Re: Babel Text in Ayeri (With sound file!)

--- In conlang@yahoogroups.com, Sally Caves <scaves@F...> wrote:

> It was an aesthetic experience hard to describe.
> So when the same thing happened with Carsten's text, I was deeply
gratified.
> I guess it passed a "test" for me.
I know the feeling, I love nontrivial orthographies...
to a certain point.  When it comes to Irish Gaelic, I
have to agree with that recent post...  every once in a
while, I look up a page that explains the spelling, and
leave it an hour later with a huge headache and the
urge to punch someone.  ;o)  It seems to make perfect
sense at first, but then comes up with so many exceptions
and arbitrary extra rules that spoil it for me.



> It could work the other way around, too.  When they are unknown,
they are
> cloaked.  When they are known, they show their true faces.  I've
often felt
> that a word is a glass vessel, empty until it fills up with its
meaning for
> me.
That's pretty.  Of course, some glass vessels and liquids
are predestined for each other.  Can't serve a 25 year old
Château Montrose in a shotglass.  ;o)



> I've
> been on this list for almost exactly seven years (started, I think in
> February of 1998), and have blabbed AFMCL repeatedly about the long,
winding
> journey of inventing and refining Teonaht.
I bow before your experience, o Queen of the Long Winding
Journey.  ;oP



> Remind me of your own conlang(s), Christian.  Are they a priori?  I
think
> Jovian is one you've created IIRC?
Jovian is indeed mine, and a posteriori.  It's my most
active lang, since the derivational nature allows it to
grow much more quickly and into more complexity than my
a priori langs, while still feeling satisfyingly natural
and sounding "right".

My other langs are Obrenje (a bit aimless, haven't
given it much thought it a long while), Oro Mpaa (very
original and non-IE for my standards, but very demanding
due to exactly those reasons), Hombraian (Spanish
derivate for a scifi setting), Caelva (language intended
to be as beautiful as possible, abandoned in frustration
before long), Calípone (euphonic sketchlang inspired by
Greek, never got far, though IMHO prettier than Caelva),
and the tiny private lang my girlfriend and I are using.
;o)



> > What's wrong with nasals?
>
> Nothing!  It was a compliment to Carsten, who thought his text was too
> conventionally "pretty."
What I meant was that nasals were IMHO conventionally
pretty.  Quenya is full of them.

(Speaking of which, incited by all those pretty MP3
samples, I redid some of mine, including my rendition
of "Ai! Laurie...":

  www.cinga.ch/langmaking/spoken/Quenya/ailaurie.mp3



> > I'd have to agree that ng is not the prettiest of nasals, though.
>
> I love it!  I seem to gravitate towards weird initial clusters: nr,
mr, hm--
> and lots of back consonants like "k".  Nreklakemp.  Something to do
with the
> head. /'nrEkl@kEmp/   Just made that up.  Sounds like a neck cramp,
but that
> would be a dishonest application to Teonaht, which is more than just
relexes
> of English.  So what does nrekla "sound like" ?  :)
Obviously "tinker, repair; do meticulous work".



-- Christian Thalmann

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