Re: Tong-cho-la, a philosophical language

From: "Andrew Nowicki" <andrew@...>
Subject: Re: Tong-cho-la, a philosophical language


> Joe Fatula wrote:
>
> JF> Initial Consonant:
> JF> p t k m n f s h ch w l y
>
> JF> Vowel
> JF> a e i o u ai ao eo
>
> JF> Final
> JF> none m n ng s l
>
> Example: yos-son-ni sounds like yo-so-ni.
True.  There are a few such combinations that could be possible.  But
consider an example using English, the similarity of the words sleep and
slip.  If I said a sentence that sounded like "I was getting tired, so I
decided to go to slip.", you'd know that I meant "sleep".  "Yo" and "yos",
being different root words, would have very different meanings.  But
"yosson" and "yoson" would end up sounding different, just as "ready" and
"red D" sound different in English - we lengthen the "d" sound to make it
clear that there are two in "red D".  Still, context would make it very
clear.

> Why so few vowel combinations?
These are the most different sounding from one another.  Consider the
similarity between:

ae / ai
ao / au
oi / oe
eo / eu

The more vowel clusters allowed, the more they start to sound like each
other, and the more context is relied upon to understand.

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