Re: Feature script

YHL wrote:
>
>On Thursday, November 8, 2001, at 01:33 , Andreas Johansson wrote:
>
>>The recent posts on "feature scripts" finally caused me to sit down and
>>sketch a "native" writing system for Tairezazh (and Steianzh, Kesheazh,
>>Altaizh, Telenzh and other underdevelopped langs from the same
>>con-universe).
>>
>Not-yet-developed, not under-developed.  ;-)
We-ell, what's the difference? Altaizh and Telenzh are little more than
phonology sketches at the moment, Kesheazh have big nouns declensions but no
verbs yet. Steianzh is Tairezazh's sister language - while I have done
little work with it, I could pretty easily convert most Tairezazh stuff into
it.
>
>>The script, called "Maidzhen Klaish" in Tairezazh, isn't a completely
>>
>My apologies--what does "Maidzhen Klaish" mean?  (It sounds lovely.)
_Maidzhen_ is simply the pl of _maidzh_ "sign, letter". _Klaish_ is the name
of Tairezazh's mother language. To be exact, it's the Tairezazh form - the
Klaish form was _Xaláishu_ (noun) or _Xaláisha_ (adj).

In the form _Klaizh_ (influenced by the ending -zh seen in many lang-names),
the word refers to the dialect of Tairezazh spoken in Vaniza.
>
>>regular feature script, but has strong tendencies in that direction. The
>>basic lettershapes are good for computer screens and printed text, but
>>would
>>propably be difficult to write by hand (read - ample opportunity for
>>oddities) as "squary" vs "curvy" forms are very important. It's creators
>>intended it to be compatible with any language, wherefore it have numerous
>>signs that aren't used in Tairezazh.
>>
><whistle>  So it's a sort of IPA for your con-universe.  ;-)  Were the
>creators linguists?  Philosophers?  Some of both?
Well, linguists would probably use an extended form for IPAesque purposes -
or at least many extra diacritics.

The origin of the Maidzhen Klaish goes back to the early years of the
Federation (about 5500 years before the "present"), when Classical Xaláishu
was standardized and made into the Federation's administrative language. In
order to improve commincations, the local script that Old Xaláishu was
written in was regularized and expanded so that all the languages of the
Federation could have a standardized and convenient rendering in the same
script - hence the IPA-like qualities. Eventually, all the old scripts went
out of use. Indeed, the Maidzhen Klaish has spread far outside the borders
of the Federation (which, BTW, collapsed 2300 years ago).

>>There are four "basic" consonant signs, that primarily denotes voiceless
>>stops - normally [p t k ?], but if a language had, say, the series [p t c
>>k]
>>it'd be simple to apply them to that instead. Tairezazh only have [p t k]
>>,
>>and don't use the "?" sign. The characters look like, respectivly, a
>>squary
>>U, capital gamma, mirrored squary C and Z.
>>
>(I love your descriptions.  Cute!)
>
>>Ps If I feel like it, I may make a webpage with graphics to show the
>>things,
>>but there may yet be revision.
>>
>I would like that--I'm unfortunately not at all a visual person, so having
>an actual picture to look at would be helpful.
I'll try to get something up within a week or so. One day I may even do a
proper homepage for Tairezazh.

                                   Andreas

_________________________________________________________________
Get your FREE download of MSN Explorer at http://explorer.msn.com/intl.asp