Old Regentish
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This public article was written by [Deactivated User], and last updated on 31 Oct 2023, 23:45.
[comments] rgbz History
Old Regentish descended from the Central-Italian group in the Italo-Dalmatian branch. It was spoken between the 15th and the 17th centuries. The differences between it and Modern Regentish lie basically on morphosyntactic features (such as the presence of weak subject pronouns and the simplification of verbal paradigms). It's lexically closest to Neapolitan and Sicilian, but due to sound changes, words might not be easily recognizable.
Characteristics
- No rhotacism of /d/: the phoneme /l/ was already rhotacised in some contexts in that period, but /d/ would undergo that same process much later. /d/ in later stages of Regentish underwent rhotacism at the beginning of a word and, sometimes, even between vowels. However, in learned words from Latin and other languages, this didn't happen.
- No A- prothesis in many words, specially verbs with the RI- prefix: words would get a prothetic /a/, specially if the word begins with certain consonants, such as /l/, /r/, and /m/, but that would only happen a few centuries later.
- No word-final vowel reduction: Regentish later underwent a reduction process that merged /e/ and /i/ into a schwa and /o/ and /u/ into /ʊ/ at the end of words. The consequence of that was the loss of distinction between the masculine and feminine plural in nouns and adjectives.
- No weak pronouns and distinct conjugation for 2nd person singular and 1st person plural: Old Regentish still had one distinct form for each person. However, during the 19th century, the form of the 2nd person singular merged with the third-person singular and two new unstressed pronouns arose in order to account for that. They evolved as shortened forms of the pronouns TU and ELLE respectively. As for the 1st person plural, a periphrasis with SE began being used instead and over time replaced the -MO ending.
Comparison table
| Old Regentish | Regentish | English |
|---|---|---|
| dibbertente | ribbertente | funny |
| dumannare ~ dumanna' | addumannà | to ask, to inquire |
| munno, munni | munnu, munne | world, worlds |
| femmena, femmene | femmena, femmene | woman, women |
| chiame | te chiama | you call |
| chiama | le chiama | he calls |
| chiamamo | se chiama | we call |
Example
| Old Regentish | Modern Regentish |
|---|---|
Carta d’amore. Caro amico mio, Bruno, volerrei dicerti una cosa assaj impurtante pe me. N’ sacciu se cumprennerrai né se lo accetterrai, ma… sento carcosa massa strana pe te. Crer d’esser ammore. Sacciu che le genitori nostri ‘n capirrano e nun lo accetterrano. Tuttabbia, accussì medesimo volerrei saper se mi ami anghe tu. Se tu voi, improro p’una risposta. Ti agradesco massa pe ascortarmi. Tu praci assé a me. Ti agradesco pe esister inta vita mia. Co ammore, Giovanni. | Carta d’ammore Caru amicu mi, Bru’, volerressi ricetti na cosa assé mpurtante pe me. Un sacciu si te cumprennerrà né si o accetterrà, ma… sentu caccosa massa strana pe te. Crer d’essere ammore. Sacciu ca e genitore nostre un capirranu e n’accetterran. Tuttabbi, accussì meresimu volerressi sapé si t’ama me anghe te. Si te vò, mproru pe na risposta. T’agrarescu massa pe ascortammi. T’apraze assé a me. T’agrarescu pe esistere nta vita mi. Cu ammore, Giovanni. |
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