Re: 2nd email - Introducing Bakoyu: Language highlights

On Mon, 18 Mar 2002 05:46:48 -0800 Heather Rice <florarroz@...>
writes:
> > What are timed vowels? Vowels which are not
> > pronounced when the speaker's too
> > late? :)))
> Right!!!!  :-))))   No, actually, they are a long
> vowel spoken twice as long, kinda like two long vowels
> put together.  This is somewhere along the line of the
> Japanese  -------- (I don't know the exact name of
> their type of vowel, just know it makes a difference
> in pronunciation).  There are only three of them in
> bakoyu, a, o, and u.
-

Sounds sort of like Rokbeigalmki's "tilde-lengthened" (i.e. "ã") vowels,
named after the diacritic written on top of them.  They're about twice
the length of a regular vowel, as if the one vowel were two separate
syllables.
Then there are "accent-lengthened" vowels (i.e. "á"), which are just a
bit longer than regular vowels.
I mark them as:
"a" = /a/
"á" = /a:/
"ã" = /a::/

> There is a distinction between instrumental and
> accompaniment phrases.  Both use the same preposition
> - s', su = with.  Accopaniment is in the spacial case
> and instrumental is in the causal case.
> Su zpatlititl la fiona - With a needle (zpatlitit-l) I
> sew.
> S'moj la fu - With you (mo-j) I walk
> TseTse
-

The Rokbeigalmki accompaniment case-prefix/preposition also has S, in it,
it's _sa'_.  Although it's not used for instrumentals - that's _ya'_ -
but it is used also for the concept of "near, next to".

Sa'wadh-a azá. = I'm at (or next to, near) the river.
Sa'atidhm azú wa'wadh-a. = I [went] with friends to the river.


-Stephen (Steg)
 "...i nga'laur tzii ghalu, tzii ghalu,
  kaz-tzat-a tza'kéíl."