Re: Received Wisdom on Waponi (LONG)

CONLANG@LISTSERV.BROWN.EDU writes:
> Tell me, how do folks in the Malayo-Polynesian world generally refer to
>themselves, and their language?  Perhaps we can calque something on a
>Polynesian term.  That way we would have an indigenous name for the
>language
>and not worry about legal ramifications.
I dont know how much help this would be, but perhaps they could be named
after some striking feature of the island where they are mostly settled?
Tagalog is actually from the words "taga ilog" meaning "from the river"
since originally Tagalogs were centered around one of the rivers in the
Manila area (IIRC). I took a similar approach with Saalangal, which is
from the words saal - island + angal - people (no special flowery name ;)).
>
>
>    As for the writing system, I have an idea.  Let us assume that the
>original inhabitants of the ship were illiterate, and that literacy, on
>the
>island of Waponi Woo, was limited to the Priestly Class for several
>generations.  Then, some enterprising Waponi, using the texts at hand
>(which
>would have been, no doubt, a variety of Greek, Latin, Aramaic, and
>possibly
>Ogham) might devise a syllabic system for writing his language -- without
>any reference to the original meanings of the signs (ala Sequoyah).  The
>priests would, of course, continue to use Aramaic and/or Ogham, although
>they might have to adapt the script to accomodate the sounds of Waponi.  I
>would probably pass these scripts through a Redjang filter to give them
>the
>right look.  How does this sound?
No doubt you should take into account the materials they would use to
write with, since that would affect the shapes of the letters. In South
East Asia, the letter shapes for the various scripts were very curvy and
round because they wrote on bamboo or palm leaves with a stylus (round
shapes were less likely to tear the cured leaves). They could use bark
paper for writing if Broussonetia papyrifera (paper mulberry) is grown on
the island. Ink could be made from candlenut soot, and pens from whatever
material is on hand for making pens. But, i dont know how well bark paper
absorbs ink, so a regular ink made of soot might not work with it. A
stylus could be used to etch lines into the bark paper, and then soot
rubbed in, as i believe was done in South India, if they have access to
metals.


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