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digraphs in Lenmoct

From:Jake X <starvingpoet@...>
Date:Sunday, April 27, 2003, 16:20
['Sr\ejas 'sampat r\oUt]:
> > Hi all. > > > > This is my first mention of my newest language (sketch), > > Lenmoct. The name is pronounced ['lEm:VC] and means > > mother-goddess. My goal was to create a reverse-sexist > > conlang with an interesting- looking orthography. > <clip interesting stuff> > > I'm a big orthography nut. > Tell us more about your orthography, Jake. What's the methodology > behind it? Is't more or less random, or do you have a methodology > behind all your exotic multigraphy?
Well, it's not completely random. Here is a list of all the digraphs and their pronunciations and reasonings. Then I'll try to sum up. cg: [x] my favorite. I saw the x sound as something aproximating |c| and |g| but that could not be spelled easily with the latin orthography, barring the use of h. I banned h from my orthography, because it was too simple for making digraphs. td: [T] Based on the same reasoning as cg. ct: [C] T adds breath. What can I say? There is no conventional reason for this, nor does it make sense with t as a stop, but I used it. There were no other sounds like [S] in my phonology (which would be |st| under this reasoning), or I would have spread this rule farther. ci: [j], cu: [w] I thought that c looked good initially and it was a consonant, so could give its "consonantness" to the vowel following it. dd: [r] The rolled r sounds like many d's in rapid succesion. nm: [m] I reasoned that [Nm] was an invalid cluster and didn't sound well. (|n| is /N/ in most places) All other cases of singular m were lost through sound changes (except in pronouns) and what was left were these, with the unpronounced |e| between n and m removed. I think that's it. If not, too bad. So, for the most part, I was thinking about the way it would look as a whole and reasoning people would use without a good background in phonology. What do you think? Jake (I sent this out earlier as a personal message by mistake, so it it is to the group).