Re: Goblin phonology

On Mon, 16 Aug 1999, David G. Durand wrote:

> /o/ Should be rare in Orkish, the more so the closer the dialect is to the
> black speech, given Tolkien's note that Black speech totally lacked /o/.
Not quite, as John pointed out.  It is found in Orkish dialects.  (Mind
you, I can use a suggested association between Black Speech and Sumerian
to go have another look at Sumerian...)

> The length distinctions seem very reasonable given the ring inscription.
>
Actually based on articulations found in British dialects suggested to
work with: Cockney, Midlands, Scouse, Glasegian...

> I think the grammar should be very regular and agglutinative, given
> Tolkien's expressed preferences, and his basis for disliking many
> artificial languages. Of course there should be manay abbreviations and
> acronyms, for extra hideousness.
>
Abbreviated speech made sense to me, but I didn't think of making it an
anti-IAL.  Thank you for that!

> I'd also expect a lot of vowel drift in actual pronunciation: partly
> because the orcs are so "slovenly" in their speech, and partly because I
> think some sounds (like turned c, [&] (ae), [I]) are relatively
> unnatractive. Also glides with central vowels. Shouldn't schwa be in there
> along with wedge?
>
Funny, I like the sound [&], that's why it went in instead of [a].  Lots
of short mid sounds then.  I think schwa will occur because of drift,
rather then being in the value of letters.  If by wedge you mean a mid
back sound, I deliberately left it out because many northern English
dialects do not distinguish it from [U].

This gives me a lot to work with.  But I will have plenty of time to work
it out - and hopefully see how Orcs behave on set!  A vocabulary is coming
along slowly, I listen to what people say and if I hear something I can't
figure out I try and remember and include it with other words I already
know.  It's slowly building up.

- andrew.
--
Andrew Smith, Intheologus                       hobbit@earthlight.co.nz

    Jesus is working out his salvation; he is about halfway there.