Re: DECAL: Examples #1: Phonetic inventory examples & motivations

First off: *wow*. I wasn't expecting quite such a response.
(Especially since I got almost nil responses to my previous DECAL:
posts... maybe it's the chance to talk about your own conlangs that
means I get a response? :-P)

I will probably compile all the answers (to these and future
questions) into a huge Excel file, so that I can compare side-by-side
- perhaps a binderfull of standardized fact sheets per conlang. I'll
try to put it on my personal livejournal, since I think I can have it
host files now (though maybe that's limited to pictures), and update
as I go along.

That'll take a while, though. For now, a couple small responses:

AA:

"Will these materials also be available to list members? I'm sure that
I'm not the only one here who would be interested in seeing what you
use. :)

Will your students be assigned required reading or research topics
from this list? That might be interesting. I wonder how many people in
your class will become conlangers afterward? :)"

Of course. Everything possible is being hosted on the class website
(as I mentioned in an earlier DECAL: post) -
http://www.livejournal.com/~conlangs_decal (/info).

So far, I've posted mostly-finished (heh... heh... yeah right) lesson
plans for five units (~= 8-15 days), in the form of detailed outlines,
and a list of research questions I need to answer to flesh them out
more. (Actually, I think I'll respost that one here, since I'm pretty
sure at least some of y'all  will know the answers offhand.) Of
course, I've come up with *more* stuff to add to them in the (one day)
interim, but that's to be expected. ;-)

All of the homework, handouts, etc. etc. etc. will be posted as much
as possible. The reader will probably include a few things that I'm
not allowed to post online, like selections from some books. Some more
things will probably just reside in my scra^H^H^H^H notes until I
manage to edit them into the online versions. Plus, there are some
handouts, homework, etc., that l may want to keep private until I post
them (even if they're done).

I have yet to find someone willing to host the videorecordings of the
classes, though, so I don't know if I'll be able to have those
available online. I may resort to serving it from my home computer via
login-req'd FTP, but that adds complications - and my upload bandwidth
is not that large.

Research topics *from the list*? No. However, the list is cited as a
major resource; one homework is to at least look at it. And there will
be research-type questions.

That, and it'll be hard to avoid becoming a conlanger, since the final
project is to have a conlang good enough to do a Babel translation.
:-P

HT:

"Haha, usually anything *but* conlanging is referred to as Real Life
(tm). :-)"

I didn't call it Real Life (tm), I called it "Real Live [Conlangs]".
:-P As in, more alive than the yet-to-be-made ones for my class. ;-)

On the other hand, I guess you could say that by making a "secret
vice" into a college class, it is now Real Life. Progress!

General:

Almost everyone seems to have chosen phonologies purely on aesthetic
grounds (or a desire to sound funny :-P). Any of you have
otherwise-motivated examples?

 - Sai

P.S. I'd prefer if you only do reply-to-list for these threads; if you
send to me also, gmail gets a bit confused. Not a big deal, though.