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

----- Original Message -----
From: "Christian Thalmann" <cinga@...>

> --- 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...
That's a terrific term.

> 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.
The learning of Irish Gaelic, particularly Old Irish, was a headache for me,
and never properly accomplished at Berkeley in the way that Welsh was, which
I gravitated to for its poetry.  Nevertheless, I'm in deep admiration of
Irish spelling and pronunciation, fiendish as it is, and wish I had a
conlang that was more orthographically maggelitous.  One thing I have been
experimenting with in Teonaht is reduction in pronunciation while
maintaining the old spelling.  Spelling systems commonly don't keep pace
with pronunciation... which explains the reforms made in Gaelic and
suggested for English.  But here's an example:  Tobre hdar syl aittear?
("What's your name"?)  The 'hdar' is the interrogative particle, but it's
being replaced by /ar/ and /r/: so that formal pronunciation is /'tobrE Dar
sil ai'te:ar/ but informal is /'tobrar sil 'te:ar/.  I think I want to take
off the "ai" from "aittear" because it gets too confused with the inanimate
pronoun: Tobre hdar aid aittear? ("What is its name")

And:  Kwa hdar perva?  "Where"?  is pronounced "kwar perva?"

Another "truncation" of pronunciation occurs in a metathesis of consonant
and vowel reducing a disyllable to a monosyllable with diphthong--and I had
wondered on CONLANG if any natlangs had ever done this: harod, "rabbit,"
reduced to /haOrd/.  This would occur in only certain CVC combinations,
though, and most notably with "r."  And it would be irregularly applied.


>> 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
I deserve that gentle sarcasm!  ;)

>> 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),
Okay, this is the one I also remember from other Conlang RELAYS.  I think.

 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)
I bow before your prolific production of more than one conlang! :)  Do you
have pages on these?


>> > 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.
Yes, indeed.  In fact most front consonants (and liquids) are, it seems: h,
l, n, m, b.

> (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 believe, Christian, that I actually played one of your Quenya readings to
my Berkeley audience two years ago.  Incidentally, this page won't open,
damn it.  Are you deep voiced?

>> > 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".
Then that's it's meaning!  nreklarem, "to do meticulous work that requires
eyeglasses and often gives one headaches."  "To fiddle."

Sally

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