From: Christophe Grandsire (christophe.grandsire@free.fr)
Date: Thu Aug 15 2002 - 17:19:03 EST
En réponse à Eamon Graham <robertg@awod.com>:
> Bonsoir Christophe! Ça va? Merci pour ta réponse! You're always
> welcome to visit us here in Angers - la ville de 19 pubs irlandais!
LOL!
> Hopefully when you come the weather will be more cooperative. Today
> we had a beautiful 29 degrees and no rain, with the promise of the
> same for the next few days.
>
We have the same here in The Hague. A pity I have to work :((( .
>
> Especially when clients want to call lingerie a business expense.
> (I guess it depends on the business? But this man owned a window
> washing business)
>
Indeed, I know businesses where it would be a business expense, but here it's a
bit exaggerated, unless their working clothes are transparent ;))) .
>
> A group of 'urban nomads' in Germany, Austria and Switzerland,
> separate from but similar to the Romani. Their language is an
> interesting combination of German, Yiddish, Romani, and Rotwelsch.
> Ethnologue says they may have arisen from those who were
> dispossessed because of the Hanseatic laws.
>
Never heard of them before...
>
> Ouais, this was where my story started to do some serious bending in
> order to account for my desire to base the language on non-standard
> varieties of French. In the pseudo-history of the Caminaires
> several Creoles living in Metropolitain France joined this group of
> travellers - along with absentee soldiers in World War I who just
> happened to be conveniently from Louisiana and Quebec. Those who
> were not French looked to the non-standard French speakers for their
> model of what the French language is all about. In reality,
> however, the creole input came first in my plan and the excuse came
> later. In fact, the language plan came first and the pseudo-history
> was molded around it; a pseudo-history that is far from complete -
> many plot holes left. But a lot of the inspiration came from the
> stories of languages like Yeniche and Polari which included stories
> of travelling circuses, absentee soldiers, men on the run, etc.
>
I see... It may not be so much bending of history, those things do happen all
the time (but at very small scales, so I don't know how much they would
influence a language).
>
> I believe the -aire ending is an attempt to shoe-horn Occitan in to
> a French orthography, as the dictionary I consulted was quite old.
> I believe the real ending should be -ar (?)
I think so too. But it depends on which dialect of Occitan you're talking
about. Those are quite divergent, especially on their treatment of final vowels.
>
> > LOL, quite a melting pot your language :)) .
>
> I know, first I teased history then I got down right sadistic with
> it. I admit that I didn't give to much thought to the
> pseudo-history and concentrated more on designing the ultimate
> non-standard French that would still be French none-the-less (and
> symbollicaly challenge ideas of what "real French" really is).
>
Well, just take real spoken French and you already seriously challenge the
ideas of what "real French" is. After all, French is a polysynthetic language
with mostly prefixed grammar disguised as an analytic language with suffixed
grammar ;))))) .
>
> I've often considered using the method of Tristan Tzara and just
> picking a word at random from the dictionary and then weaving an
> elaborate story around it to justify it.
>
A bit difficult for naturalistic languages with a conhistory. For Narbonósc, I
had to find a nice toponym or tribe name. I chose Narbonensis, the name of the
Roman province where Narbonósc chiefly developed. But it was not easy :)) .
Christophe.
http://rainbow.conlang.free.fr
Take your life as a movie: do not let anybody else play the leading role.
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