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Re: alien xeno-anthropologists (was: Abkhaz)

From:Caleb Hines <cph9fa@...>
Date:Sunday, August 8, 2004, 20:31
John Quijada said:
> > What "exotic" features about your language would you make up for alien > xeno-anthropologists who visit Earth after some nuclear or biological > holocaust to find you as the last living human being?
How about this: English only has one vowel, but it has many phonetic realizations. This vowel is never written in the text, but the consonants a, e, i, o, u, and sometimes y are silent and act as placeholders for this vowel. Under no condition is the choice of a placeholder consonant at all related to the choice of phonetic representation for the unwritten vowel. Indeed, the choice of phonetic realization often changes from one dialect to another. ~Caleb

Replies

Daniel Baisden <derelictdan@...>
Philip Newton <philip.newton@...>