Re: "Language Creation" in your conlang

At 02:46 PM 11/14/03 +0100, you wrote:
>To: Constructed Languages List <CONLANG@...>
>Subject: Re: "Language Creation" in your conlang
>
>At 01:32 14.11.2003, Isidora Zamora wrote:
>
>>We got really lucky here.  Índumom Tovlaugadóis (more easily pronounced and
>>typed by its Trehelish name - Cwendaso)
>
>Is it [tSwen"da:so] as I tend to pronounce it.
>(Tóó liberal doses of Sanskrit romanization will
>do that to you...)
>
>Actually I even say [ts\Hen-]...
It is properly (and I very rarely pronounce Trehelish with the care
necessary to get it absolutely right) ["k_wen.d6.sO].

I chose to use <c> instead of <k> in the Trehelish
orthograpy/transcription/whatever.  The first two characters in "Cwendaso"
are a digraph for a labialized voiceless velar stop.  The vowel in the
first syllable is tense, because the syllable is stressed.  The first
syllable (instead of the default penultimate) is stressed, because it is
heavy.  The phonetic value of the vowel in the second syllable is [6]
instead of [a] or [A], because vowels go lax in unstressed syllables, and
that's the closest thing that I can figure for a lax counterpart to one of
the low unrounded vowels.  (I don't know whether the standard dialect
(Sovchilen dialect, perhaps?  Sovchilen probably has several dialects,
depending on social class.) uses [a] or [A].)   The /d/ may actually be
dental, but I haven't decided on the particulars yet.  The final vowel is
[O], again, because vowels are lax in unstressed syllables.

If you can actually pronounce it ["k_wen.d6.sO], then you are doing better
than I am.  When I say it, it usually comes out as ["kwEn.d@.sa], with all
of the vowels and one of the consonants pronounced incorrectly.

Isidora