Theiling Online    Sitemap    Conlang Mailing List HQ   

Re: Which is simpler: /y/ or /iw/?

From:Benct Philip Jonsson <bpj@...>
Date:Wednesday, June 4, 2008, 17:01
I can only say three things:

1. I agree with what Ray said: simplicity/ease is in the mouth
of the imitator/ear of the listener.
2. You should rather ask yourself what is most Algonquian and go
for that -- otherwise there isn't much point in the exercise!
3. The orthography may well masquerade as ON, writing yøǫ while
pronunciation is Alg /iw ew Aw/! Cf. modern Icelandic.


Paul Bennett skrev:
> I'm having yet another round of re-thinking about Uinlistka phonology. > > Old Norse has /y/, /2/, and /Q/. > A number of Algonquian languages have /iw/, /ew/, and /Aw/. > > As far as I can tell, those Alg languages treat the /-w/ clusters as > vowel phonemes (or something na(t)ively equivalent). Based on recordings > of Ojibwe, I'd say that the vowels in the /-w/ clusters are shorter than > "normal" short vowels, perhaps to the point where the whole cluster is > about as long as a normal short vowel. > > Based on that, and knowing that Uinlitska is supposed to have developed > among Old Norse settlers in northeastern North America, which of the > following seems more naturalistic: > > 1: /y/, /2/, /Q/ simplify to /iw/, /ew/, /Aw/ > > 2: /iw/, /ew/, /Aw/ simplify to /y/, /2/, /Q/ > > S: something else > > > > Thanks for your thoughts, > > > > Paul > > >