Re: Language of saurian/reptilian beings

En réponse à Jan van Steenbergen <ijzeren_jan@...>:

>
> Does it make sense? Well, I guess in one's fantasy anything is possible,
> so why
> not?
> The only thing that doesn't convince me is the argument that birds
> descend from
> reptiles as a justification for tonality. In my imagination, the animals
> you
> describe above would rather growl than sing.
Sorry to be picky, but dinosaurs were not reptiles. We even know now that they
were not cold-blooded animals (but they were not warm-blooded either. From what
we know, dinosaurs had a system which allowed their body to warm itself up when
needed, without exterior source of warmth, but could also be switched off on
demand - to save energy -). And we have no idea what kind of sounds those
animals produced (to our knowledge, they could have as well sung all the songs
of Frank Sinatra ;))) ). But it's not implausible that the smaller dinosaurs
had some ranges of sounds different from growling.

Now it's true that the title of this thread is a little misleading, talking
about "reptilian beings" and then comparing with velociraptors. It's difficult
to compare those two kinds of animals which, beside some superficial
resemblance, are completely different.

> But, on the other hand, you will never hear me say that growling cannot
> be
> musical.
>
Are you too an amateur of Mongolian throat-singing? ;))))

Christophe.

http://rainbow.conlang.free.fr

Take your life as a movie: do not let anybody else play the leading role.

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