Re: Spelling

En réponse à Tristan McLeay <kesuari@...>:

>
> Etábnanni /"rAmn}n/ isn't terribly readable, at least to those
> unfamiliar with it. I was trying to get something odd but it failed
> and
> became too regular.
Bernard Werber, a French sci-fi writer mostly known for his trilogy "Les
Fourmis" (the Ants) states it quite well (I paraphrase here because I don't
remember the exact quote): the human mind naturally makes patterns, even in
places where they don't exist, and resisting this tendency is extremely
difficult. So it's not surprising that Etábnanni became too regular. It's just
a normal human tendency. I myself have terrible difficulties fighting this
tendency while creating Maggel. Until now, I managed only by having a
contradictory set of regular rules for the orthography. So although I still
have the tendency to use regular rules, those rules have been designed
consciously to fight the appearance of patterns :)) . I keep some, because a
natural orthography must have some patterns after all, but not too many. Also,
the result of those rules is that even without irregularities each polygraph
has usually three to five different possible readings. This helps making the
orthography look irregular. But in fact it's not irregular, it's just plain
evil ;)))) . Mwahahahahahahaha!!!!

 But Christophe (there, singled out again!)

The ransom of success :)) .

 has a
> really good one. Maggel I think it's called. He'll probably talk some
> more.
>
I just did :)) . But maybe you want examples? Well, let's loook at my notes...
I can propose you for instance the (admittedly stupid) following phrase:

hueisbfi hbiirh an ouhn: the man's beautiful dog.

It is pronounced (and you probably didn't guess ;)) ): ["heZvI "DIx_j @~n "AVz]
in X-SAMPA. And the evil in this is that it's an example of perfectly regular
orthography ;))))))))) (in the sense that it follows perfectly the set of rules
that I created. There are plenty of other words which don't :)) ).

Christophe.

http://rainbow.conlang.free.fr

Take your life as a movie: do not let anybody else play the leading role.

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