----- Original Message -----
From: Geoff Horswood <geoffhorswood@...>
To: <CONLANG@...>
Sent: Wednesday, December 15, 2004 2:48 PM
Subject: Proboscidean phonology
> So there I was, humming a humorous song about an elephant who decides to
> get amnesia so he could have an easy life, when I thought, "I wonder what
a
> language spoken by intelligent proboscideans would sound like?" It was a
> slow day at work, so I decided to see what I could come up with.
I know the feeling.
> My guess is (knowing next to nothing about the physiology of the
elephant's
> vocal apparatus) that probably the stops would become nasalised, you might
> get some odd phonemes connected with the trunk, and I couldn't think of
> much else.
>
> But anyway, this is my Proboscidean (as a working name for a conlang
> sketch) phonology. Comments welcomed.
would the ultrasound from the (forehead?) be a consonant or a vowel?
*curious*
> *Q a sort of nasal blow. I'm using _Q to mean "with nasal blowing". Any
> ideas for how to represent this would be appreciated.
+Q ?
> As far as the creatures themselves go, I'm thinking to give them a little
> more dexterity than a terrestrial elephant by increasing both number and
> length of the finger-like extensions on the end of the trunk- possibly up
> to as many as 8, in four pairs around the trunk.
just a thought, but why not keep the "fingers" normal...and have
object-manipulations be joint efforts between two or more individuals?
> No vocabulary or grammar as yet, but it's an interesting idea, don't you
> think?
I certainly do.
> BTW, has anyone tried to come up with an elephant conlang before?
I've considered sapient elephants before, but never in conlanging
terms.....and there was one listmember who tried to make a crocodile-based
conlang.