Re: nu alltr e gw alltr?

[John Cowan <cowan@locke.ccil.org>]

Rhaifun Bryn yscrifef:

> <soap-box>
> Brithenig may be conservative but it must be conservative in that way that,
> e.g. Sardinian is conservative, i.e. conserves forms of the _spoken_
> language.  The basis for all Romancelangs must be the Vulgar Latin of the
> legionaries, merchants and common folk of the Empire, not the written Latin
> of Cicero & Ceasar - otherwise we'll be reviving Ciceronian 'abs' if we're
> not careful.

Well, arguing the general point rather than the specific, the Romance
languages are full of borrowings from (written) Latin.  Admitted, most
of these are in open lexical classes, but Italian has borrowed "meco",
"teco", "seco" directly from Latin, though they have a literary/poetic
flavor.  The "cum mecum" forms that lead to "conmigo" etc. in Spanish
were lost in Italian in favor of simple "con me" [kOmme], "con te", etc.

> It would be so easy to pick one's favorite bits of Welsh &
> Latin and jumble them together and then derive some scenario to 'justify'
> the result.  Andrew has not done that.

Agreed.

> </soap-box>

I have corrected the syntax of your tags.  :-)

> But I was thinking only of other prepositions which might have caused
> gemination in the Roman period & thus would give rise to spirant mutation
> in Brithening.

My sources on Italian say vaguely "certain prepositions", but give
no examples except "a".  Note that the standard language is a
compromise between the north (which does not pronounce any geminates
natively, and when speaking the standard language pronounces only
those written) and the south (which regularly geminates all
initial consonants except at the start of a breath-group), so
regularity is probably not to be looked for.

-- 
John Cowan	http://www.ccil.org/~cowan		cowan@ccil.org
	You tollerday donsk?  N.  You tolkatiff scowegian?  Nn.
	You spigotty anglease?  Nnn.  You phonio saxo?  Nnnn.
		Clear all so!  'Tis a Jute.... (Finnegans Wake 16.5)