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Re: new Unnamed Conlang

From:Ray Brown <ray.brown@...>
Date:Saturday, September 18, 2004, 6:13
On Friday, September 17, 2004, at 06:18 , Rodlox R wrote:

>> From: Andreas Johansson <andjo@...> >> Reply-To: Constructed Languages List <CONLANG@...> >> To: CONLANG@LISTSERV.BROWN.EDU >> Subject: Re: new Unnamed Conlang >> Date: Fri, 17 Sep 2004 13:08:20 +0200 >> >> It's in general tricky to figure out exactly what's meant when the sounds >> of one >> language is described in the terms of others, >
'generally' is being a bit kind. The '..is like..' method may be OK for helping tourists wit the odd phrase, but it's too imprecise for a proper description of a language.
> Whose language is X-Sampa ? :)
No one's. You might as well ask whose language is the Roman alphabet's or Cyrillic etc. Whose language is Pitman shorthand's or Gregg shorthand's? These are methods of *transcription*. X-SAMPA is a method of transcribing the sounds of a language in an _unambiguous_ way if you cannot use the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA) because you are restricted to ASCII characters.
>> > kh (like "KHaan" in Mongolian) >> >> Mongolian might be a poor example, since very few people speak it. > > you never heard of Gengis Khan? :)
I think we've all heard of Genghis Khan. But that's what we call him in _English_. The first name can also be found written 'Chinggis', 'Jenghiz', 'Jinghis', 'Chinghiz' and 'Chingiz' and probably some other variants. I don't know what it is in Mongolian. As for Khan, I have always heard the Kh in Khan pronounced exactly like the k in kangaroo; even the students I've taught with the surname Khan have pronounced it that way. We assumed you actually meant the way 'Khan' is pronounced in the Mongolian language.
> >> > jy (like "DJoser" in Ancient Egyptian) >> >> I don't know how AE sounded, and I doubt anyone else does for sure >> either. >> What's >> worse, I don't even know what the conventional pronunciation of 'dj' is >> for >> it. > > ˝n X-Sampa - J\
Actually the conventional pronunciation given by Anglophones is usually [dZ]; but [J\] is probably what is actually was, tho I think some consider it was a palatalized [d]. Ray =============================================== http://home.freeuk.com/ray.brown ray.brown@freeuk.com =============================================== "They are evidently confusing science with technology." UMBERTO ECO September, 2004