Re: NATLANG/Learning : Sanskrit

Muke Tever wrote:

> We'd also need to keep alphabet as okurigana, too, so:
> 光       "light"
> 光ent    "lucent"
> 光id     "lucid"
> 光minous "luminous"
> 光on     "photon"
> 光書s    "photographs" (or somesuch)
>
> I've always wanted to build a kleptographic system along these lines but never
> get around to doing so.
I once tried to come up with a system for writing Latin in Chinese
characters (called Lazi 拉字), figuring that since in this world English
borrowed the Latin alphabet, this would be a reasonable way to get
English written with Chinese characters in an alternate world. I used
katakana to represent Latin endings; the katakana map pretty well onto
Latin sounds except for the R/L distinction, which I solved by writing R
as Z (fitting with the S/R alternations in some words) and L as R, and
the F/H distinction, which I solved by omitting H. QVA / QVE / QVI etc.
are written with KU plus a small vowel. Katakana is also used for names,
e.g. アポッロー "Apollo", カエサズ "Caesar". Syllable-final consonants
are written with a final -u: 戰��  bellum (character for "war" + MU), 田
オス agros (character for "field" + O + SU).

The problem is that I don't know Latin, and I don't know very many
Chinese characters. So this never got very far. But in theory, you could
use the same character 戰 for "war" and the "bell-" in "bellicose", or
田 for "field" and the "agri-" in "agriculture".