Andreas Johansson wrote:
>I wanted to take the opportunity to take a bit about elflangs and
>"Elvishness" as regards conlangs.
>I doubt
>we'd perceive a language with a general sound of "Khuq-khaak-zbnug" as
>particularly Elvish, so the debt to JRRT is hardly the whole story.
>
>So, is there some set of features that have established themselves as
>"Elvish"?
Here's a few I can think of:
+Elvish:
<c> for /k/
Coronals
Acutes, breves
Open syllabes
Approximants
Moderate amounts of nasals
Diftongs and vowel clusters
<h> digraphs
-Elvish:
<k> for /k/
Gutturals
Circumflexes
Obstruents, especially in clusters and codas
Of course, this cannot be exhaustive - Latinate words like "auditorium" can
fit the criteria but still avoid appearing +Elvish.
All IMO of course.
John Vertical