Re: Mormonides

[Padraic Brown <agricola@wam.umd.edu>]

On Sat, 31 Jan 1998, Andrew Smith wrote:

> We could have fun divising a tongue-in-cheek, but internally accurate,
> history of the tongue by the details we know of Welsh and Romance history.
> Much of the rest is worked out on the homepage, it waits the imaginative
> effort required to create dialogues and exercises.  I haven't attempted

Ooh, corny lesson dialogues with unlikely situations At the Train Station
or At the Post Office!

	1. Pardon me, sir.  Do you have change for a two-bob-bit?, for I
wish to purchase a train ticket.
	2. Why, yes, my good man.  Here you go.  I say, you're not from
around here, are you?
	1. Why no, sir.  I am from [insert your country here].
	2. Well, sir, you speak top notch Brithenig.
	1. Why thank you, sir. ...

> that.  I believe that Padraic may have made some starts on doing a
> grammar.  It would be interesting to see what he has done.

Yes: "Bickerson's New Brithonic Grammar".  It's got sections on letters
and sounds; orthography; mutations (incompleat); and morphology (except
conjunctions and interjections).  I haven't worked on it in months, so it
doesn't yet show the changes that have been made.  There's also
"Glossarium Britonum Linguae" published by St. Perran's University, which
will presently be updated with all the new material collected from the
Page, and words collected in correspondence.  It's nicely set up,
Brithenig-English/English-Brithenig, in two columns, and gives parts of
speech in the Brithenig section.  It's only two pounds nine and sixpence,
so order yours today! ;^) 

> 
> Another letter has turned up in my inbox from a spaniard praising the
> Brithenig Homepage.  He pointed out that across Romania there is a group
> of common *-er verbs that have -i- for their root vowel, ie, diger -
> digif.  I shall have to look into correcting this. 

Was this the "let's see some more _irregulars_!" fellow?  If so, this
should get us started on the next great frontier: irregular verbs and
nouns.  There simply have to be some.

I haven't worked it all into the Kernu grammar yet, but those dialects
show a dozen or more minor irregularities in the verbs alone.  The usual
culprits are to blame: 2nd and 3rd conjugation irregulars derived from
Latin.

> 
> - andrew.
> 
> Andrew Smith                                  <hobbit@earthlight.co.nz>
> Life is short, so am I...
> 
Padraic.