Re: "frankenlang"

Hi!

Adam wrote:
> --- Danny Wier <dawiertx@...> wrote:
> > It seems to refer to a natlang heavily modified into
> > something grotesque and
> > bizzare. I like the term anyhow.
>
> If you mean, Tech, I'd say it qualifies as a frankenlang.
>...
> /t_S/, /t_s/, /t'S'/, /t_C/,
Hehe, when I started to learn Mandarin, it occurred to me to have a
phoneme structure just like that (shang, chang, zhang, xiang, jiang,
qiang, sang, cang, zang).


My fourth conlang sketch (S4) seems to meet the criteria of a
frankenlang: it has some 800 or so consonant phonemes (and I left out
a retroflex series because I did not like the sounds, also I found
epiglottals to hard to pronounce).  This is the list of consonant
phonemes:

Bilabial, Alveolar, Velar, Uvular (4) Plosives:
   voice (2), length (2), postaspirated (2), pharyngealised(2),
   normal/pre-nasalised/pre-aspirated (3)

Pharyngeal, Glottal (2) Plosives
   length (2)

Bilabial, Dental, Alveolar, Postalveolar, Palatal, Velar, Uvular (7) Affricates
   voice (2), length (2), postaspirated (2), pharyngealised(2),
   normal/pre-nasalised/pre-aspirated (3)

Pharyngeal (1) Affricates
   length(2)

Labial, Alveolar, Velar, Uvular (4) Ejective Plosives:
   voiceless(1), pre-nasalised(2), post-pharyngealised(2)

Labial, Alveolar, Postalveolar, Palatal, Velar, Uvular (6) Ejective Affricates
   voiceless(1), pre-nasalised(2), post-pharyngealised(2)

Bilabial, Dental, Alveolar, Postalveolar, Palatal, Velar, Uvular, Pharyngeal (6) Fricatives:
   voice (2), length(2),

Glottal (1) Fricative:
   length(2)

Bilabial, Dental, (Apico-post-)Alveolar, Palatoalveolar, Alveolar-Lateral (5) Clicks:
   voiced/voiceless(2), normal/nasalised/velar-nasalised (3),
   opening: silent, velar plosive, fricative, affricate, post-asprirated, ejective plosive,
   ejective affricate (7)

Bilabial, Alveolar, Velar, Uvular (4) Nasal:
   voiced(1), length(2)

Bilabial, Alveolar (2) Trills:
   voiced(1), length(2)

Well....  (Pharyngeal affricates with phonemic length... <shaking
head>) The numbers give the number of choices for each feature, so one
can calculate the number of phonemes more quickly.  Morphology is not
threatening, but it has consonant degradation (we have enough of
those, right?).

The language has three vowels a, i, u and two level tones, high and
low.

I invented a plain ASCII romanisation that, of course, used long
sequences of letters...  E.g. the dative ending is

   -gnctlku

This is a CV syllable: a voiced, prenasalised alveolar-lateral click
opened by a velar plosive followed by a u with high tone.

After I translated the first sentence, 'I think, therefore I am', I
gave up, because it was impossible to pronounce (which should not
really be a reason...):

   Akkqhuokqa okkuctea ctjkancdabra okkuctea.

At least it looks good, I think. :-)
(Two hints for decyphring that: o=ejective, e=dental)

Maybe I continue the development some time...

A frankenlang?? :-)

Bye,
  Henrik

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