Re: new Unnamed Conlang

On 17 Sep 2004 Andreas Johansson <andjo@FRE...> wrote:

> > kh (like "KHaan" in Mongolian)
>
> Mongolian might be a poor example, since very few people speak it.
  I do not know Rodlox's intention but Khalkha |(k)h| is pronounced as [X]
before back vowels, not [x] (|(k)haan| = [XQ:N]). Is there a better known
language with this sound?


> > > > jy (like "DJoser" in Ancient Egyptian)
> > > [...]
> > ýn X-Sampa -  J\
> Ah. Would I then be right in assuming that 'sy' and 'zy' denote,
> respectively, a voiceless and a voiced palatal fricative?
  In a description about Ancient Egyptian, the above AE sound is described
as a palatal _affricate_, i.e. it is rather [J\j\] than simple stop [J\].

  However if we consider that this sound was developed in Hungarian from a
previous alveolopalatal [dz\], and the present Serbo-Croatian dialects
varies between [dz\] ~ [J\j\] in pronouncing letter |dj|, may be Rodlox's
|jy| could be realized as [dz\].

  In this case |y| could be treated as a diacritic for alveolopalatals and
this could make sense of "Eastern European" |sy| and |zy| as [s\] and [z\]
respectively. (These sounds are used in Polish.)

  In another approximation |y| could stand for palatalization, therefore
|jy| could be [d'Z'], |sy| [s'] and [zy] [z']. This also can be interpreted
as an "Eastern European" feature exsiting in Eastern Slavic languages, in
Bulgarian etc.


> a voiceless and a voiced palatal fricative? (I'm still curious to hear
> what Eastern European language uses them - I thought I had a decent grasp
> of the various Latin orthographies of EE.)
  In Hungarian [C] and [j\] are allophones of |j| at the end of the words
after consonants, e.g. |kapj| [kOpC] 'get!', |dobj| [dobj\] 'throw!'.
Moreover [C] is an allophone of /h/ (spellt as |h| or |ch|) in
intervocalic, pre-consonantal (and sometimes final) positions if the
adjacent vowel is front, e.g. |ihlet| [iClEt] 'inspiration', |pech| [peC:]
'bad luck'.
  In addition, [C] is a frequent allophone of /x/ in other languages of
this region.

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