Re: Minyeva Babel Text

> Yeah, this url is wrong.  After going through the main page, I found the
> text at http://minyeva.alkaline.org/babeltext.htm.
whoops! accidentally put that stupid little 'l' at the end :P

> Anyway, I read through the translation and looked at the interlinear.
> Some of your choices of translation were certainly interesting, and not
> what I would have expected.  Very nice.  Aesthetically, it's not much to
> my taste (sounds too mushy--overmuch [Z] and [S]), but that is of course a
> personal preference.
I'm curious, what choices of translation in particular were noteworthy to
you? As far as the [Z] and [S] go, it's just a personal preference :)

> I did look at your phonetics page, and I'm baffled by your "vowel" /r/.
> If you're describing the sound found in "bird" in rhotic American
> dialects, it's a retroflex approximant, and not a vocoid at all.  However,
> if it's a round mid-central vowel, as you said, then it's not like
> American /r=/.  Which is it?  But you said that the grammar was
> out-of-date, so perhaps you know now, or have gotten rid of the vowel (I
> don't recall seeing it in your texts.)
yeah that vowel doesn't exist any more; the 'r' only exists as a consonant
now, and then, only after another consonant. I'll put up my phonetic rules
sometime. For vowels, i now only have the generic spanish a,e,i,o,u, plus
the diphthongs ai,ao, and oi.

--
Garrett Jones
http://www.alkaline.org