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Re: CHAT: another new language to check out

From:Ray Brown <ray.brown@...>
Date:Thursday, July 1, 2004, 5:25
On Wednesday, June 30, 2004, at 06:12 , Andreas Johansson wrote:

[snip]
> At the risk of bringing the curse of Rotokas down on me, I'm gonna assume > that > Swahili might be the native name,
Almost - it's actually 'Kiswahili'. Names of languages normally begin with the prefix ki-
> and wonder if allowing CYV, where Y=glide, > syllables, really is optimal if we want the phonology to be as easy as > possible. > Very many languages, or so I'm told, only accept CV syllables.
Swahili does indeed allow such syllabic structures. It also has syllabic [n=] and [m=], which is foreign to many languages, but fine for us anglophones. But it does allow [N] and [J] as syllables initials; the former is particularly troublesome to anglophones. Also, in common with other Bantulangs, it has prenasalized plosives a syllable initials, e.g. the greeting _jambo_ /dZambo/ is disyllabic, both syllables being unblocked thus: /dZa.mbo/. Hardly optimal if we want the phonology to be as easy as possible.
> > Andreas > > PS The above should not be construed as implying that I think that a > simple > phonology necessarily should be a high priority design goal for an IAL, > only > that I'm assuming it for the sake of the argument.
In which case, I suggest Rotoakas ;) Ray =============================================== http://home.freeuk.com/ray.brown ray.brown@freeuk.com (home) raymond.brown@kingston-college.ac.uk (work) =============================================== "A mind which thinks at its own expense will always interfere with language." J.G. Hamann, 1760

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Joe <joe@...>