[tied] Re: obscure languages... - Recovering Cyrillic

From: richardwordingham
Message: 14161
Date: 2002-07-26

--- In cybalist@..., "Pavel Lurje" <pavlvslvria@...> wrote:

> The easiest way is to transcribe the reference in latin typeset.

If only it were dependable!

Original (mangled here, but recoverable) in
http://www.geocities.com/komblege/ethn.htm

19. Êàïàíöÿí, Ã. À. 1975. Î âçàèìîîòíîøåíèÿõ
àðìÿíñêîãî è ëàçî-
ìåãðåëüñêîãî ÿçûêîâ, â êí.: Êàïàíöÿí, Ã. À.
Èñòîðèêî-ëèíãâèñòè÷åñêèå
ðàáîòû, ò. II. Åðåâàí.

(A recovery method is given in
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/cybalist/message/14149)

Transliterated by the Georgian author, Giorgi Leon Kavtaradze, of the
referencing paper, 'Two Transcaucasian Ethnonyms of Anatolian Origin':

18. Kapantsyan G. A. 1975. O vzaimnootnosheniyakh apmyanskogo i lazo-
megrel'skogo yazyikov, in: Kapantsyan G. A. Istoriko-lingvisticheskie
rabotyi, vol. II. Yerevan (in Russian).

[References 18 and 19 are the same! The above was cut and pasted to
this posting, not copied manually.]

Transliterated (and translated) by a Russian, Pavel Lurje:

> Here it is:
> Kacapjan G.A., 1975. O vzaimootnoshjenijakh armjanskogo i lazo-
mjengrjel'skikh yazykov (on the connections of Armenian and Lazo-
Mengrelian languages), in the Book:
> Kacapjan G.A. Istoriko-lingvistichjeskije raboty (work on
Historical Linguistics), t. ii, Erevan.

Transliterated (in an earlier posting) by an Englishman, me, Richard
Wordingham, in accordance with an ugly, half-remembered American
standard (that of the American Mathematical Society):

19. Kapants'an, G. A. 1975. O Vzayimootnosh'en'iyakh Arm'anskogo i
Lazo-M'egr'el'skogo Yazikov, v kn.: Kapants'an, G. A. Istor'iko-
L'ingv'ist'ich'esk'iye Raboti, t. II. Yer'evan.

('e and 'i really grate!)

All these transliterations show problems of one sort or another!

The name of the third language presents its own problems. There are
at least three forms (in English) of its name on the internet:

Megrelian: 20 Yahoo hits
Mengrelian: 20 Yahoo hits
Mingrelian: 6 Yahoo hits

Ethnologue and the Rosetta Project call it Mingrelian, the minority
choice.

Incidentally, I'd never seen the pattern of contraction

Adj1(sing) Noun1(sing) + Adj2(sing) Noun1(sing) >

Adj1(sing) + Adj2(sing) Noun1(plural)

in a language that marks adjectives for number. How common is it?
I've never seen the construction in French, and I don't recall any
mention of it in Latin or Greek grammars. English contracts 'this
man and that man' to 'this man and that (one)', though it has no
problem with unmarked adjectives, as in the ambiguous English
phrase 'the Armenian and Lazo-Mingrelian languages'. (I assume that
Pavel Lurje found the concept of the Lazo-Mingrelian language
_singular_ incongruous! Earlier postings on this site have asserted
that Armenian is not one language but several.)

Regards,

Richard.