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Re: Messy orthography (Re: Sound change rules for erosion)

From:Paul Bennett <paul-bennett@...>
Date:Saturday, November 22, 2003, 4:36
On Sat, 22 Nov 2003 00:14:30 +0000, Tim May
<butsuri@...> wrote:

> Paul Bennett wrote at 2003-11-21 18:22:33 (-0500) > > On Fri, 21 Nov 2003 17:22:45 -0500, John Cowan <cowan@...> > > wrote: > > > > Odd note: Googling Sakao, it appears on Langmaker.com, which is odd > > because I was convinced it was a natlang. It also appears in > > Ethnologue.com (code SKU) thus I'm officially confused. Are there > > two Sakaos out there? > > > > Langmaker includes Babel texts of natlangs. Sakao is spoken in > Vanuatu, as the Ethnologue says. Jaques Guy (who submitted the text > to Langmaker) did fieldwork on it there, and posted this to the list > in 1992; it's about Tolomako, but some contrasting features of Sakao > are mentioned. >
And a very interesting read it was, too. Very handy. A bit minimalist a language for my tastes (I prefer a fair amount of redundancy), but fun anyway. Herewith, a post from sci.lang, again by Jacques Guy, comparing the same two languages ... http://groups.google.com/groups?selm=3bjmtc%24ci3%40medici.trl.OZ.AU ... from which I have taken the liberty to copy the section comparing the phoneme sets of both languages. It's not in SAMPA, in fact I think it predates the spread of SAMPA.
> Tolomako vowels: a, e, i, o, u > consonants: p, t, k, B (<beta>), G (<gamma>), m, n, s, ts, r, l > syllable structure is (C)V(V) > > Sakao vowels: a (front unrounded) > a^ (back rounded) > E (<epsilon>) > e > i > O (IPA mirror image of "c") > o > u > oe (i.e. IPA o-with-e as "oe" in French "oeil") > o/ (i.e. IPA o-slash, "eu" as in French "peu") > y (i.e. French "u") > (i) (an always unstressed high vowel, unmarked > for rounding or backing, as elusive as the > infamous French so-called "mute e") > diphthongs: oeE > a^O > consonants: p, t, k, m, n, ng, B(<beta>), D (<delta>), > G (<gamma>), h, s, r, R (unvoiced trill), l > semiconsonants: j, w > syllable structure (that is, if "syllable" makes any sense in that > language, and I suspect it does not): a single vowel, or diphthong, > surrounded by any number of consonants. > Example: i "thou" > mhErtpr "having sung and stopped singing thou kept silent" > (m-2nd pers. hErt "to sing" -p perfective, -r continuous) > > Oh, I forgot: consonants are long or short, e.g. oeBe "drum", oeBBe > "bed".