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Re: Mixed writing systems

From:Nik Taylor <yonjuuni@...>
Date:Sunday, November 3, 2002, 3:50
Steg Belsky wrote:
> Unfortunately i can't remember what the conlang or the > manga was called... i do remember that the conlang used a very > non-Japanese phonology, though.
The manga was called (in English) Crest of Stars, I forget the Japanese name. I can't remember the name of hte language, but I do remember that it was said to be derived from Japanese. Ah, a quick Google reveals that the Japanese name was Seikai no monshou. The people are called the Abh, and they use an *alphabet* to write their language. From the site: The Abh were created by a nationalistic minority group of Japanese who tried to exclude all foreign influence on their culture. Because the Japanese language developed under the strong influence of other languages (e.g. Chinese) from its early days, they had to recreate a new language from ancient Japanese to achieve their purpose. Obviously this process was too artificial; how can you fit the language of 2000 years ago into the modern life? Inevitably the new language was rather complicated and strained. Such was the first language that the Abh were given. Inevitably the language changed quickly soon after they left Earth. As one can guess, a language used in a small closed society drifts away from its original form very fast. The drift was accelerated further by the fact that the Abh didn't have an alphabet. The creators of the Abh did not want them, mere slaves, to develop their own culture and thought that giving an alphabet (a written language) would only encourage it. Later, when they declared their independence, the Abh created their own alphabet. Anyway the deviation was so large the current Abh language hardly bears any resemblance to Japanese. Let's take the Clan name of the Imperial Family, Ablïarsec, pronounced roughly [abliar]. This was originally the name of the star where the Abh decided to settle down and was taken from a Japanese Goddess of the Sun, Amaterasu. As you can see, it is very hard to find a link between the two words unless you are told how. -- "There's no such thing as 'cool'. Everyone's just a big dork or nerd, you just have to find people who are dorky the same way you are." - overheard ICQ: 18656696 AIM Screen-Name: NikTaylor42