Re: Caucasian phonologies and orthographies

From: "Trebor Jung" <treborjung@...>

> Danny Wier sent me the inventory of Abkhaz, and I thought it might be
> interesting to make a romanization scheme for it. I've left out the things
> that are the same in X-Sampa (if anyone wants the whole inventory, tell me
> and I'll forward the list).
My one surviving conlang project (for now), Tech, has a large consonant
inventory inspired a great deal by the languages of the Caucasus, but since
I've posted it so much onlist, I can e-mail it to you personally if you
wish. (Tech is essentially Arabo-Georgian right now.)

> Labialized consonants are followed by <w>, palatalized consonants are
> followed by <y>, and ejective consonants are followed by <'>, same old
> thing.
Why not <j> instead of <y>? The latter would more likely indicate
labiopalatization. More precisely, an underscore would mark
superscripts/modifications: t_j, k_w etc. But I leave underscores out a lot
in my system (cuz in Tech I'd end up using so many it would be so ugly).

> Postalveolar sibilants: dy ty t'y zy sy
The correct way to represent postalveolars: /dZ/, /tS/, /tS_>/ (or /tS>/),
/Z/ and /S/. Alveolopalatals, which are found in Circassian (= Kabardian +
Adyghe), use /s\/ and /z\/ for c-curl and z-curl.

> Uvulars: q' qh x
> Pharyngeals: h hw
> Labiopalatal semivowel: j
That would be H in X-SAMPA, the sound of French semivocalic <u>

> Vowels: e a
/@/ and /a/ you mean. The front vowels /i/ and /e/, and the back vowels /u/
and /o/, do exist in Caucasian. In NW, they are allophones of the two
phonemic central vowels.

> Why is there no non-ejective uvular stop?
There actually is in some N Caucasian languages (and in S Cauc, Old
Georgian), but non-glottalized uvular stops are very unstable and tend to
become fricatives.

It is important to aspirated non-ejective voiceless stops and affricates, by
the way, in order to further distinguish them from voiced and voiceless
ejective. Aspiration is partly phonemic in Georgian in fact, because voiced
stops and affricates tend to be devoiced (but not aspirated) initially and
finally.