Re: "Old Starrish"

achel Klippenstein wrote:

> Also, each of the 12 vowels in this language was associated with one of
> the twelve notes of the musical scale, so everything said in it
> automatically had a tune associated with it, and although it was not
> sung in everyday speech, any speaker would be able to convert a spoken
> sentence into its sung version.
A very interesting notion! I can immediately see several fascinating
implications of this.

First I must ask: What about the speakers of your language? Who are they?
Do they have the same kinds of brains and vocal organs that we do? The
question is important since music, even though it is basically just
mathematical representations of wave lengths, is still very much a
cultural subject, and how that culture manifests itself is of course very
much a subject to the physionomy of its members.

By the way, what is your own musical background?

One interesting question is whether your scale is absolute or relative. In
other words, does a given vowel always map to the exact same wave-length,
or is it decided by the context (ie can the same message be conveyed in a
different key)? How are octaves handled? What about "speakers" who have
different vocal pitch (women/men/children)?

To me, the most difficult obstacle would seem to be to accomplish a
language that is at the same time not too limited in its range of possible
expressions, while still producing reasonably melodious "words". How, for
instance, would you avoid tritones and other difficult intervals?

  /Fredrik

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