Back again.

Well I had to nomail myself again; I can't get myself to read a hundred
posts a day anymore.  Twenty a day exhausts me nowadays.  But I miss the
list so much, so I just read what I can.  Also, I only have limited access
to a computer; for instance, I won't even see any replies to this post until
Monday.

News: Tech now has a standard script; it is the Coptic script, used by the
ruling Qt'il (Qotil) tribe.  (For those unfamiliar, Coptic is modified
uncial Greek with seven additional letters for consonants not found in
Greek; overlines also mark syllabic nasals, numerals, _nomina sacra_ and
such.)  Tech officially has 33 letters, but the 33rd letter is lower-case
rho with a bar through the descender -- the symbol for Christ.  (It's called
the '33th Letter' in order to make a completeness to the script; 33 refers
to Jesus' years on earth.)

In modern type, the letters are Latin-influenced, as is modern Cyrillic.
Uppercase and lowercase letters are used, and unlike New Testament Greek,
the first words of sentences are capitalized along with proper names.  The
Greek punctuation marks are used (for instance, <;> is a question mark and
not a semicolon; a middle dot replaces that along with the colon), but some
are using Western punctuation instead.  Arabic numerals are found more
often, but traditionally overlined Coptic letters represent numerals --
however, the first nineteen letters represent the numerals 1 through 19, not
1 through 10 then 20 through 100 by tens!  The Arabic zero becomes a small
oblique stroke called a _jencom_ <`>, which is also used to mark the schwa
or syllabic nasals and liquids.

Another distinctive feature is the occurance of seemingly impossible initial
consonant clusters, which remind the linguist of a language like Georgian.
Examples of personal names with such are Brhanu, Bsrat, Ftsum, Kflu, Hruy
and Msgun.  However, words like _kitab_ (Tech does not normally mark long
vowels) is pronounced like 'ktaab', with the K (khi) being palatized while
the I (iota) being syncopated, like the almost silent I of Japanese _ichi_ ~
[itS].

Christian names are usually taken from the Ge'ez Bible; Muslims use Arabic
names from the Qur'an.  Names from Greek are often altered or taken
second-hand via Arabic: the name Alexander, for example, becomes Skinder
while Aithiopia 'Ethiopia, Africa' becomes Etiyop'iya (yes, that is a common
female name in Techia).  Hebrew names usually take their Greek form: Elias
instead of Elijah.

Note that Tech pronunciation of Coptic letters differs a lot from Coptic
itself.  Here is the alphabet (given with numeric value when applicable):

alpha 1     a
beta 2      b
gamma 3     g
  gg        N, Ng
delta 4     d
epislon 5   E
  jencom `  @
stigma 6    ts'
zeta 7      z, dz
eta 8       e, je
theta 9     t (or th)
iota 10     i, j
kappa 11    k'
lambda 12   l
mu 13       m
nu 14       n
xi 15       k's
omicron 16  O
pi 17       p'
rho 19      r
sigma       s
tau         t'
upsilon     1 (high central vowel)
  ou        u
phi         p (or ph)
chi         k (or kh)
psi         p's
omega       o, wo
she         S
fe 18       f
khe         X
hori        h
  barred    H, X
janja       dZ
chima       tS (or tSh)
ti          tS'

~~~~~~~~~~~~

My other current project: all I got going otherwise is a codelang/slang
(Nadsat-style) based on my three favorite modern languages (no particular
order): English, Spanish and Farsi.  ¡Go conulláh, amigos!

Danny  (ICQ 1651462  homepage down for now)
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