Re: Orthography Question
| From: | Christophe Grandsire <christophe.grandsire@...> |
|---|
| Date: | Monday, November 9, 1998, 10:39 |
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At 11:18 08/11/98 -0500, you wrote:
>Hi.
>Being bored in class recently, i started writing down various names of
>classmates in Rokbeigalmki and figuring out some Rokbeigalmki
>transliteration techniques.
>
>This is the general rule: when a sound doesn't exist in Rokbeigalmki,
>the closest sound that does is written with a ~ tilde over it to mark it
>as abnormal. (in native Rokb. words the tilde means that a vowel is
>double-lengthened).
>
>Examples:
>In an unfinished horror story i wrote for class a few years ago, the
>mysterious alien species was referred to as _pleknu gamna-zoh_, "those
>who fell from stars" in the so-called Mother Language (which will
>probably be my next conlang project if i ever get around to it). the
>last word, <gamna-zoh>, is pronounced /gam na zA./, where /A./ is the
>low-back-rounded "flipped script a" vowel on the IPA chart. Rokbeigalmki
>doesn't have such a sound - but it does have <au> /O/, the
>lowmiddle-back-rounded vowel. So, in Rokb. orthography "gamna-zoh" would
>be written as _gamna-zau~_. Similarly, my friend Shaya /Sa6 ja/ (/6/ =3D
>`ayin) 's Rokbeigalmki name is Shahh~ya, since <hh> /H/ is the unvoiced
>equivalent of the voiced `ayin, which doesn't exist in Rokb.
>
>So, here's the problem. I have a friend who just moved to NYC from
>Belgium a few years ago. Her name is Ire`ne, pronounced correctly as far
>as i can tell as /iREn/ , where /R/ is the French "r". (most people just
>call her /ajri:n/)
>I've figured out two possible ways of representing her name in
>Rokbeigalmki:
>
>_ir~en_ /i*En/ (* =3D flap R) : this uses the normal Rokbeigalmki type of
>"r" sound, which is a flap R very unlike the French R (what is the French
>R exactly?)
>
>_igh~en_ /iGEn/ (G =3D velar voiced fricative) : this uses a different
>Rokbeigalmki sound, <gh>, which sounds much closer to the actual R sound
>of Ire`ne.
>
As a French, I would say that even if the sound /G/ is much closer
to the French 'r' than the /R/, I'd prefer the latter, as I find it more
'sweet' than the /G/. I'm thinking of the Arab speakers when they use French
words. Depending on many things, they can use either /R/ or /G/ to pronounce
our 'r'. But I find it more melodic when they use /R/ than when they use
/G/. It's just a personal opinion. Ask Irene to know what she thinks of it.
>
>So, does anyone have a preference / suggestion for which i should use?
>How do you represent foreign words/names in your conlangs?
>
Moten makes some use of loan-words from various sources. It lacks
every r-like sound, so it uses the 'l' instead. It lacks also the fricatives
/S/ and /J/, and the affricates /tS/ and /dZ/, and it uses different
solutions according to the sound of the whole word. For instance, the two
initials C.G. are pronounced Sidji, with German j (semi-consonantal y). But
/dZ/ is also rendered with the letter |z (the affricate /dz/), depending on
the word. I choose what sounds better to me.
Azak has a morphology somewhat restrictive, where tri-consonantal
clusters are forbidden, and bi-consonantal clusters are forbidden at the
beginning or the end of a word, and two vowels in a row are also forbidden
(the restrictions in suffixes are even more important). Finally, a word root
must end with a consonant. Also, there are no affricates. So, for instance,
the first name John is rendered as Jon (here again the German j) /jon/, and
the first name Mary is rendered as Marij (with flapped 'r').
Notya has an even more restrictive phonology. Like Japanese, it can
have only syllabes, and has no 'r'. The vowel insered in consonantal
clusters is therefore 'i' (the darkest vowel of this language). So a first
name like Frederic would become Filedeliki, with accent over the last=
syllabe.
>
>-Stephen (Steg)
>
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