Re: Name mangling (Was: Re: First Sound Recording of Asha'ille!)

--- In conlang@yahoogroups.com, Andreas Johansson <andjo@F...> wrote:

> The _ñ_ has been in all along. I'm not terribly happy with it either
- it's the
> only diacritic'd letter, for a start - but the realistic alternative
is using
> 'k' or 'q' for [N], either of which seems overly perverse to me, not
to speak
> of 'kh' or 'qh' for [G~], or, horror of horrors, 'kc' or 'qc' for [Nk].
There's always 'ng'.  Not the prettiest of sights, but way
preferable over 'ñ' IMHO.  [Nk] can just be written 'nc'.
Even in Oro Mpaa, where everything else is extremely regular
(albeit weirdly so), I write [Ng] as |nc| rather than |gc|.



> I kind of like the nasal frics. They give rise to some very neat
alterations. :)

I'm not even sure I can pronounce them.  I think I end up
with [to~G] instead.



> What did you think of the introduction of [h]? I must say I'm rather
proud of
> alterations like _tash_ [tah] ~ _tans_ [tans].
I love syllable-final aitches...  Hombraian is full of them.
:)  I must have missed that introduction, though.  I haven't
been following the list closely lately.

So is tash the new way to say tans, or a dialectal variant?



> Your name, BTW, would most straightforwardly be adapted as
Cris-Tiean Tal-Man
> [kris.tSi.jan tal.man] or Cris-Tean [kris.tSan]. In normal usage,
the hyphens
> would be dropped, of course. In fact, I've not yet decided whether a
> hyphen-equivalent is used at all in the native script.
The former, although less fluent, is preferable.  I tend to
give my name as /'kris.ti.@n/ in English, since I'm not fond
of being homonymous with a religious term.  Most of the time
I'm /kris/ anyway.



> Incidentally, I'm considering making [G~] > [Z~] before front
vowels. Would make
>  sense, since [G] > [Z] in the same position.
I adore [Z], so I ain't complaining.  ;)  Still, I'm rather
wary of those nasal frics.  They are certainly original and
worth experimenting with, but do you really have to test
your new chemicals in a crystal chalice?  :\



-- Christian Thalmann

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