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Romance-Specific Word Evolution Game

Posted: Wed May 04, 2022 11:18 pm
by Moose-tache
What if you took a word, any word, and subjected it to a series of more-or-less random sound changes (a la the word evolution game), but you could only apply sound changes attested in one specific language family?

I give you, Stickstoff, the German word for nitrogen. Do science to it, but only use sound changes that have happened to some Romance language at some time in the last two thousand years.

I'll go first: initial sC or SC clusters get an epenthetic initial vowel (source: Western Vulgar Latin).
/StIkstOf/ > /EStikstOf/

Re: Romance-Specific Word Evolution Game

Posted: Thu May 05, 2022 12:24 am
by bradrn
  1. /ʃ/ → /x/ → /h/ (Spanish)
  2. ɔ → y / _ [+labial] (Old Provençal, northwestern dialects)
  3. /f/ → /h/ (Old Provençal, Béarn dialect)
  4. /h/ → ∅ / {#,C} _ (Sardinian)
  5. /k/ → /j/ / V_tV (Romanian)
/ˈtɪjtyh/

Sound changes do not a Romance language make…

Re: Romance-Specific Word Evolution Game

Posted: Thu May 05, 2022 3:24 am
by Darren
  1. /jt/ > /tʃ/ (Spanish)
  2. /tʃ/ > /ts/ (Western Romance)
  3. /ts/ > /θ/ > /f/ (Savoyard Francoprovençal)
  4. /ɪ/ > /e/ (Sardinian)
  5. /e/ > /œ/ (Landes Occitan)
  6. coda /h/ > lax vowel (eastern Andalusian Spanish)
/ˈtœfʏ/

Re: Romance-Specific Word Evolution Game

Posted: Thu May 05, 2022 10:01 am
by Travis B.
This makes our normal word evolution game seem sane in comparison.

Re: Romance-Specific Word Evolution Game

Posted: Thu May 05, 2022 10:23 am
by Moose-tache
Well, my idea was to apply one or two changes per person, building on what the previous person did. But however people want to play, that's fine by me.