Re: CHAT: another new language to check out

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
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