Re: Obscenities

On 30 Aug, Jeff Sheets wrote:


>Dang, I can actually burp voluntarily, but I had never thought of using the
>act as a phoneme!!!  It would fit the concept of "filthy" orcs, although in
>most of my con-cultures that include goblins and orcs, they are a tad more
>civilized than this...  :)  It would be difficult to control such phonemes,
>at least as a human.  Maybe such orcs would have better diaphram control...
>I wonder how many humans could even speak such a language.

    Quite a number of them, actually,
 and yes it is difficult to do.
As a Speech Pathologist, I know!
You see, when a person loses his larynx
(usually due to cancer), the normal way of
producing sound is gone. To compensate for that,
we sometimes teach the person to quickly swallow air,
quickly belch it back out and, using that sound,
to articulate the tongue, lips, etc. like normal.
Someone proficient in this technique can make
himself understood quite well! Unforutunately,
it _is_ difficult and not everyone who might benefit
from the technique is able to master it.

    ObConlang:
    In rtemmu, there is a prefix with the meaning
"utterly revolting":   g~go-  /Ngo/.

"va'i  g~goshye!"  would be a general curse.
(va'i = expression of emotion, shye = existence)
while "va'i g~gomhu" would be in the sense of
"you (singular) are utterly revolting. To make it
worse, one could use "zhu" as the 2nd pers. sing.
meaning: "many are listening, but I am focussing
only upon one listener, you!". Thus: "va'i g~gozhu!" means
"Of all the people listening to me, you in particular
are utterly revolting!" The 2nd pers. plural is similar.

    Dan Sulani
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likehsna rtem zuv tikuhnuh auag inuvuz vaka'a.

A word is an awesome thing.