Re: sabyuka : consonants, orthography, and a few things more

Christophe Grandsire wrote :

> I would like to share what should be the definitive phonological
> system
> of the conlang I am working on. It's name is composed of |sab| (the
> first syllable of Sabrina, my girlfriend who'll design the alphabet),
She's also been bitten by the conlang bug? You're lucky!

>> The idea is to create (the outline of ) an associated conculture,
>> where
>> the Society would be organized around language. Language would be
some
>> kind of God's gift, and would have to be adorated as so. Political
>> authority would be given to the best grammarians.
>
>How do you rank grammarians? On what criteria? Sorry to ask those
>questions,
>but I don't even see how that's possible...
Well, actually the conculture is very "sketchy", but the idea would be
that language leads to knowledge, and to knowledge to wisdom. And only
wise people could lead (or actually serve) the country. So grammarian
would be a high-considered function. Please tell me if it's not clear
enough.


>> That explains the
>> name
>> of the language.
>>
>
>Where would conlangers fit in such a society? Would they be hunted and
>persecuted, considered to pervert the gift of God, or would they be
praised >and
>revered like prophets, considered to have been given a special talent
by >God to
>replicate its own gift?

Oh, that's a good point, I had absolutely not thought about it. They
would certainly lose their status of Citizen, but I'll have to think
about it in more details.



>> Notes :
>>   - /ts/ is really problematic to me, because I want my system to be
>> first aesthetic, /ts/ might be in every position, especially final. I
>> had thought of |ç| and |z|, but I finally decided for |tz| : please
>> tell
>> me if you have any better idea :)
>
>I think |z| alone would fit, but |tz| is okay too. It makes the
language >look a
>bit like Basque or South American languages, both of which I find quite
>aesthetically pleasing.
That is exactly why I chose |tz|, because I like euskara and nawatl. But
there were good arguments given here for |z|, so I now hesitate.



>> Here is the transliteration of the vowel system :
>> /i/ --> |i|
>> /e/ --> |e|
>> /ei/ --> |ê|
>> /@/ --> |à|
>
>I kind of find it strange to use an accented letter to mark the schwa.
The
>schwa is to me the quintessence of the unstressed letter, and marking
it >with
>an accented letter is to me contradictory with its very nature.
It is to me to me too, and you cannot imagine how hard it is for me to
write it as |à| ;). Actually, I'm planning to build a website and
certainly a grammar book, where I would use the a with breve accent
("accent bref", as in latin if it is not the good word), and long accent
for diphtongs. But to make it readable for everyone here, I thought that
circumflexed letters would be good, and also that |à| could be a
not-so-bad approximation of schwa (as |@| would be even worse to me).


>I'd rather >see
>the schwa marked with a non-accented letter. The choice would be thus:
>- whether to switch |a| and |à|,
>- or to use another letter for /@/.
>For the second possibility, you could use |y| as proposed (if that
wouldn't
>make any ambiguity with /j/ - although you may want to add a little
>ambiguity,
>to add some theological discussions and disputes :)) -).
>
>Christophe.
Ok I note your remarks too. Thank you.

Julien