Re: M

On Wed, 4 Jul 2001 16:55:22 +1200, andrew <hobbit@...> wrote:

>> ch as in CHirp        ng as in siNGer or siNGle
>No distinction between /N/ and /Ng/?
Not in spelling, but only in pronunciation. A minor irregularity. A few
words with intervocalic /N/ have to be memorized (hangar, dinghy, gingham),
but it saves the trouble of having to create a new letter or write the
frequent /Ng/ as something like <ngg>. Perhaps over time this distinction
will be lost in Martian speech, but it persists in modern English even
though we don't distinguish it in the spelling.

>> dh as in THat         r  as in Rock
>Pa^kiya^ Ma^rshen is non-rhotic.
In general, Mârshen spelling retains sounds that are silent in some
dialects but pronounced in others, so "herb" is <hërb>, for instance (the
<h> is silent in some dialects, and the <r> in others). (Oh, I should have
noted that syllabic l, n, r are written <ël> <ën> <ër>.)

A similar example is provided by the word "laboratory" -> <laboratori>.
American colonists pronounce it as if it were spelled <LABratori>, and
British colonists as <laBORatri>!

Depending on dialect, "forehead" may be pronounced with both /r/ and /h/,
with the "r" silent, or with the "h" silent! There's still an irregularity
in the spelling of the vowel (<i> vs. <e>), but <forhid> would obscure the
connection with <hed> "head", so the Mârshen spelling is <forhed>.

Epenthetic vowels might be an exception to the general rule. I haven't
figured out what to do with them. But I don't like the thought of having to
write words like <athelît> with "extra" vowels in them. Maybe it's just an
irrational bias on my part and the Martians would just go ahead and write
it that way. Or maybe they decide that it's better to save space and leave
out sounds that can be predicted from the phonology.

>> gh as in loCH         t  as in Tone
>'gh' is pronounced like 'k' in Pa^kiya^.
An engineer from Scotland insisted on including it in the alphabet. Most
Martians pronounce it as /k/.

>> hw as in WHich        v  as in Valley
>This dialect of Ma^rshen does not distinguish 'hw' and 'w'.
It's a rare distinction even in modern English. But I'm assuming there
might be one or two Martian colonists who still make the distinction. For
the others, it's a convenient way of distinguishing words in spelling that
are pronounced alike.

>> a  as in bAt, fAng, mArry      â  as in grAss, fAther, mArs
>>    unstressed: lavA, llamA     å  as in wAtch, bOx, bOrrow
>Does this mean if a /@/ follows an 'a'-based letter it is spelled '-a'?
>A stressed 'a' can rise in pronunciation to sound /E/.
Unstressed <a> is generally used for foreign borrowings, in words where /@/
is derived from an original [a] or [A] sound, and also in certain names.
Thus: yoga -> <youga>, Africa -> <Afrika>. Actually, I guess there's no
reason not to use it for initial a- in words like "about" and "around",
especially since it would occur naturally in words like "address" ->
<adres> /@'drEs/ ~ /'ædrEs/.

>> e  as in bEt, pEnguin, vEry    ê  as in bAIt, bEAr, vAry
>Hmm.  Very and vary are almost the same in my idiolect.  I think it
>sounds like very /vEri/ ~ /vE:ri/.
I had to look these up; I speak one of those dialects that merges the three
/er/ sounds. But supposedly the difference is something like /veri/ "very"
vs. /ve@ri/ "vary". That /e@/ is the same sound as in "bear". Although
"vary" might not be the best example, since it can be pronounced to rhyme
with "marry". Now that I think about it, "fairy" vs. "ferry" might be a
better pair to illustrate this distinction.

>>    unstressed: Alive, sofA     ë  as in fUR, fURry
>Can 'e-umlaut' be used for the sound in refEr?
In all the dictionaries I checked, "fur" and "refer" have the same sound.
If these sounds are distinct in Pâkiyâ, perhaps "ï" could be adopted for
one of the two. How do they differ in New Zealand English?

>> i  as in bIt, rIng, vIrulent   î  as in bEEt, bEArd, wEAry
>>    unstressed: rEfer, citY
>Unstressed /I/ rises to /i/ when word final.
American English does this too, but it's a general rule to write unstressed
vowels in Mârshen spelling without diacritics. (This neatly avoids the
conflict between American /'sIdi/ and British /'sItI/, among other things.)

>> o  as in bOss, wrOng, Orange   ô  as in bOUght, wALk, shOre
>Hmm.  I would spell orange as 'ouranj' in this orthography.
"Orange" might be one of those irregular words, then. How about "fOrest"?

>>    unstressed: Obey, echO      õ  as in bUt, tOngue, wOrry
>> oi as in bOY, cOIn
>> ou as in bOAt, gOld, shOW
>> u  as in pUt, fUll, fOOt       û  as in bOOt, tOUr
>>    unstressed: hindU, voodOO   ü  as in fEW, nEW, pUre
>>
>Can 'u-umlaud' be used initially or does it need a 'y-' in front of it?
That's a good question. It seems odd to write "you" as <ü>, "Europe" as
<Ürep>, or "Yukon" as <Ükon>! So preserving initial <y> might have some
justification in these cases. But it might be nice to be able to write
"union" as <ünyen> or "Utah" as <Ütâ>. I haven't decided all the details of
vowel spelling; this is a bit of a rough sketch. But I think I might allow
both spellings. Mârshen spelling isn't meant to be exactly phonemic, just a
good guide to pronunciation.

Speakers of various dialects initially should be able figure out the
pronunciation of any word without looking it up, except for a (hopefully)
small number of irregular "tomato-class" words that vary in unpredictable
ways. By the time Mârshen becomes established as the official language of
Mars, some of these variations will probably have been evened out, and a
distinct Martian dialect will develop. But it has its roots in a variety of
English that's probably not too different from the English spoken today. So
it seems logical to approach it from that direction.

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