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Re: Introduction and sandhi scripting question.

From:Edgard Bikelis <bikelis@...>
Date:Wednesday, July 5, 2006, 22:45
    Hello!

Dirk Elzinga wrote:
> Hello, Edgard! > > On 7/4/06, Edgard Bikelis <bikelis@...> wrote: >> Hi! >> >> I'm creating a conlang (now unexpected here!), called Ausónia Bhâmaa, >> Ausonian, or 'golden speech', etymologically. Well, it is an >> indo-european >> conlang, with its morphology almost done, and syntax almost >> completely to >> do. For those wanting to take a look, here it is: >> >> http://ausonia.parnassum.org/grammar_0.3.9.3.pdf , or >> http://www.parnassum.org/ausonia/grammar_0.3.9.3.pdf >> >> It is a jungle of errors, as English is not my native language, and >> the text is not too up-to-date compared with my 'mental version'. >> Anyway, there is too my conscript, that at least I myself like. Nice >> comments are very welcome ; ). Note too that it is not intended to be >> a scientific description, at least within our science. Ausónos was >> quite excentric, mind you... > > I looked at the PDF, and I must say that I find the physical > appearance of the description to be quite pleasing. You'll have to > tell me how you did it.
Thank you. I did it inspired by the first printed books, 'incunabula'; and, specially the last page with that kind of bell shape, by Hypnerotomachia Poliphili. See this page: http://special.lib.gla.ac.uk/exhibns/treasures/poliphili.html Adobe Jenson is the font I used, and it fits very well with the whole of the page composition. Well, and that is it. The red details improve the reading, so I think, and is much more pleasant to see than a pure black page. The final version will surely be printed on a very light brown/yellow, just because I like it ; ). I just remembered, if you can find a proper italic, this font would look even better: http://apostrophiclab.pedroreina.net/0189-DayRoman/dayroman.html Seeing this I realize that I was too economic with this ligatures...
> > I also noticed that there seems to be a three-way "tug-of-war", if you > will, in the style of the description. First, you seem to have in mind > a "native" grammatical tradition from which you draw terms such as > 'dubious sounds' (for glides) and 'rude' (for aspirated). Second, you > use traditional/linguistic terms such as 'voiced/voiceless', > occlusive, etc. Third, there are terms which I suspect you are > translating directly from your native language (Portuguese?) which > don't quite work in English, or words which are used incorrectly, such > as 'semivowel' for the group of sounds /y w r l/ (the term > 'approximant' would be better here, if a standard linguistic term is > needed). The term 'semivowel' in my experience is reserved for the > sounds you call 'dubious sounds'. Of course, it may be that the terms > I've identified as belonging to a "native" grammatical tradition might > well be literal translations from your native language.
Yep, Portuguese, how did you guess? : ). You are right, I messed up. "Dubious sound" is from my own concoction, rude versus soft is from ancient Greek, the rest is from Portuguese, I think. I will redo everything, and this is a very crucial point to work on! BTW, I can't think about a good native nomenclature for voiced versus voiceless; I will see what Pa.ni.ni tells about it, if anything... I suspect he calls it precisely voiced and voiceless ; ).
> > I'm afraid I can't help with the technical questions you pose, but we > have a lot of knowledgeable people on the list who may be able to > help. > > Dirk >
Edgard scripsit.

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R A Brown <ray@...>