Re: I'm back.
| From: | Christophe Grandsire <grandsir@...> |
|---|
| Date: | Monday, August 23, 1999, 11:20 |
|---|
Danny Wier wrote:
>
> s@lav~,
>
> I've been real busy for the past few months (and will continue to be, at
> least I'm not so bored), so I left the list. But I'm back, after I've made
> some breakthroughs in my conlang work. Here is what's going on right now...
>
Hello Danny, glad to see you back.
> Tech: Okay, so I've changed my mind. AGAIN. I've gone back to using Ge'ez
> (Ethiopic) syllabrics for common writing, but the liturgical language of the
> predominant religious institution, the autocephalous Techian Orthodox
> Church, is a mix of Coptic and Syriac (it's a mixed rite). So you'll see
> all three scripts much of the time, along with Latin and Arabic, since
> English, French and Arabic are minority languages.
>
> The phonology has been changed -- and amazingly, it's been expanded. There
> are well over three hundred consonants now, all derived from a complex
> system of palatalization, labialization, fortis/lenis distinction, even
> double articulations (kp, gb etc.) and clicks! Counting length, nasality,
> and pharyngealization, there are about a hundred vowels.
>
Four hundred phones!!! I hope you describe that at the phonetic level,
and that the phonemic level will be easier (please! :< ). But still...
unpronounceable!
> As of now, the language will still be based mostly on Afro-Asiatic, but with
> a bias toward Semitic and Egyptian. But I plan to throw in some Meroese,
> since thousands of years ago in their homeland of east/northeast Africa,
> they came in contact with both great civilizations of the Nile. I may only
> have a vocabulary for a while, since I'll have to do some MAJOR research on
> grammar, which like the phonology will be very complex, using extensive
> inflections, mixed nom-acc/ergative construction, free word order (which
> tends toward VSO or SVO), polysynthesis especially with pronouns, and a huge
> vocabulary, much of which is borrowed from classical Egyptian, Semitic and
> Indo-European languages, as well as modern languages from Hindi to English.
>
A kind of melting-pot isn't it? Techia seems to be a very important
civilisation to have met so many other people. For how long has it
existed?
> I've really been working on the non-linguistic data on Techia. I might move
> them from the south Caribbean to the Bermuda Triangle area, all depending on
> the results of some mad research. Techians are still mostly African, but
> thanks to their nomadic history and contact with many great civilizations,
> they have intermixed with Semites and Indo-Aryans. The result: a tall,
> majestic and beautiful people with a rich history and culture, and a really
> fun bunch to hang out with.
>
I think so. When will you make an Encyclopedia Techianis? :)
> Big Six: I've suspended work on this attempt at a global IAL for now. I
> might discard it all together, or just start over with a new approach...
>
> ConScripts: This is turning out to be my specialty, since I apparently am
> most interested in phonology and writing. Right now I'm tinkering with
> Hangul/Korean script, trying to work out a universal phonetic alphabet,
> which could be used in lieu of Latin letters for Big Six. Tech writing,
> unto itself, is an experiment on adapting Ge'ez to an extremely large
> phonology.
>
> Other stuff: an Elvish-Orcish language based on North Caucasian (meaning a
> major league phonology that could rival Tech), a Dwarvish-Gnomish language
> based on various Eurasian sources especially Altaic, and maybe some really
> quirky projects, like a form of communication using the saxophone (like
> Solresol but also using timbres as well as pitches, so it would be an
> all-vowel, multitonal language).
>
A saxophone language, Saxlang? Seems intereting. Any idea of a sung
language based on that? (not everybody can play saxophone :) )
> Coming very soon: the Tech numerals and punctuation marks. A preview: Tech
> has a base-twenty number system, so the traditional Coptic-Ethiopic numerals
> have been re-valued to the numbers one through nineteen. Of course, a zero
> has been added. (I'm using the GehzEdit font, so if there are any copyright
> issues, PLEASE let me know!)
>
I'm eager to see more. Bye.
> @xrIzd'ij,
>
> Danny
>
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