Re: Tit'xka (Pretty Long Post)

> Well, I mean, does the language show alternations in the forms of
> wordswhich changes in
> the phonology created?  For example, in English, the
> words "life" and "live" originally contained the same consonants;  [v] had
> originally just been an allophone of /f/, and occurred only between
> vowels.
> Later, when the vocalic element dropped off due to the loss of infinitive
> inflection endings (i.e., "[lIv@n] --> [lIv]"), the formerly only
> allophonic
> [v] become fully phonemic: /v/.   So, now we have the case in English
> where
> /f/ : /v/ exist in various cases as irregularities based on the original
> morphology.
> Does your language (yet) have anything like that?
>
Not at the moment, but I might be getting into that.  I'm sure that given
time the differentiation between n /n/ and n /~/ will be made, and perhaps
even word final h's.  One of the reasons I have not added this is because
the Tit'xka are relatively young, and the language is strictly controlled by
the clan mother, who may live up to 1,000 of our years.  The only major
changes to the language will be introduction to surrounding prey, er, I
mean, nations. :)

[snip]

> Well, I just checked the Kirshenbaum system that you said in another
> postyou use, and I
> didn't see any /K/ there.  (look at
> <http://ftp.cs.brown.edu/people/dpb/ascii-ipa.html> to see what I mean).
>
> I think the normal transcription for aspirated consonants is to have a
> superscript /h/, or in ASCII IPA, just an /h/:  /kh/ as in "cat".
>
Now that I have learned the difference between aspirated stops and
fricatives, I can tell you that I was clinically insane for at least a
month.  Where I came up with /K/ is beyond me, you're right, it doesn't
exist in the Kirsh. system, or any others that I noted.  The sound I want is
in fact /x/, the voiceless velar fricative.  I might also, on that note,
introduce phonemic distinctions between non-aspirated and aspirated stops.
If I do, that will be a later development in the languages, and quite
possible unique to one or two of the four castes.

> > > Typologically speaking, when languages have three vowels, the very
> > > strongtendency is to
> > > have /i/, /a/ and /u/ (e.g. Gothic).  FYI.
> > >
> > Try telling that to a creature who would rather feed on your carcass
> than
> > speak to you.
>
> Sorry. :)  I had already posted that before you either posted your
> originalcomments about
> the lifeforms, or before I had read it.
>
That's okay.  Fortunately, the Tit'xka are currently just figments of my
imagination, and are unlikely to take their aggression out on anybody
"real".  The straight fact is that the Tit'xka do not have the exact same
anatomy that we do, and therefore are currently limited in the respect of
vowels.  Their vowels can accurately be represented by ours, but the Tit'xka
pronounce them slightly differently, and it is nothing that humanity, or
other humanoid mouths, are going to be able to duplicate.  It would take
Digital Signal Processing techniques to accurately modify the vowels, and
since the Tit'xka do not live in a technologically advanced setting, that is
unlikely.