Rhodrese

English name Native name
Spoken in:
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Morphological type:
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The name of the language

The modern name of the language as a whole should be something like Borgonzay < *Burgundiense (i.e. the Romance language of Burgundia, parallel to Français for the Romance language of Francia) with two main dialect groups Rhodray along the Rhodre (Rhône) and Saugonay along the Saugone (Saône). The problem is that in the ATL there was also a Germanic language Borgonzc < *burgundiska which survived long enough to become a written language in books with Latin letters. In contradistinction to this language the Romance language of Borgonze was of course called Romanz or some variation thereof and any derivative of *Burgund would be inappropriate, but Romanz would be equally inappropriate in contradistinction to Français/Frantxay (or perhaps Francien/Frantxiá), not to speak of the Rumantsch and Romand of Switzerland.

The likely situation is that they all be Romant/Romanz/Romand/Romantx as a group compared to *Franconais/Borgonzc/Allemand, but by other, geographical names, and so Rhodray is still a plausible name, based on the fact that it is spoken along the Rhuodre-Saugone (Rhône-Saône) valley. Nothing like Borgonzay, Borgonzá < *Burgundianum or Borgongá < *Burgundicanum seems me enough differendiated from Borgonzc/Borgondesc < *Burgundiska or Borgonzong < *Burgundionicum, nor as appealing.

Saugonay for the language as a whole isn't appealing to me either; perhaps the Rhuodre part of the valley has always been dominant? To the extent that I've worked out the differences between the northern and southern dialects the standard language slants towards the southern dialects, similar to Italian and Provençal rather than towards the Northern, more French-like dialects. The one feature where the standard goes with the north is the outcome of labial + j and labial + liquid which are u(n)dg/un(j), ul, ur /udʒ/, /ul/, /ur/ in the north but labial + -e, -o, -re /ɪ, ʊ, ɾɪ/ in the south. rather than being consciously cross-dialectal the standard builds on the actual situation in central dialects around Lojú (Lyon).

Notes

^  Romand and Rumantsch

I wonder what Rumantsch and Romand would be called in the ATL. Romand would most probably be something like Helvetxan < *Helveticanum, notwithstanding its spread over a larger area than Roman Helvetia. Compared to the map here it would in any case extend further east but not as far west as Franco-Provençal does in OTL, since the western part of the Franco-Provençal area will be R/B in the ATL, and so F-P/Romand will in the ATL more specifically be the language of western Switzerland, which may well comprise Savoy and Val d'Aosta in the ATL, so Helvetxan will be a more appropriate name in the ATL than it may be in OTL.

Rumantsch would possibly be Rumantsch in the ATL too if it need define itself primarily in contradistinction to Allemannic German there too, although its status and spread would probably be stronger in the ATL. If so it might well be *Raeticanum. It would be spelled Retxan since in that case I'd also expect its orthography to be Italian and R/B-influenced rather than German-influenced and use tx instead of tsch and x for /ʃ/ and perhaps sg(i) for /ʒ/ instead of sch for both. I imagine international words with x would have got pronounced with /ʃ/ or written with xh /ks/ analogous with ch and gh for unpalatalized /k/ and /g/ before e or i. Some orthographic difference from R/B would be likely and healthy given the four-way differentiation /ts—tɕ—tʃ—k/ where R/B only has three-way /ts—tʃ—k/, and the intervening Romand/Helvetxan. I'd expect the same confusion over the spelling of /ʒ/ arise as in R/B. If I had designed Rumantx Grixun I would have used these spellings and also probably accent marks to differentiate /e/ é and /ɛ/ è from /ə/ e and /o/ ù from /ɔ/ o. I would definitely have used ç for /tɕ/ rather than tg, which looks daft word initially — compare tgirar and çirar! — but çh in those words where /tɕ/ is in dialectal variation with /k/, which would leave ch unambiguous for /χ/ in those cases where all dialects have that sound. In the ATL this latter would then be a late differentiation from an earlier situation with variation between c and ç/cz. See the pronunciation guide in this grammar (PDF) and the comparative table of dialect forms in the Rumantsch Wikipedia.

^  Borgonzc

Borgonzc as a Romance form may be a haplology of *Burgundioniscum — perhaps Borgondesc or Borgonzonesc are more likely.

^  Labial + sonorant

Examples:

• capio

  > northern txautx

  > southern cope/cobe

  > standard cautx

• stabulum

  > northern etau

  > central esta(v)o

  > southern estable

  > standard estaul

Standard orthography normally doesn't reflect l-vocalization, which is lacking in the southern dialects, but is reflected in medieval manuscripts from the central area, where postvocalic l was reintroduced as a prestige social variant under southern influence, and as a conscious distancing from Frantxay.

• caprum

  > northern txaur

  > southern cabre

  > standard caur

• N.B. eximius

  > northern sceundg

  > southern esceme (plural escime)

  > standard esceundg.