User:Ceige/Romanese

Romanese (Rumanés) /huma'nez/ (alt. Narrumanu) is a second wave Romance language spoken after the Roman Cultural Revival of the Early Interstellar Era. Spoken largely by descendants of the Iberian and Italian diaspora, it features mostly parallel developments to Terran Era 21st Century Romance languages, but has also been influenced by their descendants. It is also the possible ancestor of Fa-Nei.

Romanese is part of the so-called "Timeless Romance" Sprachbund, and thus is notable for its resemblance to 21st Century Romance languages. It stands with others in its Sprachbund in opposition to the Interstellar Era Neolatinate and Italoëcclesiastic languages, which have not mimicked the evolution of the Romance languages and have instead descended from revived Classical and Italic Church Latin respectively in a more isolated manner. The Neo-Romance Sprachbund also does not include the more innovative and radical descendants of the original Romance languages.

Phonology

Notable Sound Changes

Plosives

• /b d g/ become /B ð G/, and begin debuccalising further. In turn, /p t k/ voice and then become fricatives eventually too.
• Geminate plosives become degeminated.
• /b/ and /v/ merge where possible. Thus vínvm, vacca > binu, baca
• /kt/ (and /lt/?) becomes /jt/ and then /tS/ (and then contextually /S/?).
• /bl gl/ merge with /l/. Thus blasphemáre, globellvs > lâtemár, luvellu (or lovillu).
• /pl kl/ become /lj/. Thus plánvs, clámáre > llanu, llamár.
• /k/ word initially often becomes /g/. Thus cattvs > gatu.

Fricatives

• /s/ in coda position is often debuccalised. Thus testa > têta /'te(h)t(:)a/
• /sj/ generally becomes /Z/ (j) or /S/ (x). Thus cáseus < queiju /'ke(i)Zu/
• /ð/ is elided. Thus mercátvs > /mer'kaðo/ > marcáu
• /Bw/ and /Gw/ have a tendency to merge into /w/. Thus bónvs > güenu /'wenu/ (influenced by Sp. bueno, It. buono)
• /B/ and /G/ with unstressed vowels between them may join up and become /w/ too. Thus sanctificáre > senchiguár /san(t)Si'wa(h)/, santiguár.

Liquids

• /CrV/ before the tonic syllable is often metathesised to /CVr/
• /r/ is gutturalised or outright debuccalised after vowels or at the start of words, and then lost before consonants.
• Any remaining /rV/s and /lV/s in the ultimate syllable and after a closed syllable are generally lost with just the vowel remaining.

Vowels

• Final /o, a, e/ become /u, a, i/ in the formal language and /ë, ë, i/ in some dialects and colloquial registers.
• Some vowel harmony is involved, e.g. mercátvs > marcáu

Miscellaneous

• /doL/ sometimes becomes /goL/. Cf. delphinus > gorfino.