Re: conlang online

On 22 Oct, Yoon Ha Lee wrote:

>On Sun, 22 Oct 2000, Mario Bonassin wrote:
>
<snip>
>>
>> The name for now is Draikonik, until I find a better one that fits.   I
>> started this with the idea of writing a language the first Dragons
>> spoke, its evolved some since then.  I'm using it to help keep me
>> focused with the type of language I want.  Theres just so many cool
>> things to pick from, its hard deciding on stuff.
>
>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!
(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.
        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.

Dan Sulani
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likehsna rtem zuv tikuhnuh auag inuvuz vaka'a.

A word is an awesome thing.