Re: CHAT: The Conlang Instinct

Bryan Maloney wrote:

> On Wed, 1 Dec 1999, Axiem wrote:
>
> > it, different sounds conjure different images. Note the word love..it=
 is
> > not a hard word, it is a soft word..methinks it got that way because =
of
> > association. Kill, maim, destroy, all are kind of 'harsh' sounding,
>
> Maim?  Maim?  My dear fellow, /meim/ is a very SOFT sounding word.  Whe=
re
> would you put /gIft/ or /gift/?  How about the adjectival form of the
> German word "Gift"?  It's even softer-sounding.  This is more in the
> realm of pop-philology than really examining language.  I'm reminded of
> someone in an early linguistics course I took who just WOULD NOT believ=
e
> that "ma" did not mean "mother" in every language on earth, no matter h=
ow
> much the Japanese professor tried to explain things...
Well, that's slightly different.  There is an actual typological
tendency for languages to have labials or dentals of some kind
for the terms for "mother" and "father" -- because those sounds
are usually the ones that children can first produce (especially
labials).  Gothic got rid of the usual Proto-Germanic word for
father (something like *fadar, IIRC) and used <atta>, with a
dental.  Turkish has a similar word for father, as in the name
<Atat=FCrk>, "Father of the Turks".


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Tom Wier <artabanos@...>
ICQ#: 4315704   AIM: Deuterotom
Website: <http://www.angelfire.com/tx/eclectorium/>
"Cogito ergo sum, sed credo ergo ero."
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