Re: musical talk? (sally)

Baba wrote:
> Say syllable one could be any sibilant+vowel; so s,sh,z,zh + a,e,i,o,u;
> no matter how mixed together would always be recognizable as syllable 1.
> Thus a Creole/Pidgin made up of such a "code" would be an ideal lingo
> for communication between a large variety of aliens who's different
> vocal apparatus precluded them pronouncing things identically.
Similar to my thought-experiment of a Galactic Language.  In this
language, all the possible "phonemes" are divided into two classes
(which for humans would correspond to consonants and vowels), only AB
(i.e., CV) syllables would be possible.  Humans could map out these
"phonemes" as consonants and vowels, other aliens could map them out
other ways, e.g., a chameleon-like species could interpret them as
different colors, arbitrarily divided up into two classes.  To
communicate with a species, you'd need to know their mapping.  If you
spoke with a chameleon-race, you'd know that a certain color is
equivalent to /k/, for example, and thus you could look at their colors
and interpret them as sounds (tho it would probably take some practice
to properly interpret them), and they could hear your sounds and
interpret them as colors.  You'd have to learn different species'
mappings, and allophone-like variations in their "phonemes", but it
would be easier than learning another language for that species.

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