Re: Balek, work in progress.

At 12:06 AM 2001-08-09, you wrote:

>It is fixed.  What there is looks interesting.  Why don't you like "hadha",
>"jetyähadha" etc.? (I do)
I don't like the (near) complete repetition of the Hadha root verb.  I
think it needs to be tweaked a bit more to make it different.
The same follows really with Thuta (To drink) and Thutanlu (wine).

Very different from one of my other sets: Mazá (To think on a grand
scale/Philosophize), Mazán (A religious/philosophical path) and Yàzána (A
teaching or lesson, which admittedly is a merge with another word and Mazá).

>Stress:  On the basis of your 4 examples, looks like:  Stress a final closed
>(-CVC) syllable, otherwise stress the next-to-last.  It's probably more
>complicated than that.
I'll write that down for future reference.

>I like the "staccato vowels".  Apparently they're separated by a glottal
>stop?  Systematically, they could be considered simply V plus [?], with the
...
>(the middle _a_ is very fast).  This would suggest that you ought to include
>glottal stop in your consonantal inventory, otherwise, why would it be found
>in just this one environment?
Cool :) I'll add the glottal stop, but as yet it is only used in the
staccato vowels... wait...
Hmm... I apparently also use it in verb conjugation (you'll see, when I get
the courage to put up my crap on the complexities of verbs in Balek)

>Just a personal preference:  I'd be happier to see your vowels/spelling
>system more in line with the "international" (IPA) values than with English,
>which I feel might confuse the casual reader..    But that's just me.
I don't know IPA symbols, really.  I just make guesses based on what I see
of other people's stuff.  And what is the difference between IPA and SAMPA?

>Letter Sound IPA Pronunciation
>á  ay [e] "lain" "ate" ---- why not use  _e_(or é, see below)
What is the difference between [e] and _e_?

I'll note your suggestions, but I really don't understand the meaning of
the symbols :(

>Just my 2 cents worth; of course it's all up to you.  :-)
And thank you for your input! :)

Just had another thought.

 > The clusters:  pf could be classed with the affricates.

Consider it moved :) Thank you.

 > ty, sy, and hy could easily be confused/mispronounced as tS, S, and ç (the
 > ich-laut)----  (S "sh" doesn't otherwise occur, but it could, couldn't it?)
 > Perhaps the "careful" pronunciation ty, sy, hy could be formal or high
 > register, with tS,  ç reserved for the common folk.?

I don't know what [S] sounds like, so I don't really know.  As to Hy
sounding a lot like the ich-laut, it does, yes.  In time, the plan is that
it will get merged in some versions (pidgins?).  However, the ich-laut is a
very common character in the language, so I don't think it will be reserved.

Though, as a note, it isn't a gutteral ich-laut.  I have a smattering of
German, and I remember it being pronounced differently sometimes.  Kind of
soft, I guess.

Martin

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