Re: Star Trek conlangs besides Klingon and Romulan

Arek Bellagio wrote:

>In regards to the development of a Betazoid language:
>
>I've been rather iffy on the starting of developing a Betazoid
>language. Why? The problem is the fact that all (if not, at least
>98%) are telepathic. So the question arises; why would they need a
>vocal language? I've been struggling with this for awhile.
-----<snip>-----
>
>And actually, as I glance over my Star Trek Encyclopedia, I read
>the entry under Betazoids, which contains a sentence saying that
>Betazoids do not obtain their telepathic abilities until they enter
>adolensence, suggesting that they would _need_ a verbal language in
>order for children to communicate. So.. perhaps this ends the
>unsureness?
>
Depending on how fast these telepathic messages are transfered, I
was thinking: what about having _some_ "morphemes" or "phonemes"
transfered telepathically. If the transfer is instantaneous, then
you can have a series of telepathic elements supplementing the
phonology. This will probably have to operate on a suprasegmental
level though. If the transfer is a bit slower, then you can have
some grammatical elements transfered telepathically. Or maybe a
combination of the two. Lets call all these telepathemes. One might
even imagine that Betazoids who haven't reached puberty speak what
would be considered baby language in that the language would be
incomplete without these telepathemes. Thus, all human languages
would be baby languages to these Betazoids in that they completely
lack telepathemes.

Regards,
-Kristian- 8-)