R: Re: Stress marking (was: Re: CONLANG Digest - 14 Oct 2000 (maglangs plea!))

Ceistophe wrote:

> > >I've not yet found an example where i, ou or u would appear between two
> > >vowels
> >
> > In mine it happens all the time, especially since b and v (originally
> > /B/)
> > switched back to their old Latin pronunciation of /w/ (but, this is only
> > in between vowels. Otherwise it's /B/). And, since the /j/ remained in
> > Montreiano (as in Spanish, like "mayor"), it is often between vowels, as
> > in the name of the language itself: Montreiano - /montrejano/
> > >
>
> I like it. It's quite Italian looking. As far as I remember, while French
and
> Spanish often use 'y' for /j/, Italian uses nearly only 'i'. I cannot
think of
> any Italian word with 'y'. Is it used in Italian Luca?
No. Italian alphabet uses only 21 letters:

a b c d e f g h i l m n o p q r s t u v z

Other letters are called 'straniere' (foreigners) and used only in loans.
Interestingly Italian had a very strong tendence to italianize everything
foreign, even names (In philosophy, i.e., I've just studied quys as Tommaso
Moro, Francesco Bacone and Renato Cartesio, aka Thomas More, Francis Bacon
and René Décartes). This tendence has been replaced within the last 10 years
by another tendence allowing free English loans (especially in subjects as
Informatics and Computer Science). I hate English borrowings, also because
they are, 90%, words English picked up from Romance langs. My father, rather
conservative, doesn't anyway use English words. He uses 'calcolatore' or
'elaboratore' instead of the evil 'computer'.

Luca

> > >
> > >
> > >In "Roumant", stress is a tricky point as it is only partly marked in
> > >orthography.
> >
> > Well, in Montreiano, i've decided to follow Spanish a bit, usually
> > stress
> > is on the penult, but when not, it's marked on the word to indicate
> > that.
> >
>
> I've always liked Spanish for that: you never wonder where stress is (for
French
> people who always have a hard time even learning what stress is, it's such
a
> relief...). And what about Modern Greek which marks stress wherever it is
:).
>
> > >
> > >I insisted on "graphically" and "written" because like French,
> > "Roumant"
> > >orthography is regular but not phonetic, and there are lots of silent
> > >letters or
> > >di- and tri-graphs.
> >
> > I like that. Even though I like phonetic orthographies, in other
> > conlangs,
> > it makes them interesting, because it decieves at first glance :) as
> > French has done to me when I saw it the first time (I still dont fully
> > understand it, but i havent really read up on it). Anyway, Montreiano
> > will
> > be phonetic (or at least regular), but i'm trying to make the
> > orthography
> > different. Some of my ideas are (to try and throw Romance speakers off a
> > bit :)):
> >
> > c - /k/ in all positions. So, where say Spanish would write "que" I
> > write
> > "ce"
> >
>
> In Reman, /k/ is normally only marked by 'k', but 'q' is also used in some
words
> like relatives, conjunctions and interrogatives (so that the equivalent of
> Spanish "que" is 'qe' /ke/).
>
> > ç - represents /ts/. This is the equivalent of c before i and e : çèga -
> > Sp. ciega (having ç allows me to use c for /k/ in all positions)
> >
>
> Again in Reman, 'c' marks uniformily /S/, in front of every vowel.
>
> > ñg - represents /N_j/ (not sure if I did the IPA correct there, but it's
> > /N/ followed by /j/) : anno - añgo
> >
>
> This one is really nice! :)
>
> And a last one in Reman: 'h' in Reman marks the semi-vowel /j/!
>
> Christophe.
>