Biwa (was: YAC: ...)

Daniel Andreasson skrev:

>If there is one thing to say about your langs, Carlos,
>it is that your orthography is always so cool! You go
>all the way. I wouldn't have the guts to do so. I'd
>forget how it's pronounced in a sec.
>
>{ ýr } for /9Yr`/, { pov } for /pow/, etc. The most
>beautiful word is { cij } for /ki/. I think I'll adopt
>the { -ij } for words ending in [i] in Rinya. And I
>might just change the palatal consonant { y } to { j }
>as well, and save the { y } for the vowel.
>
>I was very impressed by your artistic reform of
>English orthography, even though I didn't say anything
>at the time.
Thank you.

> > Personal pronouns: (unnumbered, singular, dual, plural)
> >   Note that animates use nominative for the subject of
> > intransitive verbs, while inanimates use absolute for
> > the subjects of intransitive verbs.
>
>Aha. So you have a split-ergative lang. Where exactly is
>the line drawn between animate and inanimate?
>
>Come to think of it, this is almost like an active /
>split-S lang, since the split only applies to
>intransitives, but with a very unusual reason for the
>split; animate / inanimate.
>
>Could you clarify this system a bit further? It seems
>really interesting.
Even if I'm not assigning this language to any culture yet,
it is designed as it has a history.  Part of this history
would be that it was originally an active language that
became isolating, but pronouns still reflects the origin as
active language with a split ergative.

The line between animate and inanimate (real or neutral)
could be defined by:
- Humans are animate
- High order animals are animate
- Some low order anumals are animate
- Groups of people are usually animate, at least if they
   had an identity: nations, corporations...
- Gods, spirits and other such things are animate.
- Most abstract concepts are neutral
- Abstract nouns derived from verbs are neutral.
- Concepts you would call "things", chances are they are
   real.
- Some plants and fruits are real, other are neutral...
   a few are animate.
- There are exceptions

About the ortography, it also reflects a history, but some
of the features would suggest a Latin origin, with {v} for
/w/ and {c} for /k/.

A posible evolution could lead into somthing like long/
short vowels evolving different.

Well, I'll decide a temporal name for this language: Biwa,
from {biva} /biw@/ "language", Biwa in English.

Probably Old Biwa had long and short vowels:
  i i:   y y:  u u:
   e e:  2 2:  o o:
         a a:
but those vowels had different evolution:
  i -> 1     i: -> i:  -> i
  y -> y     y: -> 2:H -> 9Y
  e -> E     e: -> e:  -> e
  2 -> 9     2: -> @\: -> @
  a -> V     a: -> A:  -> A
  o -> O     o: -> o:w -> ow
  u -> U     u: -> }:  -> }

But history could have been different: probably there was
only seven original vowels which were lengthened in open
syllables, and then evolved as shown above...

Something I had not mention yet is that in Modern Biwa,
length patterns have changed, and checked vowels (1, y,
E, 9, V, O, U) are long or semi-long before certain
consonants such as lenis stops.
  /p/, /t/, /k/ vs /b/, /d/, /g/ are actually fortis vs
lenis and not voiceless vs voiced.

-- Carlos Th

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