Re: Plastic Surgery on a Conlang

En réponse à Christian Thalmann <cinga@...>:

>
> Problems:
> *********
>
> (1) Stop+Nasal clusters, such as in |getne| "fearing".
>
What, you don't like them? I like those exotic clusters on the other hand! |nt|
is boring!

> (2) Stop+Stop+Fricative clusters, such as in |noggze|.
>
Here again, I find them aesthetically quite pleasing. Too bad you don't like
them...

> (3) Ugly typographical juxtapositions due to non-standard letter
>     values, as in |kcare| or |kwaq|.
>
<sob> I like them all!!! Why change?!!

Oh well, what's my opinion, since it comes from a man who is reviving a
language which has monsters like |ibolteadg| pronounced ['poUK] (X-SAMPA,
except that ' marks primary stress), or |himidu| pronounced ['CE~mptU], and
what about |imuohf| pronounced ['mbu:]? :))) Until now, the nearly worst stays
|iragft| pronounced ['xa~N] :)), though |eidriuojha| pronounced ['itrYj\@] is
near in the competition :)) .

>
> (1) I abolished all stop-nasal combinations.  The active participles
>     of consonantic verbs, which used to produce such combinations,
>     now infix the nasal: |kot-| --> |konte| rather than |kotne|.
>
You basically do what is done in Quenya too :)) . You could have the suffix -ne
still valid, except after some consonants (mostly stops I'd guess, though you
may want to include fricatives in it) where metathesis would have applied.

> (2) I changed the syllabification rules to draw the syllable boundary
>     between two consonants, regardless of stops.  This means all words
>     like |kotre| are now pronounced /"kOtr@/, thus rendering the
>     spelling |kottre| obsolete.  As a side effect, the pronunciation
>     /"ko:tr@/ is now impossible.  Too bad, I kinda liked it.
>
You cannot "force" the pronunciation by introducing other spelling rules like
using double vowels? |kotre| would be ["kOtr@], but |kootre| would be ["ko:tr@]
(I admit that I steal the idea from Dutch :)) ). But maybe you don't like
double vowels either...

> (3) I am going to keep my transliteration scheme for linguistic
>     purposes, but as per Aidan's suggestion (thanx, Aidan) I'm also
>     developing an alternate spelling system for use with the "general
>     public".
>
Good idea. After all, why throwing away something useful? With my Maggel (the
language in which the examples are in), I went for a transcription in one-to-
one correspondence with the native alphabet. It's not too difficult since this
native script has only 17 letters, and is derived from the New Irish alphabet,
in turn derived from the Latin alphabet. The only strange spelling then is |t|,
which always stands for a fricative :)) (it usually represent [T] or [D], but
can also represent gemination of the following consonant, or it can be used in
polygraphs where it loses all common value - and sense :)) -). Also, such a
translation allows me to emphasize the weirdness of the spelling :)) .

>     The public transliteration will reflect pronunciation rather than
>     phonemic structure.  For reasons of personal aesthetic preference,
>     glides will be written as vowels except intervocally, and /S/, /Z/
>     will be represented as s' and z', since I find sh, zh or j, x to
>     be less pleasant.  I'll also use c for /k/.
>
Why not writing glides as vowels in any case? That's what Italian does, and it
doesn't look too bad...

>
> Bottom line:
> ************
>
> So, the formerly ugly words |getne|, |kcare|, |nokkce| and |kwaq| will
> become =gente=, =chare=, =nocse= and =cuang=, or even =noxe= and
> =quang=.  It's that nice?  =)
>
Hehe, it looks like your aesthetic preferences match quite well Tolkien's :)) .
Any will to write final [v] as |f|? :)))

>
> Thanx in advance for your -- as always -- prolific feedback...
> ::sigh::
>
Hehe, was I prolific enough? :))

>
>
> PS: The name of the conlang was deliberately never mentioned in this
>     post since it seemed to act as a reply repellant in my previous
>     posts.  =P
>
What is it then? I can't remember...

Christophe.

http://rainbow.conlang.free.fr

Take your life as a movie: do not let anybody else play the leading role.

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