Re: interestin' gamelang?: Cuotl from 'Rise of Nations: Rise of Legends'

R A Brown skrev:
 > Eric Christopherson wrote:
 >> On Apr 23, 2007, at 7:15 AM, Benct Philip Jonsson wrote:
 >>
 >>> On 19.4.2007 Eric Christopherson wrote:
 > [snip]
 >
 >>>> Why /L\_w=/? I would think it should be pronounced
 >>>> /V_0/ :)
 >>>
 >>>
 >>> The reference is to the Swedish letter Å which is /o:/
 >>> rather than to IPA. Non-Scandinavian fans are wont to
 >>> write STARGÅTE, which is also how the sign is used in
 >>> the logo for the show.
 >>
 >>
 >> Oh... well that much I got, but I still don't see where
 >> /L\_w=/ comes from.
 >>
 >>> To us it is of course silly, since the cognate of _gate_
 >>> is _gata_ 'street', which has /A:/, coming from a short
 >>> /a/ in Common Scandinavian. The associaton with Greek
 >>> Lambda is of course my own,
 >
 > Which, surely, explains the lateral approximant.
 >
 > I understood Philip to be using a jocular 'portmanteau'
 > pronunciation, amalgamating, so to speak, Swedish Å and
 > Greek Λ - that is , a combo of

Yes, rather interpreting the ring above in its Swedish
function as a diacritic for backness and roundedness applied
to the sound of Greek Lambda, and since it stands between
two stops it becomes syllabic.

 > After all, the symbol concerned is *not* an upper-case
 > Swedish Å, but an upper-case Greek lambda with a small
 > circle above it, see: http://stargate.mgm.com/

Exactly.

 >
 > A syllabic rounded velar approximant [L\_w=] seems a fair
 > enough result to me.

Thanks to our resident Graecist for getting what I'm getting
at and explaining it to the humans! Alas not the first time
my jokes are too dense for those not sharing my philological
baggage! :-)
--

/BP 8^)
--
Benct Philip Jonsson
mailto:melrochX@melroch.se (delete X!)
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"If a language is a dialect with an army and a navy,
of what language, pray, is Basque a dialect?" (R.A.B.)