Re: another newbie

En réponse à David Barrow <davidab@...>:

> Hi all
>
> I'm another newbie.
Welcome then! :)

 My interest veers more towards modifying languages
> languages rather than constructing them from scratch.
They are called "A posteriori" languages. Brithenig, Hattic (it's a language
based on Indo-European, right Jan?), my Narbonósc and so many others are
examples of that.

 I call them what
> if... languages in the sense of what would happen or have happened if
> certain changes to the languages happen in the future,or had or hadn't
> happened in the past, for example an English that hadn't lost most of
> its inflexions  and had kept grammatical gender or an English without
> Norse, Norman, French, Latin influence, but instead had kept the
> original Anglo-Saxon vocabulary but had still undergone the sound
> changes modern English went through (such as gws)
I know there's been a few projects like that. Englisc anyone?

 Or inflected
> languages
> such as Spanish, French, German with their inflexions reduced to a
> level
> like that of English or even further
>
My Reman is basically a Romance language gone the way of English ;))) : few
inflections (a plural for nouns, as well as remnants of a genitive case, a few
more inflections for verbs), an invariable definite article, not indefinite
article, natural rather than grammatical gender, etc...

> Anyone else interested in modified languages? I speak English and
> Spanish so my interest centres mainly around these two
>
Well, you'll see that here a posteriori languages are quite common, and quite
liked :)) .

>
> clod = /klQd/  looking at the sampa page at
> http://www.phon.ucl.ac.uk/home/sampa/home.htm the only other language
> I
> can see with this Q symbol is Danish: kors,  though I suppose it's
> similar to the /o/ of Spanish toro or French gros (examples from the
> SAMPA page) but shorter and more open
>
It's actually like /a/, but pronounced in the back of your mouth and rounded.

>
> clod = /klAd/ similar to a in French pâte? or Danish pakken?
>
Yes, in dialects that kept the distinction between /a/ and /A/ (I'm talking
about French here ;)) ). My dialect lost this distinction during my youth, so I
remember making it when I was ten but don't anymore :)) . At least I still
recognise the difference, and that's quite helpful for my Dutch :))) .

>
> Looking at the SAMPA page:
>
> BrE has /e/ in pet AmE has /E/, but then the American page uses the
> same
> /e/ for raise does that mean Americans pronounce raid the same way I
> pronounce red? Or has someone made a mistake?
>
No. If I understood correctly Americans often pronounce ay as [e].

>
> /a/ Cro sat Dan malle Fre patte Ger satz  It rata Pol pat Por falo Rom
> cap Slo c^as Spa valle Swe hall
> /a:/ Dut naam Ger tat Hun láb Slo mama
In Dutch the distinction is not so much of a length distinction anymore. "naam"
is often simply [nam].

> /A/ AmE hot Dan pakken Dut pat Est Karu Fre pâte Nor hatt
As I said, most French dialects have lost this sound.

>
> slashes or square brackets? can someone explain correct usage, and
> apologies if I used them incorrectly
>
Slashes is for phon*emes*, i.e. the sounds people actually differentiate, and
are thus abstractions which can cover many different actual sounds and thus can
be labelled as you want. Brackets are for phones, the actual sounds. Now of
course we need to know if this list refers to actual sounds or phonemes.

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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