Aposteriori idea exchange

[Raphael]

Not sure about such a small role for Greek in the Hellenistic World. Wasn't it well enough established by the time the Romans took over to outlast even Latin itself as a Lingua Franca into East Roman/Byzantine times?

[WeepingElf]

Not sure about such a small role for Greek in the Hellenistic World. Wasn't it well enough established by the time the Romans took over to outlast even Latin itself as a Lingua Franca into East Roman/Byzantine times?

Yes. In Greece and parts of Asia Minor. Otherwise, only as a court language. After all, we don't have Hellenic languages from Egypt to the Indus, as we have Romance languages in most former provinces of the Western Roman Empire.

[Travis B.]

Not sure about such a small role for Greek in the Hellenistic World. Wasn't it well enough established by the time the Romans took over to outlast even Latin itself as a Lingua Franca into East Roman/Byzantine times?

Yes. In Greece and parts of Asia Minor. Otherwise, only as a court language. After all, we don't have Hellenic languages from Egypt to the Indus, as we have Romance languages in most former provinces of the Western Roman Empire.

However, Greek was prominent enough outside Greece and Asia Minor that the New Testament was written in Koine (and not Aramaic, despite what those who believe in Peshitta primacy would like to be the case).

[Travis B.]

Also, other Jewish writers from the same period wrote in Greek, such as Josephus, it should be noted.

[þeprussianfrog]

Don't forget Egypt, Cyrenaica, parts of South Asia, Crimea and Sicily.

[Travis B.]

Don't forget Egypt, Cyrenaica, parts of South Asia, Crimea and Sicily.

Yes -- Sicily and other parts of southern Italy were largely Greek-speaking for centuries even after the establishment of the Roman Empire. Even today there are small Greek-speaking minorities in mainland southern Italy.

[Richard W]

Or, hmm, maybe making a full-on productive labialized-unlabialized contrast for most consonants? Think like Russian, Moksha or Irish's palatalization contrast, but labialization (I'm not sure, but probably at least one natlang already has this, lol).

This is attested mostly in languages which have transphonologised vowel features onto adjacent consonants (like NW Caucasian, Arrernte, Margi or Marshallese), giving them very small vowel systems alongside large consonant inventors with contrastive palatalisation and labialisation. Otherwise some Austronesian languages have quite a few labialised consonants, but not as systematically as Russian’s palatalisation.

This puts me in mind of the SW Tai languages of the Lanna cultural area, Northern Thai, Tai Lue and Lao. In these languages, onset clusters consists of single consonants, or a cluster with /w/ as second element. Northern Thai has the most extensive set, with combinations with all but the labial and labiodental consonants, voiced occlusives, and /h/. (Even includes /ʔw/. Voiced occlusives are themselves reflexes of preglottalised clusters - their tonal development indicates an initial glottal stop.) Now, for Lao, it is irrefutably (but probably wrongly) asserted that these are not clusters but labialised consonants; the argument given is that onset consonants don't form clusters and therefore these apparent clusters must be labialised consonants. It is however commonly reported that the second consonant is vocalised in Lao, so phonetically one gets some unusual vowel sequences. The languages generally have 9 vowel qualities, occurring short and long, with diphthongs of high vowel plus low central vowel, though these have been lost in Tai Lue and are under threat in Northern Thai. The vowel following these clusters is usually, /a/ or /a:/, much less commonly /ɛː/, and only occasionally other consonants. While the clusters with velar first elements go back to Proto-Tai, the origin of the other clusters is much less certain and these clusters are atypical of Tai languages.

[WeepingElf]

Not sure about such a small role for Greek in the Hellenistic World. Wasn't it well enough established by the time the Romans took over to outlast even Latin itself as a Lingua Franca into East Roman/Byzantine times?

Yes. In Greece and parts of Asia Minor. Otherwise, only as a court language. After all, we don't have Hellenic languages from Egypt to the Indus, as we have Romance languages in most former provinces of the Western Roman Empire.

However, Greek was prominent enough outside Greece and Asia Minor that the New Testament was written in Koine (and not Aramaic, despite what those who believe in Peshitta primacy would like to be the case).

Sure. But not as vernacular, as Vulgar Latin was in the Roman Empire. The role of Greek in the Hellenist world was more like Medieval Latin: a language of rulers and scholars most people did not know. You won't deny that in countries like Egypt or Iran, the people now do not speak Hellenic languages, would you?

[Travis B.]

Yes. In Greece and parts of Asia Minor. Otherwise, only as a court language. After all, we don't have Hellenic languages from Egypt to the Indus, as we have Romance languages in most former provinces of the Western Roman Empire.

However, Greek was prominent enough outside Greece and Asia Minor that the New Testament was written in Koine (and not Aramaic, despite what those who believe in Peshitta primacy would like to be the case).

Sure. But not as vernacular, as Vulgar Latin was in the Roman Empire. The role of Greek in the Hellenist world was more like Medieval Latin: a language of rulers and scholars most people did not know. You won't deny that in countries like Egypt or Iran, the people now do not speak Hellenic languages, would you?

I think a distinction has to be made between the Hellenistic world and Magna Graeca -- while Greek was not the vernacular in Egypt, Iran, or Judaea, it indeed was the vernacular in much of Sicily and southern mainland Italy, shown by that it survived there well into Medieval times (whether Griko is actually a survival from the Greek varieties of Magna Graeca, though, is a good question, as I have seen it asserted that it may be primarily descended from the Greek of Greeks fleeing the Turkish conquest of Greece).

[WeepingElf]

However, Greek was prominent enough outside Greece and Asia Minor that the New Testament was written in Koine (and not Aramaic, despite what those who believe in Peshitta primacy would like to be the case).

Sure. But not as vernacular, as Vulgar Latin was in the Roman Empire. The role of Greek in the Hellenist world was more like Medieval Latin: a language of rulers and scholars most people did not know. You won't deny that in countries like Egypt or Iran, the people now do not speak Hellenic languages, would you?

I think a distinction has to be made between the Hellenistic world and Magna Graeca -- while Greek was not the vernacular in Egypt, Iran, or Judaea, it indeed was the vernacular in much of Sicily and southern mainland Italy, shown by that it survived there well into Medieval times (whether Griko is actually a survival from the Greek varieties of Magna Graeca, though, is a good question, as I have seen it asserted that it may be primarily descended from the Greek of Greeks fleeing the Turkish conquest of Greece).

Yes. Greek was the vernacular of Magna Graecia - I never meant to deny that. But I indeed think that Griko was brought to Italy by Greeks who immigrated from Greece when the Ottoman Turks conquered it, because it is AFAIK too close to Modern Greek to have parted ways from it 2,000 years ago. I have been told that Greek surnames are nothing out of the ordinary in Italy (a famous example is Zappa - that's a Greek name), so apparently, many Greeks went to Italy, especially artists and scholars who contributed to the Italian Renaissance.

[Glenn]

Plenty of interesting ideas and information here.

Going back up-thread a ways:

1. Novgorodian
Novgorod/Northern Russia in the Medieval period had its own, rather distinct, development of Proto-(East) Slavic with unique forms different from those of "Old East Slavic proper" dialect continuum, which was gradually displaced by southern dialects after Novgorod was conquered by Moscow, although Northern Russian dialects retained a varied degree of Novgorodian influence. Alternate history where the Novgorodian Republic (or any other states speaking primarily a close dialect) unites Russia/survives as an independent state from Moscow/is still conquered, but Novgorodian language survives to a greater degree is a neat concept I think. Gonna have a Slavic language with a nom.sg. of o-stem masculines being -e :p

You are probably aware of this already, but are you familiar with Novegradian? The creator is a former member of the ZBB, and has created several a posteriori conlangs; his general home page is here.

[Qwynegold]

Sinosphere Indo-European

Basically, an Indo-European group migrates into East Asia, settles, falls under China's sphere of influence and ends up being written with Chinese characters and acquiring a massive layer of Sino-Xenic influence.
Indo-European with its own numerals being completely replaced with Chinese numerals, yaaaaay!

Ah, in my conworld I have a group of Pseudo-Romans wander to the outskirts of Pseudo-China. But I haven't really done anything with this idea other than sound changes.

[Zju]

An idea I've thought about for the longest time, is a bogolang descended from Proto-Vasconic, set perhaps in modern day Normandy or Brittany, with all the respective sound changes of Proto-Celtic, medieval French, etc etc, or inspirations thereof. Wish Western Europe had another remaining non IE language.

Also, modern Thracian as a stereotypical member of the Balkan sprachbund.

[hwhatting]

Also, modern Thracian as a stereotypical member of the Balkan sprachbund.

What do you base your modern Thracian on? IIRC, we maybe have a dozen words attested in Thracian?

[WeepingElf]

We know very little about Thracian, but apparently the few known word forms allow to say something about the sound developments. Daniel Bensen, a member of the CONLANG mailing list, is working on a modern Thracian language; he also opines that Albanian descends from Thracian (rather than Illyrian, which appears to be a kentum rather than a satem language like Albanian).

[rotting bones]

I read Thracian was related to Baltic. That was the inspiration for Liɣu. I don't claim direct continuity with Thracian. I say it's descended from a para-Thracian dialect.

Interestingly, Koine Greek was called "Macedonian".

[rotting bones]

We know very little about Thracian, but apparently the few known word forms allow to say something about the sound developments. Daniel Bensen, a member of the CONLANG mailing list, is working on a modern Thracian language; he also opines that Albanian descends from Thracian (rather than Illyrian, which appears to be a kentum rather than a satem language like Albanian).

I also thought Albanian is related to Illyrian, not Thracian.

Edit: I read Thracian had some centum and some satem features.

[WeepingElf]

We know very little about Thracian, but apparently the few known word forms allow to say something about the sound developments. Daniel Bensen, a member of the CONLANG mailing list, is working on a modern Thracian language; he also opines that Albanian descends from Thracian (rather than Illyrian, which appears to be a kentum rather than a satem language like Albanian).

I also thought Albanian is related to Illyrian, not Thracian.

Edit: I read Thracian had some centum and some satem features.

So has Albanian. It is not a straightforwardly satem language like Balto-Slavic or Indo-Iranian; for instance, there is no RUKI rule, and labiovelars show different developments than plain velars. Illyrian and Thracian are both very poorly known, so we can't say much about their sound changes; but it appears as if Illyrian was a straightforward kentum language, and Daniel Bensen told me that Proto-Albanian (i.e., the reconstructed state of Albanian 2,000 years ago, which can be recovered by the changes that the - numerous - Latin loanwords have undergone) was closer to Thracian than to Illyrian. The notion that Albanian descended from Illyrian comes from a time when we knew nothing yet about Illyrian.

[rotting bones]

We know very little about Thracian, but apparently the few known word forms allow to say something about the sound developments. Daniel Bensen, a member of the CONLANG mailing list, is working on a modern Thracian language; he also opines that Albanian descends from Thracian (rather than Illyrian, which appears to be a kentum rather than a satem language like Albanian).

I also thought Albanian is related to Illyrian, not Thracian.

Edit: I read Thracian had some centum and some satem features.

So has Albanian. It is not a straightforwardly satem language like Balto-Slavic or Indo-Iranian; for instance, there is no RUKI rule, and labiovelars show different developments than plain velars. Illyrian and Thracian are both very poorly known, so we can't say much about their sound changes; but it appears as if Illyrian was a straightforward kentum language, and Daniel Bensen told me that Proto-Albanian (i.e., the reconstructed state of Albanian 2,000 years ago, which can be recovered by the changes that the - numerous - Latin loanwords have undergone) was closer to Thracian than to Illyrian. The notion that Albanian descended from Illyrian comes from a time when we knew nothing yet about Illyrian.

There is some text available in Thracian: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ezerovo,_ ... ce#History https://www.scirp.org/journal/paperinfo ... erid=79691 ...

I used word lists like this as my initial inspiration for old Ligurian: https://www.kroraina.com/thrac_lang/thrac_3.html (Note this website also repeats the Baltic claim: https://www.kroraina.com/thrac_lang/thrac_1.html)

Only names are available in Illyrian. Wikipedia does contain claims like this:

historical linguistic evidence shows that the individual phonetic history of Albanian and Thracian clearly indicates a very different sound development that cannot be considered as the result of the same language.[35][36][37][38] A clear and remarkable isogloss that distinguishes Albanian from Thracian is the palatalization of the IE labiovelars which in Albanian was present well before Roman times, while the IE labiovelars clearly did not palatalize in the pre-Roman period in 'Thracian' or in the area where it was spoken.[39][36]

I wasn't able to track down the references last month. (Not that I tried very hard.) You might have better luck. The text is from this page: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Classific ... f_Thracian

[rotting bones]

Regarding the use of Greek: I do know that many Anatolians switched to Greek.

In places like Egypt, Greek communities used Greek. Egyptians spoke Egyptian. Egyptian mysteries used Egyptian. International scholarship used Greek.