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Re: *mumble* *grumble* sound changes *mutter*

From:Paul Bennett <paul-bennett@...>
Date:Friday, April 28, 2006, 12:52
-----Original Message-----
>From: Benct Philip Jonsson <bpj@...> > >Paul Bennett skrev: >> >Perhaps we could/should co-ordinate our PIE notation so that >people easier can use different SCH modules together?
Unfortunately, since the best test text I have (Hamlet's Soliloquy) uses Unicode, that's what I'm using. I started off using my own ASCII PIE notation, but the reading rules for that source essentially meant I was doing lots of A > B > A conversions, and that's a bit poor.
>Of course it is quite possible to write rules for conversion between >different transcription conventions, but it is extra work.
Indeed.
>BTW have you tried utf-8 I/O? Did it work well? Did you >also try s/^\x{feff}//; to remove the BOM?
By manually removing the BOM, a UTF-8 source file compiles. I haven't had the courage to make a perl program that uses the resultant module yet, nor crufting the compiler to automatically remove the BOM. Both are on the list, and I'll hopefully get some time this evening.
> > The more I look at the results, the less satisfied I am that they > > plausibly represent an IE language at around 1000CE, when compared to > > the difference between PIE and (e.g.) Old English, or even Lithuanian. > >Rate of change can be very different, but I see what you >mean!
Well, I end up with something that, while possibly not readily mutually intelligible with PIE, could probably be learned by a native PIE speaker fairly quickly. That's just not what I am looking for.
> > There is going to me a *major* set of updates. > >Been there, done that, with Slvanjek. Happily I worked in >collaboration with Jan van Steenbergen and his Wenedyk. It >may have taken more time, with all the mailing back and >fourth, but two pairs of eyes and two minds communicating >was probably for the better in the long run.
As I recall, weren't both of those Latin via Slavic, or am I thinking of something else?
>Rewriting the by no quite old Kijeb--Sohlob sound changes in >SCH syntax is also bound to lead to some, hopefully *not* >major, reworking. I will probably take the opportunity to >work out the fourth "dialect" I've been planning too. I know >some of its distinctive traits, but I'm sure more will come >up.
Once I have got Thagojian to a more or less satisfactory point, I'm going to take what I know of Br'ga, and the little I know of the language known as something like Tsa'ilh K'a and consider whether I can make them share a common ancestor. It ought to be a fairly decent job of work.
> > Be it noted that the language formerly known as Thagojian > > should henceforth be known as Classical Thagojian (Version > > 1.0). I guess I need to start paying attention to vowel > > length and stress placement in PIE, > >Are there *any* Old IE languages that simply lost length? I >think not. OTOH the sources very seldom mark stress, I'm >afraid, which is bad news for me if I want to get Verner's >law and Siever's rule right... I guess I'll mostly work >from Common Germanic forms anyway, with Torp being available >at the Germanic Lexicon Project.
Indeed. What's a Torp?
> > as well as learning more about the nominal and verbal > > stems, and the sound changes in both Indo-Iranian and > > Balto-Slavic. Not to mention the sound changes in Coptic > > and Hebrew. Ach y fi. > >How does B-S touch Thagojian? For working out accent?
In my possibly semi-imaginary world, BS and IIr share features other than satemnity. The goal is to make Thagojian a remnant of the branch that they have in common, or to fake it reasonably well. Also, the more sources I have for plausible sound changes in the satem family in general, the better.
>BTW how do you pronounce _Thagojian_? I've been saying >[Ta'goj:an] in my mind, but I now see it's _ji_, not >_ij_, so is it [T&'goudZi@n]?
Big question. The name came from another language, and was then /T@gw@J\j\i\/ natively. That all went by the wossname when I pitched most of the sound system (a big ol' 3-dimensional grid of consonants, and two vowels), and imported a variation of the Wenetaic sound system, and a highly-simplified version of the Wenetaic "directionals" system, which became the case-complex system[*]. The two languages sort of merged, and the Thagojian name was the one that accidentally won out. In English, I tend to say something like /T6'gou.dZi.@n/. Natively, that simply cannot fit the phonology of the language. My best bet, I think, is to retcon a misreading of the name based on an early misunderstanding of the script. Something like /'TA.gou.Syn/ is within the native phonology. I have no idea what that would mean, though. [*]Note that the case-complex system may be even further diminished to verbal agreement markers for objects, direct and indirect. Never fear, it's looking like it'll be reborn in Tsa'ilh K'a in a similar form.
> > This will be no small undertaking, I fear... > >You have my sympathy. >
Thanks. Every day, it seems, I find out I'm less smart than I thought I was the day before. This whole mess is a bloody good example of it. Paul