Re: Name of my conlang

On Wed, May 22, 2002 at 06:52:51AM +0200, Philip Newton wrote:
> On 21 May 02, at 7:32, H. S. Teoh wrote:
> > On Tue, May 21, 2002 at 07:04:48AM +0200, Philip Newton wrote:
> > > On 20 May 02, at 14:20, H. S. Teoh wrote:
[snip]
> > > >         Ebisedian.
> > >
> > > A-B-C-D-an?
> >
> > LOL, that's a good one :-)
>
> Is that not the derivation of the word? It seemed so obvious to me, as
> if you had meant it.
No, not really. It's pretty coincidental, really. It comes from _biz3di_,
a word meaning "person" in my conlang. The epicene form is _bis33'di_, and
the plural epicene adds the 3- prefix to form _3bis33'di_. This word,
which simply means "people", came to refer to the race that speaks the
language; hence the Anglicized forms "Ebisedi" and "Ebisedian".

(Although strictly speaking it's a misnomer, seeing that native speakers
would refer to foreigners also as "3bis33'di". But I am just imitating
what sometimes happens with nationality names in the real world.)

> > But the "proper" pronunciation, at least as far as a native speaker
> > is concerned, is [&bisV:'di@n]. (The stress on the 3rd syllable is
> > from the original word, _3bis33'di_. Pity I can't send email in
> > LaTeX; the ASCII orthography is looking uglier by the minute :-P )
>
> If it's stressed on the third syllable, do you mean [&bi"sV:di@n]? The
> stress mark in both X-SAMPA and Kirshenbaum ASCII IPA comes *before*
> the stressed syllable.
You're right. I haven't used SAMPA / Kirsch for a while now, and I seem to
be mixing them up with my orthography :-P That pronunciation isn't really
"official", though, since "Ebisedian" has no corresponding word in the
language itself. I was just extrapolating from the native word _3bis33'di_
which stresses the third syllable.


T

--
And life still goes on...

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