Re: musical talk? (sally)
From: | Baba <fikhduv@...> |
Date: | Sunday, October 25, 1998, 17:40 |
>>Baba babbled
>> Great idiots, er minds, think alike ;-) I'd an idea for a cat-like
>> alien who'd dual vocal chords so the 'tonal' languages of that world
>> used pitch, as chinese does, to distinguish homophones, while the
>> interval carried other info like "formality" fer' instance. ;-)
>>
>Sally Supplied;
>Cool! But what about encoding other kinds of information? I got into
>quagmires because it was just too difficult to turn chords into grammar.
I didn't think of chords, just intervals of two notes. Syntax and grammar
would have been as in human languages. My idea was a sort of chinese
with 8 tone/pairs the second tone carrying degrees of formality,
intimacy, urgency, etc.
Solresol interests me because one could think of it as an auxlang with
only 7 syllables the idea then is that in terms of phonemes there could
be a huge degree of sound variation for each syllable without sacrificing
intelligibility..
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. My idea
includes the concept that the longest word in the language would be
"Hello" because it would be all the notes/syllables in order - thus
giving your listener a sample of your pronunciation/accent so that
further conversation is possible.
The orthographic possibilities are interesting too. A syllabary with
more than one way of writing any given syllabic depending if it was
used as a word in its own right; a grammatical particle, an initial, medial,
or final; would make for ease of reading too. If the shapes were kept simple
they'd also be usable as a sign language (for aliens who'd no voice) or
"gesture clarifiers" when meaning is in doubt. "markers" to indicate
direction of reading, punctuation, and which "base" is in use for
numbers, as well as logographic "shorthands/ligatures" for the
most frequently used words would also be an advantage.
Anyway, its all at the thought-experiment stage just now and I'm kinda
busy researching a couple of non-fiction books and trying to find
interested publisher(s)
Regards
Baba