Re: You might be a conlanger if...

Here's a few more:

*You're asked to leave a restaraunt after practicing voiced velar (or
uvular) fricatives (or affricates).
*You wonder where the grammatical errors are in these jokes, since they all
start with asterisks.
*You think that prepositions are cool things to end sentences with.
*You write /kul/ instead of k001 when instant messaging.
*Your spouse wakes you up at night asking what "shkazarat kinumoza" means
(because you were muttering it in your sleep).
*Your spouse doesn't wake you up any more because s/he's used to it.
*You don't like "s/he" in the above joke so you create a lang without
gendered personal pronouns.
*You ponder a creolization of Arabic, Japanese, Tagalog and Celtic (and
possibly a historical setting to explain where it came from).
*You want to try deciphering the Voynich Manuscript.
*You think these jokes make a good translation excercise.

<YAEPT>
> > */ju k&n izIli rid DIs lajn Uv tEkst wITaUt Ini c@nfjuZ@n/
>
> /aIm k@nfjuzd baI D@ I In Eni/...
I can say either in my 'lect (Midwestern American English, AFAICT). For
some reason, /Ini/ seems to be prefered (perhaps less opening of the
mouth). In fact, I think that in my 'lect, /E/ in general is moving
towards /I/, which leads to a pen/pin merger. While I will often
pronounce /pEn/ for "pen" when trying to be correct (or if I could be
misunderstood), in sloppy or hurried speech I don't give a second thought
to pronouncing it /pIn/. It also leads to "many" -> /mIni/ (merges
with "mini") and "men" -> /mIn/. But, for example, in the phrase "many men"
I seem to pronounce it as /mEni mIn/ to avoid duplicating the
syllable /mIn/ (and maybe to avoid it sounding like "mini-men"!).

This doesn't apply to all /E/'s though, since e.g., "text" is definately
NOT /tIkst/. Nor is "elk" pronounced /Ilk/.

Thinking about it, the rule might be that stressed /E/ tends towards /I/ in
front of nasals. Examples:
end -> /Ind/
sender -> /sInd@r/ (merges with "cinder")
empire -> /ImpaIj@r/
emblem -> /Imbl@m/
Ent -> /Int/
emanate -> /Im@nejt/ (questionable)
These words aren't _always_ pronounced the way I've shown (often /E/ is
used), but the pronounciations I've given don't neccessarily sound wrong to
me.
</YAEPT>

~Caleb

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