Re: Minyeva Babel Text

Garrett Jones sikyal:

> I have translated the Babel Text into Minyeva! That was quite the task. If
> anyone wants to see what the language looks like in actual usage, check it
> out here:
>
> http://minyeva.alkaline.org/babeltext.html
Yeah, this url is wrong.  After going through the main page, I found the
text at http://minyeva.alkaline.org/babeltext.htm.

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 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out-of-date, so perhaps you know now, or have gotten rid of the vowel (I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.)

>
> or just go to the main Minyeva page:
>
> http://minyeva.alkaline.org
>
> At the moment, I only have a slightly outdated vocab list, some links, and
> now the babel text.
>
> --
> Garrett Jones
> http://www.alkaline.org
>
Jesse S. Bangs jaspax@u.washington.edu

"If you look at a thing nine hundred and ninety-nine times, you are
perfectly safe; if you look at it the thousandth time, you are in
frightful danger of seeing it for the first time."
--G.K. Chesterton

Reply