Re: Futurese

Javier BF <uaxuctum@...> wrote:

 > > c) PHONOLOGY
 > > Lab. Dent./Alv. Pal. Vel. Glot.
 > > Ocl. p / b t / d k / g '
 > > Affr. ch
 > > Fric. f s sh h
 > > Nas. m n ñ ng
 > > Liq. l / r
 > > Aprox. j w

plenty of people cannot articulate ñ and ng as initials, like many americans
pronounce New York as Noo York. other difficult stuff: [ji], [wu], telling
[s] from [S], pronouncing [h] for spaniards, french, italians, slavs, etc.
anyway, with a CVCV pattern and {p, t, tS, k, l, m, n, N, j, w} my Tunu
artlang beats your Futurese auxlang.

i tend to care more about the number of people who can or can't pronounce a
phoneme than the number of languages featuring or lacking it. in other
words, i'd rather merge b and p, d and t, g and k, r and l into one phoneme
to make a lang easy for chinese to pronounce and understand it while i don't
plan merging m and n to please rotokas.
72% of languages distinguish r vs. l, but a billion people don't, so i
wouldn't either. on the other hand, original japanese had no [si], [ti] or
[tu] but japanese people can pronounce them without any problem so i would
keep them even if i was designing a lang for asians.

>>>
 > > * JAPANESE (poor sound system = of course, VERY EASY to pronounce):
 > >
 > > -Anata ga kono otoko no ko to ikitakunakatta ne.
 > > (You didn't want to go with this child, right?)
 > >
 > > ...my tongue is starting to get dizzy!!
<<<
(i) not all sentences are such in japanese.
(ii) each syllable of this sentence is easy to pronounce for a majority of
people.
(iii) if yourself cannot pronounce a, na, ta, ga, ko, no, o, to, ko, i, ki,
ta, ku, ka, ta, ne, then maybe your orthophonist could help
(iv) you're not forced to say them all at once 100 m/ph
(v) i don't quite follow your argument that an IAL should feature phonemes
that billions can't pronounce or tell from each others just because this
makes the IAL easier.

i work in japanese very often and my tongue has never suffered from it.
japanese consonants: h, P, b, s, z, S, dZ, tS, m, n, t, ts, k, g, 4, j, w,
and i must forget some other ones (dunno whether bj, pj, kj and rj should be
in).

>>>
 > > * SAMOAN (perfect example of extremely poor sound system = of course,
 > > this one must certainly be DEAD EASY to pronounce):
 > >
 > > -O fea e fa'atau ai se fuâlâ'au? (Where can I buy a fruit?)
 > > -'Ou te lê mana'o 'i le mea lena. (I don't want that)
 > > -E fia le tau aofa'i? (How much is all of this?)
 > > -E mafai ona 'e fa'epa'û la'itiiti i lalo?
 > > (Can I have it at a cheaper price?)
 > >
 > > ...MY OUTRAGED ACHING TONGUE IS CLAIMING FOR REVENGE!!!
<<<
the problem here is the glottal stop and the clusters of vowels. if you drop
the glottal stop and the long clusters of vowels, the phonology is easy. but
i can see that Futurese keeps the glottal stop.

>>>
 > > As you see, having a poor sound system doesn't turn a language into
 > > an easy one to pronounce, but quite on the contrary, because having
 > > so little to choose from, the same sounds and syllable structures
 > > have to be used really frequently thus turning simple sentences into
 > > annoying nearly-unpronounceable tongue-twisters.
<<<
people learning japanese will all tell you that the phonology is easy. the
problem is to make word patterns that make words sound different enough from
one another. if "toro" means "arm" and "tori" means "finger", then you're in
trouble.

my guess is that you don't like a "poor" phonology--i'd rather you to say a
limited one compared to european languages--because you irrationally dislike
it. you don't want an IAL to sound "childish" like japanese or samoan do.
you are a typical auxlanger in that regard: you set tenets first based on
your personal subjective likings, then you make up arguments to discard
other systems and justify yours.

mathias





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