Re: Telona phonetics

daniel andreasson skrev:
>>>  [re-ordered]
I must say I love the labialized velar approximant.
It's almost exactly the voiced equivalent of the Swedish
"sje-sound", which in my idiolect is a voiceless velar
approximant, somewhat labialized. So there is no problem
for me to pronounce that. Especially since I'm pretty
good at forming the lips for the Swedish /y/. I do that
on a regular basis. :)
[...]
There are other things which seem Swedish-inspired too.
The short /Y/ being [@\] (well, that's what {u} is in Sw.),
the /u/ tending towards [}], etc.
[...]
Do you know any Swedish? (I'm also thinking of how you
were dissing it in favor of Finnish in the previous
Gilette-mail. :)
<<<

< broad grin >  Javisst!  I didn't mean to denigrate Swedish
at all, it's one of my favourite languages - I spent a
couple of months in Sweden two years ago.  Although I
consciously based the lip position of Telona /w/ on Sw.
/y/, I hadn't noticed the similarity to 'sj' at all - I'm
delighted!  And although I've heard practically every
fricative I know used for 'sj' at one time or another ( :P ), my
own Swedish accent uses a sort of simultaneous [x] and [phi]
which is probably pretty close to yours.  (I still
occasionally have some fun at work, using it in 'Sjögren's
syndrome' and watching my colleagues' faces as they try to
work out what I'm talking about...)  And again, you're
absolutely right, Telona short 'y' is exactly the same sound
as my Swedish short 'u' ... and I never noticed!  Cool.

> The phonotactics on the other hand...
Well, with a lifetime of conlanging in front of me, I wanted
Telona to have fairly simple syllable structure so I could
make its daughter languages more European (way, way in the
future...).  The languages I wanted it to look something
like on the page included Swahili, Finnish, Malay, classical
Greek (romanised :) ), Latin, etc., etc.  Not sure whether
I've accomplished that or not!  Sadly, Swedish wasn't on the
list (but I'm sure it will be for any future
daughter-of-Telona - you'll have to wait around a few
years!).

>>>
I like the phonetics of Telona and I'm looking forward to
the next posting. Post away!
<<<

Thank you - I'll try and do that later tonight!

Jonathan.
'får ej punkteras eller brännas'
(touch of thread-crossing there...)