Re: Click-Only Language

On 6 Sep 2002 at 14:42, Arthaey Angosii wrote:

> Has anyone ever heard of a conlang that only used clicks?
...delurking...

Yes. Well, kind of. Not *purely* clicks, but clicks plus precious little else. I had a
language that started life as clicks plus schwa plus phonemic nasalisation, that gained
phonemic rounding and tones as it grew. Didn't get very far, though. Fairly strictly
one syllable per word, isolating, Modifier-
Head, SOV, formally identical pronouns/copulas/definite article. I had never gotten
round to anything too fancy, like relative
clauses or tenses beyond a basic present/non-present/irrealis proclitic. Its name was
mQlo` and it lead to some quite
interesting discussions with Rob Nierse (sp?), who as I recall was quite knowledgable about Clicks,
Tones and other linguistic Africana.

The language mQlo` also had a semi-started variant which could (with practice) be
spoken continuously, while the speaker
inhaled and exhaled normally.

For your Scorpions, I'd be tempted to add a few voiceless laminal and/or lateral
fricatives, and quite possibly some non-
vocal stuff.

My advice on notating the types of clicks? Invent your own system. Let it evolve
if needs be. Translate it to IPA or whatever
after the language is fairly set-in-stone. A neat non-XSAPMA way is to use p! t! c!
k! l! r! and so on, plus maybe t$ c$ l$ (or
whatever) if you have two (or whatever) distinct methods of articulation. mQlo`
distinguished -- I think -- three series of
clicks.

...relurking...



---
Pb