Re: conlang online

On Mon, 23 Oct 2000, Dan Sulani wrote:

> On 22 Oct, Yoon Ha Lee wrote:
>
[snip]
> >Hmm.  In the original conception how did you decide what sounds a
> >dragon's vocal apparatus would be able to make?  I have a friend who's
> >puzzling over this, and the best suggestion I could give her was to have
> >her talk to a speech pathologist or herpetologist, alas.  Do you have any
> >suggestions for resources?
>
>     Well, Yoon Ha, speaking as a practicing speech pathologist,
> I haven't a clue! I _did_ study human anatomy (cheating on the
> exams was overlooked as long as you only felt around on
> your _own_ body!  ;-)   ), but I haven't the faintest idea about how
> to treat a hoarse dragon!
Oh dear!  <laugh>  I was thinking that a speech pathologist would have a
much better idea than I (who knows nothing about sound-production) what
sorts of vocal-apparatus a dragon might have and what sounds it'd make.

> (or, for that matter, a hoarse horse [all together now: <Groan!>]  :-)  )
>     Anyhow, who says that dragons are constructed, internally, exactly
> like snakes? After all, I've seen snakes spit venom, but as yet haven't
> seen any belch fire. Maybe dragons have all kinds of internal
> anatomical oddities which don't show up on our (external) illustrations
> of them (that's all I need, _another_  81/2-centimeter-thick book to learn:
> "Gray's Anatomy of Dragons"!  :-P    ), and these oddities enable
> them to produce all sorts of sounds.
<G>  Well, that's the other problem.  In said friend's world the dragons
come from an evolutionary-tree of six-legged creatures; I don't remember
details, but I could ask her.  The problem is neither she nor I know what
sorts of oddities would do what, and she's really meticulous about
details like that (even though it's a magical world).  I know she's got
*very* detailed stuff on plants, because she's a horticulture major.

>         Seriously, a good acoustic engineer (especially one involved
> with electronic speech production) or linguist (especially one
> working on experimental phonetics [although, there are also people
> in my field doing this type of research] ) might also be valuable
> sources of info.
I'll pass on the suggestion.  Thanks a lot!

Best,
YHL