Re: Saprutum

Basilius wrote :

>>     <?> is a voiceless glottal or pharyngeal stop, distinctly
>>          pronounced.
> Oh... either glottal or pharyngeal... for me, not quite the same...
> and on your site you mention 'uvular', in addition... or do you
> mean that the pronunciation isn't known exactly to modern scholars ;) ?
There is some doubt about the exact pronunciation in ancient times, but
since Saprutum was adopted as a second language by a number of different
speech communities the point of articulation may have varied from place to
place. The consonant system was a lot simpler than proto-semitic and slightly
simpler than Phoenician and pre-lenition Hebrew. 19 or 20 consonants as
against the 22 of the Phoenician alphabet. The sound written here <?> seems
to correspond to both 'aleph and qof in other semetic languages.

The phonemic structure of the "throat" sounds is clear enough, there are
voiced and unvoiced occlusives /q, ?/ and fricatives /#, h/
Is this credible or don't things work like that when you get back into the
throat? I suppose /q/ could be [R] if a voiced occlusive isn't possible, but
I don't really want [R] if I can help it.

>> <q> is the voiced equivalent of the above, a sort of strangled "g"
See above. Seems to derive from "ayin but the point of articulation may have
shifted.

>> <#> which should really by a barred-"h" is a voiced [h] sound,
> Did you mean *hooked* h?
Hooked-h is probably the IPA symbol (depending on the exact point of
articulation). In the orthography I'm using the symbol is a barred-h, capital
an H with a double cross-bar, although any diacritic on an <h> could be used
to distinguish it from plain (voiceless) /h/[h]<h>.

> Basilius,
> coincidentally looking through various Semitic stuff for his own conlangs
Please point me to anything you find on-line relating to Semitic historical/
comparative linguistics.

Good luck and many thanks for your interest,

Keith