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Re: SKETCH: Left-handed language :)

From:Tim May <butsuri@...>
Date:Friday, April 19, 2002, 20:46
Amanda Babcock writes:
 > A brief sketch in honor of my dumping a mug of boiling water on my right
 > hand, something that I can type without it :)
 >
 > PHONEMIC INVENTORY
 >
 > The language contains the following phonemes (chart looks best in non-
 > proportional font with tab stops set every 8 characters):
 >
 >         Bilabial        Labiodental     Alveolar        Alveopalatal    Velar
 >
 > Stops   b                               td
 > Affric.                                                 c               g
 > Fric.                   fv              sz              q               x
 > Liquids w                               r
 >
 > Plus the vowels a and e.
 >
 > (Interesting that the only stops missing are p and k, which happen
 > to be the only stops *available* in the Dvorak version of
 > left-handed-language...)

Well, in this orthography, yes, but q could be a stop.  And ' is a
glottal stop sometimes, I think. (of course, theoretically anything
could represent a stop if you're prepared to countenance a
sufficiently perverse orthography).
 >
 > ORTHOGRAPHY
 >
 > The language, unlike its Dvorakian cousin, is largely unpunctuated, having
 > only the exclamation point, and on some keyboards, the tilde.
 >

If you really wanted a challenge, you could try making a right-hand
Dvorak conlang.  I _think_ the only English word you can spell with
that set is 'cwm' (and you have to accept a fairly broad definition of
English to even get that).  Perhaps you could base it around syllabic
liquids and nasals...

Reply

Amanda Babcock <langs@...>