > simplified Arabic.
>
> Yeah, the orthography of Sim-Arabic is sort of ugly. DIN 31635 (the
> transliteration standard of the Deutsche Morgenl�ndische Gesellschaft) is a
> lot prettier - but it is not easier to use. It needs the following
> diacritics: macron above, macron below, dot above, dot below, caron above,
> breve below - and these special characters: right half ring, left half
> ring. It is a pain in the neck to type.
Sure, it is not easy to type, so one may want to use something
different. Maybe like this:
'/^a b t _t ^g .h ^h d _d r z s ^s .s .d .t .z ` .g f q k l m n h w/^u y/^i
All symbols are derived from the DIN 31635 conventions, and listed
above in the order of the Arabic abjad. I guess something similar
has been in use in e-mails among orientalists when diacritics still
caused problems.
It still is not pretty, but IMHO less ugly than mixed case, and
the relationship to DIN 31635 quite obvious.
--
... brought to you by the Weeping Elf
http://www.joerg-rhiemeier.de/Conlang/index.html
"B�sel asa �am, a �am atha cvanthal a cvanth atha �amal." - SiM 1:1
Messages in this topic (20)
________________________________________________________________________
4b. Re: Easy-typing Arabic romanization (was: Not really a conlang...)
Posted by: "David McCann" [email protected]
Date: Thu Feb 7, 2013 8:26 am ((PST))
On Monday 04 February 2013 22:00:52 Jeffrey Brown wrote:
> Yeah, the orthography of Sim-Arabic is sort of ugly. DIN 31635 (the
> transliteration standard of the Deutsche Morgenländische
> Gesellschaft) is a lot prettier - but it is not easier to use. It
> needs the following diacritics: macron above, macron below, dot
> above, dot below, caron above, breve below - and these special
> characters: right half ring, left half ring. It is a pain in the
> neck to type.
Surely it's just a question of getting your keyboard set up properly,
like:
Compose -a for ā
Compose _t for ṯ
Compose !t for ṭ
Compose cs for š
Compose bh for ḫ
L3Sh { for ʿ
L3Sh } for ʾ
Typing three keys for š is not much worse than typing sh, and I believe
that you can get compose-key emulation for Windows these days.
I've got everything including the kitchen sink set up here: ẖ ꜣ ƛ ʢ and
so on.
Messages in this topic (20)
________________________________________________________________________
4c. Re: Easy-typing Arabic romanization (was: Not really a conlang...)
Posted by: "Adnan Majid" [email protected]
Date: Thu Feb 7, 2013 11:33 am ((PST))
Hi everyone,
If the goal of Jeff and others is just to simplify Arabic without being
particularly tied down to Arabic's complex phonetics, I wonder whether one
can use *vowels* to represent different consonants that were originally
different. Many of the emphatic consonants in Arabic (as well as some
others) cause the following vowel to become more rounded (is that the right
term?) - namely T, Z, S, D, kh, gh, r, and q.
For instance, the verb "dalal" would mean "he showed" while the verb
".Dalal" would mean "he erred." Since the "o" vowel isn't usually used in
Arabic, one could render the the latter as "dolal", differentiating it from
"dalal" without having to use any digraphs or diacritics. And it actually
ends up sounding fairly similar to the original.
It helps that Arabic has only 3 main vowels. Thus the vowel changes could
be something like the following: a->o, i->y, u->eu, or maybe a->o, i->e,
u->y, or whatever you'd like (for instance, we already use "syria" to
render the Arabic ".Sooriyya" as the Greek "y" was originally similar to
the french "eu"). Depending on one's goals, one doesn't need to be totally
precise - just precise enough to differentiate similar words.
Just a suggestion - haven't thought about all too much.
Adnan
On Thu, Feb 7, 2013 at 8:26 AM, David McCann <[email protected]>wrote:
> On Monday 04 February 2013 22:00:52 Jeffrey Brown wrote:
>
> > Yeah, the orthography of Sim-Arabic is sort of ugly. DIN 31635 (the
> > transliteration standard of the Deutsche Morgenländische
> > Gesellschaft) is a lot prettier - but it is not easier to use. It
> > needs the following diacritics: macron above, macron below, dot
> > above, dot below, caron above, breve below - and these special
> > characters: right half ring, left half ring. It is a pain in the
> > neck to type.
>
> Surely it's just a question of getting your keyboard set up properly,
> like:
> Compose -a for ā
> Compose _t for ṯ
> Compose !t for ṭ
> Compose cs for š
> Compose bh for ḫ
> L3Sh { for ʿ
> L3Sh } for ʾ
> Typing three keys for š is not much worse than typing sh, and I believe
> that you can get compose-key emulation for Windows these days.
>
> I've got everything including the kitchen sink set up here: ẖ ꜣ ƛ ʢ and
> so on.
>
Messages in this topic (20)
________________________________________________________________________
________________________________________________________________________
5a. Odd use of "k" in Gawain and the Green Knight
Posted by: "Sam Stutter" [email protected]
Date: Thu Feb 7, 2013 11:03 am ((PST))
I've been considering this on Google+ - in Gawain and the Green Knight you'll
find the words "louelokkest" and "comlokest" ("loveliest" and "comeliest").
What I've been trying to work out is *how* are these pronounced? Given that
Gawain was written in either Cheshire or Staffordshire, I'm not sure to what
degree pronunciation is believed to follow southern Middle English dialects.
Given that I (Cheshire-dweller that I am) can read Gawain without much
difficulty and people with very traditional Cheshire dialects find it almost
entirely intelligible, I'm trying to imagine how an elderly Cheshire speaker
might render the words "loveliest" and "comeliest".
I can't imagine any reason why they might say /kʊmlɒkest/ or /lʊvlɒkest/, or
use /ʧ/, /ç/ or /x/ instead of /k/. I can only think of it as being some quirk
of spelling (like the use of "qu" vs "wh", "ɜ", "þ" and "y"). Trying to imagine
it, I can only hear /kʊmleɪst/ and /lʊvleɪst/. Of course, I might very well be
getting the wrong end of the stick here.
I'm not sure to what degree Great Vowel Shift-age has happened here, but I'm
happy with how the vowels sound, so that's not a worry.
Sam Stutter
[email protected]
"No e na'l cu barri"
Messages in this topic (4)
________________________________________________________________________
5b. Re: Odd use of "k" in Gawain and the Green Knight
Posted by: "Daniel Myers" [email protected]
Date: Thu Feb 7, 2013 11:59 am ((PST))
Without seeing the original source, my guess is that it's a
transcription error where the handwritten form of the letter yogh was
misinterpreted as a k. In the medieval cooking manuscripts I've often
seen a yogh used where we would use either of "y" or "gh" (and sometimes
"ygh").
- Doc
> -------- Original Message --------
> From: Sam Stutter <[email protected]>
> Date: Thu, February 07, 2013 2:03 pm
>
> I've been considering this on Google+ - in Gawain and the Green Knight you'll
> find the words "louelokkest" and "comlokest" ("loveliest" and "comeliest").
> What I've been trying to work out is *how* are these pronounced? Given that
> Gawain was written in either Cheshire or Staffordshire, I'm not sure to what
> degree pronunciation is believed to follow southern Middle English dialects.
> Given that I (Cheshire-dweller that I am) can read Gawain without much
> difficulty and people with very traditional Cheshire dialects find it almost
> entirely intelligible, I'm trying to imagine how an elderly Cheshire speaker
> might render the words "loveliest" and "comeliest".
>
> I can't imagine any reason why they might say /kʊmlɒkest/ or /lʊvlɒkest/, or
> use /ʧ/, /ç/ or /x/ instead of /k/. I can only think of it as being some
> quirk of spelling (like the use of "qu" vs "wh", "ɜ", "þ" and "y"). Trying to
> imagine it, I can only hear /kʊmleɪst/ and /lʊvleɪst/. Of course, I might
> very well be getting the wrong end of the stick here.
>
> I'm not sure to what degree Great Vowel Shift-age has happened here, but I'm
> happy with how the vowels sound, so that's not a worry.
>
> Sam Stutter
> [email protected]
> "No e na'l cu barri"
Messages in this topic (4)
________________________________________________________________________
5c. Re: Odd use of "k" in Gawain and the Green Knight
Posted by: "Sam Stutter" [email protected]
Date: Thu Feb 7, 2013 12:33 pm ((PST))
I was using this source:
http://archive.org/stream/sirgawainandgre00neilgoog#page/n18/mode/2up (page 19
of 76)
They have been pretty consistent with their transcription of "ɜ" and "k", and
the fact that they mis-transcribed it twice on adjacent lines. Maybe Piers the
Ploughman wasn't too hot at spelling? :)
Sam Stutter
[email protected]
"No e na'l cu barri"
On 7 Feb 2013, at 19:59, Daniel Myers <[email protected]> wrote:
> Without seeing the original source, my guess is that it's a
> transcription error where the handwritten form of the letter yogh was
> misinterpreted as a k. In the medieval cooking manuscripts I've often
> seen a yogh used where we would use either of "y" or "gh" (and sometimes
> "ygh").
>
> - Doc
>
>
>> -------- Original Message --------
>> From: Sam Stutter <[email protected]>
>> Date: Thu, February 07, 2013 2:03 pm
>>
>> I've been considering this on Google+ - in Gawain and the Green Knight
>> you'll find the words "louelokkest" and "comlokest" ("loveliest" and
>> "comeliest"). What I've been trying to work out is *how* are these
>> pronounced? Given that Gawain was written in either Cheshire or
>> Staffordshire, I'm not sure to what degree pronunciation is believed to
>> follow southern Middle English dialects. Given that I (Cheshire-dweller that
>> I am) can read Gawain without much difficulty and people with very
>> traditional Cheshire dialects find it almost entirely intelligible, I'm
>> trying to imagine how an elderly Cheshire speaker might render the words
>> "loveliest" and "comeliest".
>>
>> I can't imagine any reason why they might say /kʊmlɒkest/ or /lʊvlɒkest/, or
>> use /ʧ/, /ç/ or /x/ instead of /k/. I can only think of it as being some
>> quirk of spelling (like the use of "qu" vs "wh", "ɜ", "þ" and "y"). Trying
>> to imagine it, I can only hear /kʊmleɪst/ and /lʊvleɪst/. Of course, I might
>> very well be getting the wrong end of the stick here.
>>
>> I'm not sure to what degree Great Vowel Shift-age has happened here, but I'm
>> happy with how the vowels sound, so that's not a worry.
>>
>> Sam Stutter
>> [email protected]
>> "No e na'l cu barri"
Messages in this topic (4)
________________________________________________________________________
5d. Re: Odd use of "k" in Gawain and the Green Knight
Posted by: "Patrick Dunn" [email protected]
Date: Thu Feb 7, 2013 1:10 pm ((PST))
One thing that occurs to me is that in Old English, the suffix that became
-ly was -lice. So, for example, "lovely" would be "leoflice" or "luflic".
That {k} may be a survival of the original {c} which I learned to
pronounce as a palatal stop or an affricate.
How it might have been pronounced in that dialect of middle English, I've
got no clue to offer, though.
On Thu, Feb 7, 2013 at 1:03 PM, Sam Stutter <[email protected]> wrote:
> I've been considering this on Google+ - in Gawain and the Green Knight
> you'll find the words "louelokkest" and "comlokest" ("loveliest" and
> "comeliest"). What I've been trying to work out is *how* are these
> pronounced? Given that Gawain was written in either Cheshire or
> Staffordshire, I'm not sure to what degree pronunciation is believed to
> follow southern Middle English dialects. Given that I (Cheshire-dweller
> that I am) can read Gawain without much difficulty and people with very
> traditional Cheshire dialects find it almost entirely intelligible, I'm
> trying to imagine how an elderly Cheshire speaker might render the words
> "loveliest" and "comeliest".
>
> I can't imagine any reason why they might say /kʊmlɒkest/ or /lʊvlɒkest/,
> or use /ʧ/, /ç/ or /x/ instead of /k/. I can only think of it as being some
> quirk of spelling (like the use of "qu" vs "wh", "ɜ", "þ" and "y"). Trying
> to imagine it, I can only hear /kʊmleɪst/ and /lʊvleɪst/. Of course, I
> might very well be getting the wrong end of the stick here.
>
> I'm not sure to what degree Great Vowel Shift-age has happened here, but
> I'm happy with how the vowels sound, so that's not a worry.
>
> Sam Stutter
> [email protected]
> "No e na'l cu barri"
>
--
Second Person, a chapbook of poetry by Patrick Dunn, is now available for
order from Finishing Line
Press<http://www.finishinglinepress.com/NewReleasesandForthcomingTitles.htm>
and
Amazon<http://www.amazon.com/Second-Person-Patrick-Dunn/dp/1599249065/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1324342341&sr=8-2>.
Messages in this topic (4)
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Yahoo! Groups Links
<*> To visit your group on the web, go to:
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/conlang/
<*> Your email settings:
Digest Email | Traditional
<*> To change settings online go to:
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/conlang/join
(Yahoo! ID required)
<*> To change settings via email:
[email protected]
[email protected]
<*> To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to:
[email protected]
<*> Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to:
http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/
------------------------------------------------------------------------
