The West Saxon Scratchpad (Formerly the West Saxon Thread)

Herra Ratatoskr · Post by **Herra Ratatoskr** » Mon Jun 07, 2010 3:46 pm

The revised vowels chapter is now up. Please feel free to comment, or point out any typos I've missed.

Bristel · Post by **Bristel** » Sat Jun 19, 2010 11:17 pm

The menu selections at the top of the page on your site don't work... I have to directly link to the pages or click on the bottom links...

This reminds me of the Valhalish conlang, except it is Anglo-Frisian instead of Norse.

But I bet you spent more time on this project, from what I've seen of it.

EDIT: Actually, none of the links seem to work, except if you know the direct address and type it into the browser search line.

I'm using Safari 5, but it was a problem for me before as well, using Safari 4.

I'll try using Chrome or Firefox to see if it works on those.

Herra Ratatoskr · Post by **Herra Ratatoskr** » Sun Jun 20, 2010 2:24 pm

I'm sorry, I'm an absolute moron for not mentioning this earlier. I've not yet put in the link functionality in the menu yet; I was going to do it when I had more chapters up. I'm sorry for the confusion this gave you.

Bristel · Post by **Bristel** » Mon Jun 21, 2010 6:47 am

Herra Ratatoskr wrote:

I'm sorry, I'm an absolute moron for not mentioning this earlier. I've not yet put in the link functionality in the menu yet; I was going to do it when I had more chapters up. I'm sorry for the confusion this gave you.

I understand. Don't worry.

From what I have seen, the rest of the chapters will be great.

eodrakken · Post by **eodrakken** » Mon Jun 21, 2010 10:26 am

Nicely done, as usual. I like how the tonic/atonic vowels differ, which of course is reminiscent of English, especially with the addition of the reduced inflectional-syllable vowels.

One typo that I saw:

The phoneme /n̩/ is a rather unstable in its realization

Glenn · Post by **Glenn** » Mon Jun 21, 2010 3:48 pm

I continue to be impressed with what I've seen of West Saxon and the work you've put into it; as noted before, I look forward to seeing actual West Saxon texts when they become available.

p@ (a deep bow with a flourish),
Glenn

Herra Ratatoskr · Post by **Herra Ratatoskr** » Sat Oct 09, 2010 6:53 pm

Okay, here's a real update.

I've migrated and updated some of the content I've got over to the web site. Here are the new pages (note, they are still works in progress).

Determiners
Nouns
Vowels
Pronouns

More will be coming soon (think finishing the incomplete pages, and adding adjectives, derivation, prepositions, and adverbs).

In the mean time, since I've reworked some of the stuff, I thought I'd give you a look at the evolution of the Middle West Saxon declension of the articles.

Definite Article:

Code: Select all

Early (circa 1300)...
    Masc Fem Neut Plur
Nom þe   þeo þat  þo
Acc þune þo  þat  þo
Gen þas  þar þas  þor
Dat þam  þar þam  þom

Later (circa 1450)...
    Mas  Fem Neut Plur
Nom de   deo dat  do
Acc dan  do  dat  do
Gen das  dar das  dor
Dat dan  dar dan  don

Finally (circa 1600)...
    Mas  Fem Neut Plur
Com di   dy  dat  do
Gen das  dar das  dor
Dat dan  dar dan  don

About 1500 is when the first instances of the nominative being used for all cases shows up in the Witncester West Saxon.

Specific Article:

Code: Select all

Circa 1350
    Masc   Fem   Neut   Plur
Nom a(n)   an(e) a(n)   su(m)
Acc an     an(e) a(n)   su(m)
Gen as     ar    as     sur
Dat a(n/m) ar    a(n/m) sum

Beli Orao · Post by **Beli Orao** » Sat Oct 09, 2010 7:08 pm

Looks more Frisian-y than before. Is having the dental fricatives shift to /d/ in the modern language part of the revision?

Herra Ratatoskr · Post by **Herra Ratatoskr** » Sat Oct 09, 2010 7:12 pm

One part of the revision was that þ shifts to d in pretonic syllables. For the most part þ still exists, mostly unchanged in non-function words.

Christopher Schröder · Sat Oct 09, 2010 8:23 pm

Why does the link to the orthography not work?

TaylorS · Post by **TaylorS** » Sat Oct 09, 2010 9:57 pm

Me likey!

Herra Ratatoskr · Post by **Herra Ratatoskr** » Sat Oct 09, 2010 10:51 pm

Christoph Schrader wrote:Why does the link to the orthography not work?

I haven't updated it yet (and I haven't put in any links, to be honest). You can look at the orthography page on the old site, it shouldn't be too horribly out of date.

Christopher Schröder · Sat Oct 09, 2010 11:01 pm

Oh, sorry for my mistake, and thank you.

But why tj for /ts/ and dj for /dz/?

Herra Ratatoskr · Post by **Herra Ratatoskr** » Sat Oct 09, 2010 11:39 pm

Those are gone in the revised version of West Saxon, and originally represented [t+j] and [d+j] clusters that had, around 1700-1850 simplified to [ts] and [dz]. There are still palatalizations of t & d to ts and dz, but will probably be handled by ti+V and di+V, and are pronounced [tsi+V] and [dzi+V].

Christopher Schröder · Sun Oct 10, 2010 10:40 am

The chapter mentions that all diphthongs are falling -- what becomes of a sequence of unstressed i followed by another consonant? Is it somehow absorbed into the preceding sound, perhaps, or does the stress shift? Or would it simply be deleted altogether?

Herra Ratatoskr · Post by **Herra Ratatoskr** » Tue Oct 12, 2010 9:49 pm

In careful speech it is still pronounced, and is in hiatus with the following vowel. In rapid speech, however, it is usually absorbed into the preceding consonant, palatalizing it.

Oh, and the Adjectival Morphology page is up (and it's a complete draft!). Like?

Oh, and how is the look of the webpage? I recall some displeasure with the look of the last version, and was wondering how people found this one.

Beli Orao · Post by **Beli Orao** » Tue Oct 12, 2010 10:43 pm

It looks good, when are you planning on making the navigation work? And can we get some sample texts, perhaps alongside German translations?

Herra Ratatoskr · Post by **Herra Ratatoskr** » Tue Oct 12, 2010 11:33 pm

The navigation up top has been added. Pages that exist and have links are now underlined. As stuff gets added, it will be added to the nav as I upload it.

Oh, and did you have any sample texts you'd like? And when you say "alongside German translations", do you mean texts in WS/English/German?

Beli Orao · Post by **Beli Orao** » Tue Oct 12, 2010 11:51 pm

And when you say "alongside German translations", do you mean texts in WS/English/German?

Aye, to compare the more German-like development of WS from OE.

I'd personally like to see "Gott erhalte Franz den Kaiser" in WS

eodrakken · Post by **eodrakken** » Tue Oct 12, 2010 11:51 pm

The page design looks good, very readable. I'm glad to see things coming together. The balance you strike between leveling and irregularity hits my aesthetic just right. I'm looking forward to seeing the sound changes.

Little stuff:

there is only two strong adjective forms

there are

-wa and -wo stems with distinct inflection pattern

patterns

comperable

comparable

And the Adjectives section is listed twice under Morphology.

Herra Ratatoskr · Post by **Herra Ratatoskr** » Tue Oct 12, 2010 11:56 pm

whoops !

All fixed, and the second adjective link is now the link to the proper "pronouns" page.

Beli Orao · Post by **Beli Orao** » Wed Oct 13, 2010 2:10 am

So when can we expect a translation of the anthem of the Kaisertum?

Herra Ratatoskr · Post by **Herra Ratatoskr** » Wed Oct 13, 2010 2:33 am

Looks like fun. I'll tinker around, and see what I can come up with.

Christopher Schröder · Wed Oct 13, 2010 12:45 pm

I'd like to see the updated orthography next so I know how to pronounce the words (I currently seem to be defaulting to something like Middle English but with j as /j/).

Herra Ratatoskr · Post by **Herra Ratatoskr** » Wed Oct 13, 2010 6:02 pm

It's already in the works. I'll bump it to the top of the todo list.