Re: clan of the cave bear conlang

Steg Belsky wrote:
> a few years ago i read the _clan of the cave bear_ series (officially
> called _earth's children_, _clan..._ is the name of the first book) by
> jean m. auel.
Is it any good?  I've been thinking about giving it a try.

The description of the language rather reminds me of the Yilane`
language from Harry Harrison's West of Eden trilogy.  The Yilane` (whose
name means "those who speak"), a race descended from a dinosaur species,
use a language combining movement and sounds.  One of the main
characters, a human, is captured as a child, along with an older girl.
They attempt to speak to them, but the girl didn't get the connection
between the movements and meaning and ended up saying some gibberish
which could be interpreted as "Speaking makes the female old" when she
meant to say "It is hard to speak", the Yilane` leader was angered and
killed her, but the other human was young enough to figure out something
of the language and managed to say something to the effect of "Please,
it is very hard to speak", altho it was initially somewhat difficult for
them to understand, since he had no tail and had to use a makeshift
movement to simulate a tail sweep.

> FEET = feet (hmm..then what would be the singular?)
Probably no difference between singular and plural.

--
"Old linguists never die - they just come to voiceless stops." -
anonymous
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