Re: Gulliver

>     The point that's missing here is that these labels "Oriental" and such
> aren't his, but are Swift's, and they were functional back when Swift was
> writing.  That they are no longer politically correct doesn't
> mean that they
> can't still bear some functional load operating in Swift's time
> and only in
> Swift's time.  Besides, that's all there is to go on (or, at
> least, this is
> what I'm getting).
I actually saw the term "oriental" used the other day -- in something called
an "oriental keyboard". That's keyboard as in a musical keyboard. It's
designed for Middle Eastern music, as it includes instrument sounds and
rhythm styles found in Arabic, Turkish and Greek music as well as storable
"quarter-tone" tunings (modern Arabic music uses basically a 24-tone equal
temperament scale).

Generalmusic makes two such keyboards, one about twice the cost of the
other. Roland makes one, but it's only available in Europe and the Mideast.
I'm seriously considering getting one of these things, sinc the guitarist I
hang out with a lot nowadays wants to do some stuff with his new classical
guitar (he also happens to be Mexican-American).

Anyway, the term "oriental" of course comes from the Latin word for
"eastern". I am probably going to name my new _a posteriori_ conlang
something that derives from a word for "east".  But not "Oriental". Greek
gives me "Anatolian", but that's already used in the real world, and
"Mushriq" is applied to Arabic east of the Mediterranean (or maybe just
Levantine, or is it Iraqi?). Persian has the word _ra:st_ for "straight" and
"right", which is also the term for an Arabic _maqam_ (musical mode) and the
note equivalent to middle C.

So Rast (or Raast) is a possibility. I'm also thinking Maqam (literally
"arrangement") for a name. I still have that never-used homepage of mine so
I'll try and get something on there today.

~DaW~


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