Maldonia, its language and history

I was happy to find out that The Princess and the Frog is getting some attention, since it’s my second favorite Disney movie (it goes Aladdin, Princess and the Frog, Rapunzel, in case you were wondering). Anyway, I got to thinking: where is Maldonia and what language do they speak there?

Here’s what we got attested for Maldonian:

Ashidanza! (wow)

Abinaza (farewell)

Faldi Faldonza (oh my God)

De Fragee Pruto (the Frog Prince)

Also Naveen’s name is Hindi (meaning “new”? Is this true?)

(from deleted scenes)

Badini (small? First?)

Caldonza (big? Second?)

Maldaquesh (the Maldonian language)

The exclamations could literally translate to almost anything, but let’s look at “De Fragee Pruto.”

We have “de” looks like it’s derived from Latin and we have “pruto,” also from Latin (pinceps). But compared to Italian (Il principe ranocchio) and Spanish (El príncipe rana), we see a problem: it ought to be “De Pruto Fragee”. Why the reversal? Let’s assume Naveen isn’t just mispronouncing “the Frog Prince” and say instead that the Maldonian language, while it borrowed heavily from Latin vocabulary is descended from Gujarati.

Gujarati, like English, can put adjectives before nouns (it doesn’t always, but in the case of “the frog prince” it would). Also, “Frog” in Gujarati is apparently phrōga (really? I may be wrong…). There’s even a suffix -ī that turns nouns into adjectives, (vis jaṅgala, “a jungle” and Jaṅgalī, “wild”).

Now what of “Pruto”? If it’s from Latin “Princeps” it’s gone through some changes. Start with palatalization and regularization to turn Latin /prinkeps/ into Medieval Spanish /prinsepe/. Then syncope to turn that into /prnsepe/, realized by Gujarati-speakers as /purunsepe/, which collapses to /prũse/, which takes the Gujarati -o as a nominative masculine noun /prũso/. The ceceo of Castilian-speakers gives us /prũθo/, which Naveen, as a modern boy and man-of-the-people, th-stops to /prũto/ (spelled prũcio in Maldonian dictionaries).

What Naveen actually said, therefore, is “De phrogui prũcio,” pronounced /de frogi prũto/, mis-spelled by an English speaker as “De Fraggee Pruto.”

Whew.

Okay.

So that derivation constrains the (alternate) history of Maldonia. Its people speak Spanish and Gujarati, and the s>θ shift occurred in Spain in the 1600s. Which means, perhaps, more Spanish involvement (and colonization) of Portuguese territory in India during the Iberian Union (1580-1640).

In the final years of the union, Grandee of Spain Luis Méndez de Haro, favorite of King Phillip IV, happened to be touring the island when his rival for the royal ear, María de Ágreda, finally convinced Phillip to abolish the office of “favorite” and declare de Haro a traitor.

De Haro’s friends in Madrid managed to get him recognized as Marquis of Diu under Charles II, and during the War of Spanish succession, de Haro’s son crowned himself King Xavier I de Diu. This move prompted bitter acrimony from all sides, but through clever negotiation (and the distance of Diu from anywhere from which a conquest might be launched), he managed to have himself recognized as the sovereign of the Principality of Maldonia, so called because the island had been so reluctantly given (in Spanish “Isla Maldonada”).

So there. That’s where Naveen’s from.