Re: Hello!

[Geoff Eddy <geoff@morven.compulink.co.uk>]

Andrew Smith wrote:

> I also recommend The Romance Languages published by Faber and Faber.  The
> first edition was written by Elcock; a second edition exists, I haven't
> seen it and I can't vouch for it.  It is the Romance Conlanger's Bible as
> far as I am concerned.  I deduced Brithenig's paradigms from that work and
> then ran them throw the Teach Yourself [Romance Lx] for my homepage.  It's
> a perennial work that I am constantly refere back to.

Yes, I've read this book (got it from the library), and very good it is
too. I have two books about the evolution of specific Romance languages
- "A History of the Spanish Language" by R. Penny (Cambridge) and "A
Linguistic History of Italian" by R. Maiden (Longman) - which are very
thorough - if similar treatments of French, Catalan, Portuguese et al
exist I'd love to know!

The evolution of Romance from Latin is one of the areas of language
which most interests me, which is why Brithenig tickled me so much. In a
way Romance has influenced the evolution of the neo-Liotan languages
(Kadhrein is a bit like French, Ivriyen more like Portuguese/Spanish,
and so on).

> Padraic has already mentioned "From Latin to Romance in sound-charts".
> It is very helpful for a quick overview of soundchanges.

Finding this in Edinburgh might be rather tricky though - is it still in
print?

> The Chomro first came to Ireland in 1055 and finally withdrew in 1922.
snip]

Is it all credible that somewhere there are people who speak
Gaelic-influenced Romance? Apparently the answer is "no", but further
investigation might reveal some...

FWIW, the biggest problem with Breathanach (name created in a hurry by
consulting a dictionary - better suggestions welcome) would be working
out how to derive 10 vowels and about 40 consonants from the Vulgar
Latin 7 vowels and 13 consonants.

> I did a quick skim of your website after Sally Caves mentioned it on
> Conlang.  I confess to being a little vain about the number of nice things
> said about Brithenig over the net, actually I confess to being a little
> vain..

Seriously, Brithenig is very well thought out and very convincing as
what it purports to be.

> But I really should return the compliment by linking Liotan to
> Brithenig.

Thanks!

Responding to another posting:

> On the isle of Man I think they speak Gaelic written in a Brithenig
> orthography.

This could be difficult, since Gaelic phonology is *very* different from
that of Brithenig. It'd be a challenge to see how the spelling works.

> Well, that shouldn't be any worse than Gaelic written with an English
> orthography! ;-)

Manx spelling does indeed look very bizarre. One of my favourites is
"she will eat", which comes out as "eeee ee" - compare the Scottish
Gaelic "ithidh i".

Geoff Eddy
-- 
[] Anna laughed with delight         <> Geoff Eddy, somewhere in
Edinburgh.. []
[] And my future was suddenly bright <>
--++--++--++--++--++--++--++--++--++ []
[] So full of plans                  <> "The more it stays the same,
the     []
[]  - Pal Shazar                     <>  less it changes" - Nigel
Tufnell    []