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    EB:NOM Triumvir Member gamegeek2's Avatar
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    Default Re: Linguistics discussion (split from new factions thread)

    Thanks.
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    Default Re: Linguistics discussion (split from new factions thread)

    Hopeless Case Languages

    1. Getic (Thracian, Dacian, Daco-Thracian...)
    What can we get from Duridanov - http://www.kroraina.com/thrac_lang/thrac_1.html ?
    We've got some words recorded in Greek or Latin, but a lot are names for plants, which obviously aren't much use. Midne means a village. There's a village called Poltymbria from which Duridanov derives *poltyn- meaning a wooden fortification. Skalme means a sword. The Thracian nobles are called the Zibythides. There's the tribal name Satrai which is possibly related to Sanskrit and Persian ksat(h)ra and means power or authority, a form of government? There's also the personal name Taruthin/Tarusinas/Tarutinos which apparently meaning "holding a spear" - pluralise that and it's a ready made unit name. But how? All the names are given Greek or Roman dress; there doesn't seem to be any grammar discernable. Thracian inscriptions are very thin on the ground indeed and there are none in Dacian. The longest is from Kjolmen, written in the Greek alphabet. It says:
    ILASNLETEDNLEDNENIDAKATROSO
    EBA.ROZESASNÊNETESAIGEKOA
    NBLABAÊGN
    To which I'm forced to say WTF?!
    P.Dimitrov (http://www.nbu.bg/PUBLIC/IMAGES/File...13_01_2009.pdf) suggests NBLABÊGN is copied from a Greek formula and means "do not damage/destroy (this inscription)" ASN(E) means "whoever", -e endings are probably genitives and IGEKOA could be a perfect tense before basically giving up after getting il asn' leted n'led ne ni dakatroso Evaroze sas nê n'etesa igekoa - and you can't blame him.
    Back to Duridanov, who translates the name Dentusucu/Dentusykos/Dentysykos as "daughter of the clan" which suggests that you might have a nominative ending in -u. But if that's right, why are the Greek forms masculine? Does Thracian have no grammatical gender, like Armenian?
    We've only got conjectural words:
    bredas - pasture
    bur - man
    diza - fortress
    mezena - horseman
    rezas - king
    rumba-anga? "curved blade" > rhompaia, falx
    skaplis - axe
    taru - spear
    taruthin - spearman

    We can only guess at how plurals were formed, but if we guess at the usual Indo-European sorts of endings we'd have the following unit names, assuming -n- is somehow agentive:

    mezenas - generic horsemen
    taruthinai - generic spearmen
    sklapenai - axemen
    rumbanganai - falxmen
    zibuthizas - noble cavalry
    bres skalmana - shortswordsmen (I'm pushing it now...)
    kikanas - skirmishers (tribal name Cicones is said to mean "the quick people")

    Building-wise, with no words for temple, it might be necessary to borrow Phrygian kavar "sacred site" and iman "idol" with more made up inflections for deity names. I was quite confident about a reconstructed Getic naming language when I started writing this. Now... meh.
    'you owe it to that famous chick general whose name starts with a B'
    OILAM TREBOPALA INDI PORCOM LAEBO INDI INTAM PECINAM ELMETIACUI

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    Default Re: Linguistics discussion (split from new factions thread)

    2. Lusitanian
    First an apology because I don't know quite what ended up happening in EB1 with Lusitanian. It looks as if the project was abandoned before it was finished and Celtiberian names used instead.

    I got a bit obsessed with this a while ago, particularly with a possible link between Lusitanian and Ligurian or Lepontic. The reason for this is the word PALA. It appears on an inscription, probably a memorial, usually classified as Lepontic. The inscription is written in an old Italic alphabet similar to Etruscan, on two staves with round heads; one reads slaniai : uerKalai : Pala and the other Tisiui : PiuoTialui : Pala. The two staves look like elongated Basque Hilarri.

    We've got more writing in Lusitanian than in Dacian or Thracian, but still very little and we don't have as many place or personal names because it looks as if the Lusitanian rulers may have spoken Celtic. There are a whole three and a half Lusitanian inscriptions which are fairly easy to look up - they're even on Wikipedia. One says OILAM TREBOPALA INDO PORCOM LAEBO COMAIAM ICCONA LOIMINA OILAM USSEAM TREBARUNE INDI TAUROM IFADEM REUE which is usually translated as something like "A sheep (or ewe) for Trebopala and a pig for Laebo one of the same age for Iccona Loimina, a sheep of one year of age for Trebarune and a breeding bull for Reue." The inscription makes it hard to say Lusitanian is Celtic, because it's kept Indo-European P (porcom) which Celtic didn't (Irish orc "piglet") and the word for bull has the root tauro- instead of *tarwo- we'd expect from a Celtic language. Also there isn't a word for "and" like indi in any known Celtic language. In On The Indo-European Origin of Two Lusitanian Theonyms, Witczak thinks Trebopala is a goddess whose name means "Protectress of the Home" or "Protectress of the Tribe" and that Laebo should be *Lahebo, a dative plural of Laho, the equivalent of the Roman Lares. He also thinks (as do others) Iccona is a similar goddess to the Gaulish Epona.

    But what if pala doesn't mean "protectress"? what if it's some sort of sacred stone like in the Ligurian/Lepontic inscriptions? Katia Maia-Bessa suggested this in her paper Syncrétisme Religieux dans la Lusitanie Romaine (I'm afraid it's in French) but without actually citing Ligurian or Lepontic. It got me thinking about a link and the possibility that both languages are "Old European" - Indo-European languages which in the early Iron Age got replaced by Celtic.

    Apart from the inscriptions the other source for Lusitanian is dedications to local deities from the Roman period and usually in Latin. Unfortunately none of them say "pala" anywhere. However, Ligurian was said to have been much more widely spoken before the Etruscans, Gauls and Romans moved in, and sometimes a sign of a place having once been Ligurian is said to be a name ending with -sc-. There are only two -sc- names in Roman Iberia; Metallum Vipascense and Magasca and they're both in Lusitanian territory. This is getting a long post and I should start talking about what use it could be in EB2...
    Last edited by Elmetiacos; 02-04-2009 at 22:14. Reason: spooky...
    'you owe it to that famous chick general whose name starts with a B'
    OILAM TREBOPALA INDI PORCOM LAEBO INDI INTAM PECINAM ELMETIACUI

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    Default Re: Linguistics discussion (split from new factions thread)

    For deities, we've got Iccona as a possible horse goddess and following Witczak the Laho as a local spirit and Reue as the Lusitanian Zeus, then there's the two most popular dedications to the god Endovellicus (94 dedications) and the goddess Bandua (28), plus two probable war gods (possibly Celtic introductions) Coronos and Netonos. Can we get anything useful from the other inscriptions?

    We might glean some Lusitanian grammar: o-stem accusatives seem to end in -om: taurom, porcom, angom. doenti probably means "they gave" (Witczak says not, but IMHO he's just tying himself in knots trying to say all I-E initial Ds become Rs - no problem if only Dy- becomes R) so you've got 3rd person plural -nt- as you'd expect (not that EB needs to conjugate verbs... even I'm not mad enough to try and do a Lusitanian voicemod) a-stem datives seem to end in -a (Iccona, Trebopala) and if Witczak's correct, dative plurals in -ebo and i-stem accusatives in -e. On the Arroyo de la Luz stone, carlae may be a locative "at Carla". But that's not much good - we need nominatives, genitives and plurals for a naming language. On Lamas de Moledo, doenti is followed by veaminicori which is a good candidate for a plural - if -cori is a cognate with Celtic *korio or just a borrowing it should be an o-stem noun. We've also got those -oi endings in caelobricoi, reaicoi petranoi... are those genitive plurals? In the Latin dedications there are lots of -aico and -aeco names Bandi Oilienaico - Bandua of the Sheep?

    It might be possible to attempt more translations... As a piece of baseless speculation, Lamas de Moledo's REAICOI PETRANOI could contain a pre-Basque loan *lercoin and PIE *pet- to mean "of the cranes with spread wings" while ANGOM is probably a lamb. In Arroyo de la Luz I & II the inscription says: AMBATVS SCRIPSI CARLAE PRAISOM SECIAS ERBA MVITIE AS ARIMO PRAESONDO SINGEIETO INI AVA INDI VEA VN INDI VEDAGA ROM TEVCAECOM INDI NVRIM INDI VDEVEC RVRSENCO AMPILVA INDI LOEMINA INDI ENV PETANIM INDI ARIMOM SINTAMOM INDI TEVCOM SINTAMO. The first two words are Latin. The rest has the usual -OM endings, presumably accusatives. PRAISOM and PRAESONDO might be from PIE kwreiH- and be to do with buying and selling, but that spoils Iccona being Epona because it means labialisation of kw (a feature of Ligurian). SECIAS might derive from PIE segh- or seHg- so it might mean "fixed", "held" or "sought out". ARIMO suggests "highest". If SINGEIETO is related to Celtic Singidunon it might be something to do with falcons, so the next part INI AVA might mean "one bird", but this is guesswork and it doesn't provide anything much useful for EB2 except a possibility of a unit name - Arimi for elite cavalry. Maybe. But Arimo could just as easily refer to a deity. So there aren't really any useful words to be got apart from a possible Celtic loan net- for "warrior" that could form a basis for unit names, and a name for an infantry barracks Trebo Netenaicoi. If only the Lusitanians had sacrificed some horses, things would be that much easier...

    a Lusitanian o-stem declension:
    sing. / plu.
    N Tauro Tauri
    V *Taure *Tauroe
    A Taurom *Tauro
    G *Tauri Tauroi
    D Tauro Taurebo
    L *Tauroe *Tauroi
    Last edited by Elmetiacos; 02-23-2009 at 00:21. Reason: no final -s
    'you owe it to that famous chick general whose name starts with a B'
    OILAM TREBOPALA INDI PORCOM LAEBO INDI INTAM PECINAM ELMETIACUI

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    Default Re: Linguistics discussion (split from new factions thread)

    Quote Originally Posted by Elmetiacos View Post
    It might be possible to attempt more translations... As a piece of baseless speculation, Lamas de Moledo's REAICOI PETRANOI could contain a pre-Basque loan *lercoin and PIE *pet- to mean "of the cranes with spread wings" while ANGOM is probably a lamb.
    Pshaw! I didn't look up enough Indo-European. Following Witczak, REAICOI is another of those collective genitive -aicoi plurals formed from *diewo- with the shift from d > r; PET- could well come from PIE *peit- so it probably means "of the gods of plenty". The whole inscription I'd read as something like:
    "The Veaminicori give a shorn upland lamb on the great mound of all the gods of plenty (and) a pig to Jupiter Caelobrigae."
    or:
    "The Veaminicori give a shorn lamb from the pens to the great vessel of all the gods of plenty (and) a pig to Jupiter Caelobrigae."
    I'll explain why if anyone actually cares

    Here's something more useful; sound changes between proto-Indo-European and Lusitanian collected from various authors (these) or evident from the corpus of inscriptions [these], which will make it easier to make new words for things with "reasonable" accuracy:
    PIE > Lusitanian
    p > p [porcom]
    b > b [Laebo]
    bh > f (Gorrochategui)
    t > t [taurom]
    d > d [doenti]
    dh > θ? (García Alonso)
    k' > c [porcom]
    g' > g by analogy; L. is centum
    g'h > hj? (García Alonso)
    k > c [-aicoi]
    g > g/c [Attaegina/Attaecina?]
    gh > h/χ? (García Alonso)
    kw > p [praesondo] labialisation
    gw > b as above
    k'w > cc [Iccona]
    g'w > g? ng?
    gwh > w?v? [vea(un)/veaminicori?] <gwhedh- = keep*
    s > s [praisom, secias]
    w- > b- (García Alonso)

    dy > r (Witczak) (he actually thinks all Ds become Rs, I think not)
    CrC > CurC (Prósper)
    VrV > VhV [La(h)ebo] (Witczak)
    e- > i- [Iccona, ifadem]

    *which makes VEA-MIN- (<*veath-min-) equivalent to Celtiberian kombalkez, usually translated as "decreed". VEAMINICORI is possibly "the host of the proclamations", some sort of decision making assembly.
    Last edited by Elmetiacos; 02-13-2009 at 12:09. Reason: goddess? no.
    'you owe it to that famous chick general whose name starts with a B'
    OILAM TREBOPALA INDI PORCOM LAEBO INDI INTAM PECINAM ELMETIACUI

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    master of the wierd people Member Ibrahim's Avatar
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    Default Re: Linguistics discussion (split from new factions thread)



    interesting work-I hope some EB member will take a look.
    Last edited by Ibrahim; 02-13-2009 at 00:40.
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    Default Re: Linguistics discussion (split from new factions thread)

    A new piece of writing in Lusitanian was discovered at Ribeira da Venda in 2008 and a paper on it (only in Portuguese, alas) has been published on it:http://ifc.dpz.es/recursos/publicaci...rneiroetal.pdf.
    The inscription reads:
    [- - - - - - - -] XX • OILAM • ERBAM
    HARASE • OILA • X • BROENEIAE • H
    OILA • X • REVE AHARACVI • T • AV [...]
    IFATE(or IEATE) • X • BANDI HARACVI AV [....]
    MVNITIE CARIA(or CARLA) CANTIBIDONE •
    APINVS • VENDICVS • ERIACAINV[S]
    OVOVIANI [?]
    ICCINVI • PANDITI • ATTEDIA • M • TR
    PVMPI • CANTI • AILATIO

    It's being discussed on the Continental Celtic list. I've also been told by someone who knows a lot more than me that Iccona probably isn't Epona, and that k'w becoming cc and not p is unlikely. Also, this new inscription has harase and (a)haracui, so -r- between vowels (above) can only become -h- before E.
    'you owe it to that famous chick general whose name starts with a B'
    OILAM TREBOPALA INDI PORCOM LAEBO INDI INTAM PECINAM ELMETIACUI

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