Montreiano
Montreiano was the name of an a posteriori Romance language I invented for the alt universe of Ill Bethisad. It was conceived as a sister language to Spanish, and I lost steam on that project years ago. I also lost all of my files with the death of my computer from that time, so this is a reboot. But, recently, after meeting up in person with @dedalvs, he asked what happened and it inspired me to re-think the project.
Because of the way Ill Bethisad worked, anything already there is canon and these changes would affect the language for that project, so this is my own personal version meant for me. It also means I’ve got more leeway with it since I don’t have to take into account the history of Ill Bethisad that much (though I’ll follow the big points).
The concept here is that instead of a sister language it’s a daughter language to Spanish and derived from it. There would need to be a bit of historical archaeology, because in Ill Bethisad, Alta California was settled by Spain in the early 1600′s which is during the Golden Age of Spanish, instead of being left alone until Saint Junipero Serra set up the mission system in the late 1700′s.
Here, Spain left the land alone until nearly the 19th century. There, they set out to claim it and keep other foreign powers at bay. Because of how remote the port of Monterey was from Mexico proper, it ended up isolated, though still in contact with the authorities in Mexico City.
The original Montreiano was proposed to be spoken by a linguistic minority that left Spain and decided to do the colonization in Alta California, gaining influence and a favored position and spreading their language. In my new version, the Spanish of the area experiences sound changes that push it toward its own language. Here are some of the initial changes. These might be altered or dropped but I like them so far:
Consonant Changes
- Loss
of intervocalic and word final /d/, which is something that happens
in Modern Spanish dialects. If the vowels that now end up together
are the same, a long vowel happens: edad > eá, cada > caa >
cà- /s/
before unvoiced stops becomes /ʃ/, before voiced stops, /ʒ/:
estaba > /əʃtavə/, esbelto > esbeutu /əzbeutu/- /l/
weakens to /u/ before consonants: esbelto > /əzbeutu/- fricatives
/β/ (b between vowels) becomes /v/ (represented as v), /ɣ/ (g
between vowels) becomes /j/ (represented as i): estaba >
/əʃtavə/, bagaje > baiaj /bəjaʒ/)- /h/
derived from the change of /f/ to /h/ remains, and does not drop
(this is preserved in Philippine Spanish): hermoso > /həɾmozu/- If
a diphthong begins in /j/, it palatalizes /d/, /s/, /t/ to /dʒ/,
/ʃ/, and /tʃ/: diente > jent (/dʒɛnt/ or /ʒɛnt/) – Catalan
uses j for /dʒ/ in Valencian), siento > xentu (/ʃɛntu), tierra
> txerra/cherra (/tʃerə/)./ʒ/
is an allophone of /dʒ/- intervocalic
and word final /s/ becomes /z/: casa > /kazə/- Possible: Z will be used intervocallically to represent /z/ even where it had originally been represented by s: casa > caza, casas > cazas
- Final
/ɾ/ becomes /l/ which happens in Extremaduran: estar > estal
(/əʃtal/)- A nasal that begins a consonant cluster weakens to the point it nasalizes the preceding vowel, Represented by ñ in all cases Montreiano > Moñtreianu, Diciembre > Diçeñbre. If e and i weren’t able to be nasalized, I’d have gone the Portuguese route here, but Breton uses ñ to represent nasalization (though Breton is Celtic, it’s influenced by hanging around French), and here, it only appears in nasal + consonant clusters.
Because of the above sound change, /ɲ/ (ñ) was perceived to be a cluster of /nj/, and was affected in a similar way, nasalizing the previous vowel. The orthography still uses “ñ”, though because writing is usually messy, I may change it to “ñi” because I sometimes like redundancy: seña > señia.
Voicing of the first consonant in a cluster affects the voicing of the second: curso > curzo
Initial /g/ in a consonant cluster becomes the glide /j/ word internally, and also lengthening the vowel marked by a grave accent: vinagre > vinàire (i’m considering a rule that says the final /e/ in instances like this doesn’t drop because I like “vinàire” better than “vinair”)
Monosyllabic words ending in e can attach in some cases to the following word: se come > s’com (this is a bit more of an orthography change)
Vowel Changes
- Unstressed
/a/ weakens to schwa, but does NOT drop. Orthographically remains
written as a: casa > casa (/kazə/)- Unstressed
/e/ weakens to /ə/ (shwa), and word finally or between vowel drops
(if permitted), though in plurals is retained if the resulting cluster would not be permitted (have to think more on this): diente > jent,
dientes > jents- Stressed
/e/ remains as /e/ in an open syllable: sera > /seɾə/, but in
closed syllables becomes /ɛ/: siento > xentu /ʃɛntu/- Stressed
/i/ remains as /i/ in open syllables, but in closed syllables it
becomes /ɪ/- Unstressed
/o/ becomes /u/, and is written as u: como > comu (the
orthographic rule might apply ONLY to final o, though not sure I
like “nu” for “no”)- Diphthongs
/aj/ and /au/ become long e and long o (I need to consider these more)Diphthongs containing /j/ and /w/ experience metathesis with their following vowels (switching places). In the case of diphthongs with /j/, this does not happen if the diphthong was preceded by /d/, /t/, or /s/: dientes > jentes, vs. miedo > meio, bueno > beunu
That’s about it for right now. I’ll have to look these over and think about revisions but it also means I have to start thinking about orthography. The big choice is “more etymological” or “more phonetic”. The Montreiano always thought of themselves as entirely different from their Spanish speaking neighbors so the orthography will probably be different than what Spanish would go with.
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