Re: Degaspregos

On Sunday, December 9, 2001, at 09:35 , Christopher B Wright wrote:

[don't know who wrote about Desapregos since the cite's been lost]
>> Degaspregos had a whole series of clitics for functional morphemes.
>> Here're some stuff from my old webpage:
>
> First, you have about 35 letters. That means you have to make digraphs in
> plenty and perhaps use some diacritical marks, both of which I try to
> limit. Either it makes typing long ("is that alt+0235, or alt+0233?"), or
> it makes the word uglier since it contains punctuation marks. (My two
> main conlangs have 23 and 20 letters respectively, and only one has
> digraphs or diphthongs. Neither uses diacriticals.)
>
:-p  My opinion-based comment on this is: what if you like digraphs,
diacriticals, or both?

Personally, I try to minimize both for efficiency reasons, *but* I work
with simple phonologies.  If you're in H.S. Teoh's situation (as he noted
in an earlier message), the Roman alphabet ain't gonna cut it.  God only
knows, I'm forced to use digraphs whenever using the McCune-Reischauer
romanization of *Korean*, because the vowel system just plain doesn't fit.
   (Yes, there are diacriticals, but they're those funky "curved
circumflexes" that I've never been able to produce on a computer.  Why
couldn't McCune and Reischauer have used the far-more-common circumflex is
what I'd like to know...)

> Second, I don't like the syllabic style, since it allows consonant
> clusters of 3 consonants. I always have a very sparing syllabic style, a
> reaction to English. If I spoke Georgian as a native language, it would
> be worse.
<laugh>  And some people like consonant clusters...I don't mind them
myself.  I'm especially fond of German in that respect, e.g. [Str].

Now, do two opposing opinions cancel each other out?  <G>  Probably
not--but then, I don't believe it's a requirement that everyone agree on
someone else's conlang.  The diversity of goals, aspirations, and
aesthetic values on this list is immensely inspiring to me.  :-)

Yoon Ha Lee [requiescat@cityofveils.com]
http://pegasus.cityofveils.com

Math illiteracy affects 8 of every 5 people.

Reply