Re: Phonology of a Whistle-Lang

On Tue, 27 Aug 2002 13:23:34 -0500 Tony Hogard <james.hogard@...>
writes:
> Interesting!  Do you intend for the voicings to be static, or have
> tone and follow the shapes of the whistles?
> If voice-tone and whistle-tone were independent, you could have
> more phonemes, or voice-tone could mark grammar, etc. (this lang
> might require a _lot_ of practice!).
> -LowTone
-

Wow, i didn't even think of that.  I guess i was assuming that the
voice-tone and the whistle-tone would be parallel, i think that's how
i've been pronouncing it.  I guess it would depend on the context of the
language... if i want it to be some kind of alien avian language, i'd add
phonemes of differing tones... or maybe just have a two-tiered phonology
of overlapping whistle-tones and voice-tones that are functionally
independent of each other... if, on the other hand, i want it to be a
human language (maybe the secret code of some super-secret society), i'll
keep it the way it is now.  Maybe i should just make more than one
whistle language... or someone else could pick up the idea if they want.


-Stephen (Steg)
 "verbing weirds language."  ~  calvin [& hobbes]