Re: Fave Conlangs WAS: Silindion

Raymond Brown wrote:
>At 12:11 am +0100 23/3/02, Christian Thalmann wrote:
> >That's a very interesting but tough question...
> >
> >- Quenya certainly ranks highest on my list.  Tolkien tried hard to
> >make it as beautiful as possible, and apart from the inexplicable
> >omission of /Z/ he succeeded exceedingly well.
>
>Nothing inexplicable - Tolkien kept ugly sounds like /Z/ for things like
>Sauron's 'Black Tongue'   :)
Actually, /Z/ seems to be unattested in Tolkien's created languages - it
doesn't even pop up in Black Speech or Valarin*, despite that the few words
we know are quite rich in /s z S/. It seems that Tolkien' really despised
/Z/. Neither does he seem to've liked /G/, which swiftly disappears
everytime it turns up in the Elvish languages, but persists in Black Speech.

* Language of the Valar (more-or-less gods), which the Elves found
distateful. It features very long words, and a very large phonology (by
Tolkien, and Western, standards - not by Khoisan ones!).

                                                 Andreas


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