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

-----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