Re: Laadan was Re: Posession

In a message dated 5/20/2003 6:14:48 PM Eastern Daylight Time,
stonegordonssen@HOTMAIL.COM writes:


> >It's a feature of Navajo, I think, so it's not as if she independently
> >decided that it was ugly enough for use as a pejorative
> >morphophonaestheme[1].
>
> From what little I know of Navajo, I don't believe it has any relation to
> specifying something as bad (or good) in Navajo. But how is this any worse
> than having no /g/ or /k/ or /s/ in a language intended for broad use on
> Earth?
>
In the Laadan grammar S.H.E. says that the pejorative use of "Lh" is
"patterned after a similar feature of Navajo, and is something so very handy that I
have always wished it existed in English."

That confirms that Navajo was the inspiration, but doesn't tell us how the
"similar feature" works in that language.

I have to say I was surprised by the level of hostility towards Laadan
exhibited during the previous conlang discussion on the subject.  Few other
languages have produced such heat here.

Doug

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