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Re: Orthography Question

From:Christophe Grandsire <christophe.grandsire@...>
Date:Monday, November 9, 1998, 10:39
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) > >___________________________________________________________________ >You don't need to buy Internet access to use free Internet e-mail. >Get completely free e-mail from Juno at http://www.juno.com/getjuno.html >or call Juno at (800) 654-JUNO [654-5866] > >
Christophe Grandsire |Sela Jemufan Atlinan C.G. "R=E9sister ou servir" homepage: http://www.bde.espci.fr/homepage/Christophe.Grandsire/index.html