Re: writing system for *eestaak

En réponse à bnathyuw <bnathyuw@...>:

>
> <etymological digression>
>
> anyway, the working name for the language is eestaak
> /'e:sta:k/, which, believe it or not ( of course you
> do, this is Conlang ) is derived from the root |tarak|
> with the prefix |ged|. *|gedtarak| contains two closed
> syllables, so the rules of consonant compression give
> |e0edta0ak| ( they're zeros, and the initial |e| is
> epenthetic ) > |eedtaak|. |d| devoices and compresses
> to |s| and you have |eestaak|
>
> </etymological digression>
>
Wow! If you added irregularity, you would have a pure case of Maggelity ;))) .
Of course, it would be even more Maggelish if you pronounced the word according
to its final form "eestaak" but always wrote it |gedtarak|!!! :))) My Itakian
does a bit like that by having a purely phonemic script (although it doesn't
mark tone), but the actual pronunciation of a word is always very far from its
phonemic start ;))) .

>
> there were originally nasal vowels, but these become
> homorganic nasals :
>
> Nk Ng nt nd mp mb
> ( ie, all other letters assimilate )
>
Do you mean that a former sequence nasal vowel+k became simple vowel+Nk? While
for instance a former sequence nasal vowel+s became simple vowel+s, simply?

> in closed syllables consonants compress :
>
> k g h t d s z r p b f v w
> h 0 0 s z h 0 0 f v w w 0
> ( zeroes again )
>
> Nk Ng nt nd mp mb
> Ng NN nd nn mp mm
>
This is not clear to me. Which consonant compresses? According to your first
example, it's the onset consonant which compresses, not the coda consonant. A
strange feature in my opinion (but as you know, I love strange features ;))) ).

One question: when does the epenthetic vowel appear and why?

>
> so : my proposed syllabary :
>
> ka ga ha ta da sa za ra pa ba fa va wa
> ke ge he te de se ze re pe be fe ve we
> ko go ho to do so zo ro po be fo vo wo
>
> all of these can be marked with one of two diacritics
> :
> ` and ° ( raised circle )
>
> ` marks the consonant as compressed. the nature of the
> consonant therefore changes, and the vowel of the
> following syllable is dropped
>
> ° marks the syllable as nasal. as nasalised syllables
> are also closed, the consonant compresses again, and
> the following syllable's consonant is subject to
> various changes
>
> so :
> eestaak would be written ege`setara`ka
> annag would be a°da`ga
> dihogga would be deso`goga
> eezzes would be ege`dede`se
>
>
>
> so : what do people think ? does this sound plausible
> ? workable ? confusing ?
>
Well, there's just one thing I want to make clear. You say that ` marks a
consonant as compressed. But you always put it on the coda consonant (which
according to your examples doesn't change) while it's the *onset* consonant of
the syllable which compresses (there again, I'm just following your examples).
Now, there's nothing wrong in that, but you cannot say that ` marks the
*compressed* consonant. You can say that ` marks the coda consonant. In such, it
just indicates that you don't pronounce the vowel of the syllabic sign marked by
`. Now since you have a coda consonant, the syllable containing it is closed and
its *onset* consonant compresses. But this needn't be marked by the syllabary
since compression is completely predictable by the presence of a coda consonant.
The same thing happens with the nasal sign. It indicates that the consonant of
the syllabic sign is nasal, which phonetically corresponds to the presence of a
nasal coda to the *previous* syllable, which thus is closed, and thus its
*onset* consonant will compress. There again, being completely predictable you
don't need to mark the compressed consonant in any way.

Well, I'm not really criticising you, actually I find the system quite neat. But
I'm under the impression you don't really understand the system you made
yourself, or you've not been very good at explaining it :)) . You seem to think
(or at least you explain it that way) that your marks show a compressed
consonant, while they show only the presence of a coda, which triggers the
compression of the onset consonant (which is not marked in any way in your
script) of the closed syllable.

About the script itself, I find the system very realistic. It combines features
of the Devanagari (the ` is definitely a virama, a sign showing that the vowel
of the syllabic sign *mustn't* be pronounced) and of Linear B (like the use of
the syllable sign with the same vowel as the previous one to mark a coda
consonant - ie. tak is written ta-ka, tek te-ke -). All in all, a very plausible
script.

> later i'll post some images and see what people think
> on them,
>
I can't wait to see them!!! :))

Christophe.

http://rainbow.conlang.free.fr

Take your life as a movie: do not let anybody else play the leading role.

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