Re: milimpulaktasin

daniel andreasson wrote:
>
> Robert Hailman wrote:
>
> > On another note, I've been toying with using the Cyrillic
> > alphabet to write Ajuk. It works, pretty well, but there's
> > no plausible explanation for why it came to into use. Ook.
>
> Ha! I've been toying with using the Aramaic alphabet for
> Nakiltipkaspimak just this evening. (Why oh why? I should
> be studying for my exam on Friday). I had some troubles with
> the vowels. I didn't like having them as dots above and below
> the letters so now [a] is written with the original letter
> "Ain", [u] is [q] and [i] is [S]! It looks much better though.
> And if the Greeks did it, then I don't see any problem with me
> doing it. ;)
>
> All the letters have names and meanings assigned to those
> names. [p] is _payin_ meaning "light", [u] is _upuk_ meaning
> "fish", etc. I'll see if I can scan in a copy of the dialogue
> "milimpulaktasin" written in "Axinpayin" and put on my site.
>
> I don't know where the Pimak live, but probably somewhere in
> the north east of Canada, or on Greenland. If someone can come
> up with a plausible explanation for why they came to use it,
> I'll be more than happy. Ook, indeed Robert! Ook. :)
>
:-) Ook is such an all purpose word, isn't it? On a message board I'm
on, I've influenced some people into using it. (Entirely
unintentionally, no less.) It's come to mean "no", "not", and "ookn't"
has somehow come to mean "don't" or "can't" - all in addition to the
original meaning.

With Cyrillic, I dropped all the letters like /ja/ and /ju/, because
those combinations are really too rare to have their own letters - I
figure it was a rather conscious decision by an Ajuk speaker to adapt
the Cyrillic script, as opposed to someone (say, the Soviets) forcing it
on there.

Although, like in your situation, I can't think of how the Cyrillic
alphabet would get there - it's not as far as the Arab world to
Greenland. The Ajuk, I figure, live on a small island some distance
south of Iceland.

I'm just looking at "milimpulaktasin" and imagining it in the adaptation
of Arabic you described, and (despite my very limited knowledge of
Arabic writing) I must say it's looking like it will look *very* cool.

--
Robert

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