Re: Uusisuom language (Online lesson)

At 10:38 pm +0200 27/3/01, daniel andreasson wrote:
>Daniel Tammet wrote:
>
>> Uusisuom is a new, auxiliary language designed for
>> international usage.
>
>If we exchange "auxlang" for "conlang" and delete "for
>international usage", I think it's a nice-looking language.
>Well, I think it's nice-looking anyway but you know what
>I mean. :)
I agree on all points.

[snip]
>
>It looks very agglutinating and with a nice, "pure"
>phonology.
Tho some parts of its phonology are unclear.

We are told that "pronunciation of the letters is similar to English, with
these exceptions:
.....
y = pronounced like 'oo' as in 'bOOt'."

This unequivocably means that {y} = [u]; I assume {u} does not have the
same sound and that "similar to English" must mean that {u} = [V], i.e. the
'u' in American & southern British 'but'.

"r = r is rolled, like French or Russian" is a puzzling statement since the
standard French /r/ is _not_ rolled.

The normal French /r/ is an uvular approximant with not the slightest trace
of a tap, flap, roll etc.  Rolled Rs may be heard in France: the apical
trill (like the Welsh, Scots & italian /r/) is still heard in rural areas
of the south; the uvular trill is still occasionally encountered, but is
considered 'old-fashioned' by most.

I'm less familiar with Russian.  My understanding is that the apical trill
was the norm, but that uvular /r/, now common in German as well as French,
is becoming common among younger speakers - but I may be wrong.

But whatever the case, I am unclear how Uusisuom /r/ is to be pronounced.

We are not told how double vowels a pronounced; I assume they indicate long
vowels.  So is the name of the language [V:sisVom].  I assume doubled
consonants are, indeed, geminate (as in Finnish & Italian).

Ray.


=========================================
A mind which thinks at its own expense
will always interfere with language.
                   [J.G. Hamann 1760]
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