CONLANG Digest - 8 May
| From: | Muke Tever <alrivera@...> |
|---|
| Date: | Wednesday, May 10, 2000, 7:23 |
|---|
> From: Muke Tever <alrivera@...>
> Subject: Re: CONLANG Digest
>
> My computer's crashed three times on me while trying to write this message
> so I'll make it short this time.
> The answers roughly are "yes, yes, and yes"; the images are:
>
http://www.southern.edu/~alrivera/hadwanish.gif> From: FFlores <fflores@...>
> Subject: Re: Your Help Appreciated
>
> John Mietus <sirchuck@...> wrote:
>
> >I can't seem to pronounce that
> >Japanese flap...the "ry" sound completely escapes me.
>
> The <dd> in "ladder" or the <tt> in "butter" are pronounced
> as alveolar flaps in rapid speech, in many (most?) English
> dialects, so this might help you.
They do that for me even in careful speech, unless I'm doing the "this is a
spelling prow-nun-cee-ay-shun so you can understand me better" thing.
> >> What is <wh>?
> >
> >Again, falling into the English orthographic trap. It should actually be
a
> ><hw> sound, like "white" and "what".
>
> Ah, you're one of those! AFAIK some people actually say /hw/, while
> others might pronounce an unvoiced <w>, or an unvoiced bilabial
> fricative like Japanese /h/ before /u/.
I understand real unvoiced <w> is actually rare compared to /hw/.
Actually /hw/ is rather 'logical' (even ignoring spelling) as "who" isn't
/wu/, but /hu/, which you'd expect from its w assimilating[?] to u.
> From: "Carlos Eugenio Thompson (EDC)" <EDCCET@...>
> Subject: Re: Exercise in orthographic aesthetics
>
> On Second Fire of Tenderness of first Red Cat, yl-ruil wrote:
>
> > Acesto es lo missát prezeu ên carashán, cue mezai ali mei caror beis lê
> > percei "Conlang". Carashán se vueni de arezui, lo dinyát cue ve conyetes
> > sê lui Aredos. Demát ve azisero cue acesto deluojer. Otoi teano, eu
vuelo
> > cue ve conyettues ên cuo dinyát se-dinyát-zi decca. Se jon conyete,
> > creva-me!
> >
> > There we go, a text in a hitherto unrevealed language, Carashán. No, you
> > can't have a translation yet- I want you to be kind and do me a favour.
> > What language do you think this resembles? Can you puzzle it out?
> >
> It seems something between French and Italian for me but to few
> recongnisable congnates. Probably a mixing from words of different
European
> languages not intented as Romance IAL.
It _sounds_ Romance (if the appearance is an indicator, and there's no weird
e.g. {c} = /N/ rules acting in the pronunciation.). But the orthography is
really rather different than most of them, I think.. I get a misfeeling
about the number of z's,... the double consonants mind me of Italian, the
vocabulary puts me in mind of Spanish, and the general "aura" is Frenchish.
"This is the first message in Carashán, that [...] "Conlang". Carashán, it
comes from Arezui, the language that they know [...] Aredos. Enough [...]
that this [...]. [...]. If you can read this, write me."
> From: Nik Taylor <fortytwo@...>
> Subject: Re: CONLANG Digest
>
> Muke Tever wrote:
> > There's _already_ differences between American English and British
English.
> > ;p
>
> But in spelling, very minor, and not at all a block to comprehension.
> Whether you write "color" or "colour" makes little difference. Webster
> wanted to make American English so distinct, that it would be impossible
> to read British English if you'd only been brought up on the American
> spelling.
Yes but even disregarding _orthography_ the languages are still different.
Especially if you take into account that not all British English is RP.
> > I think "tho" is just lazy writing/typing on most people's part.
>
> I don't. I conciously use the spelling "tho", because I don't like that
> silent -ugh. And, I strongly suspect that, within a couple of
> generations, "tho" will be the normal spelling.
Heaven forbid! At least, not without reforming the _rest_ of English. (ðô,
anyone?) ;p
Through's silent -ugh I anyway intend to keep until the day I tell my
"datter" she shouldn't stay out at "nite".
> > Thru-lite-nite I'm only aware of as trademark-dodging or other
> > brandnameness.
>
> I've used and seen "thru" in many contexts.
"Thru" actually is valid in some compounds... on roads you'll see "thruway",
but you won't see "throughway".
"Drive through" is a command, "drive-thru" is a process, or a window. But
'thru' by itself rankles. ;p
>"Lite" seems to have a
> practically standardized meaning of "low calorie" in the frozen-food
> buisness.
I think that's what I meant by brandnameness.
> > I think I've heard /'Smo:rg@sbo:rd/ more often, actually (with /S/ ?)
>
> Interesting, I don't think I've ever heard it with an /S/.
Maybe it's just me, dissimilating /s/ or something, but that initial s just
looks so naked out there.
> From: Nik Taylor <fortytwo@...>
> Subject: Re: CONLANG Digest
>
> Christophe Grandsire wrote:
> > And it's true that you mustn't insert anything (not even a schwa) in
> > consonnant clusters, which is sometimes difficult.
>
> As in monsters like _sciencio_ /stsien'tsio/. I feel really sorry for
> people whose native language is Japanese or something with a similarly
> restricted syllable-structure.
A yet another esperanto rant at http://www.cix.co.uk/~morven/esp.html goes
through a bunch of these:
eksscio "former knowledge" versus ekscio "flash of insight"
postscio "hindsight"
altkreska "tall"
pendshnuro "hanging-rope".
(and a bunch more and different as well)
'postscio' of course has /ststs/ in it.
> From: Herman Miller <hmiller@...>
> Subject: Re: CONLANG Digest
>
> On Tue, 9 May 2000 03:40:54 -0400, Muke Tever <alrivera@...>
> wrote:
> >I think "tho" is just lazy writing/typing on most people's part.
> >Thru-lite-nite I'm only aware of as trademark-dodging or other
> >brandnameness. (trademarkdodging, where a basic word description can't
be
> >trademarked, though a mutant form can: hypothetically "Light bulbs" no
> >trademark, but "Lite-Bulb™")
>
> Some of these spelling variations have specialized uses: "lite" is used in
> the sense of "easy", "thru" is seen on highway signs.
"lite" = "easy" ??
> >Several fonts are a terrible hassle to deal with. One Unicode font is
much
> >more convenient, especially if you have an unorthodox alphabet that
requires
> >weird characters from everywhere. This is only the second Unicode font
with
> >serifs I've seen though, which is a good thing (not the paucity of serif
> >fonts, but the existence of this one). I'd be using Thryomanes's font,
> >except it hasn't got the U+21D1 arrow I need (but then it doesn't have
> >arrows at all, I think). Arial Uni and Lucida Sans Uni haven't got
Unicode
> >3's latin letter 'ou' (looks like an 8 open at the top), and UniPad's
> >inability to define keyboards doesn't help much either.
>
> Well, an arrow is easy enough to add. Enjoy!
>
> ftp://ftp.io.com/pub/usr/hmiller/fonts/thryn___.ttf
Yay! Hey, it's perfect, too. (that is, it's not so arrowy that it couldn't
be a letter...) Thanks!
> From: Barry Garcia <Barry_Garcia@...>
> Subject: Re: phonemic spellin of "science"
>
> >It's clusters like that that give Esperanto an ugly sound, IMHO. /sts/,
> >/kn/, /kv/ (and why kvar and not kwar?) are hideous, I think.
> >
> >Of course, /sts/ can also occur in English as in "guests" (or worse yet,
> >"guest's story", with /stst/!).
>
> I cant even wrap my tongue around an initial /sts/ sound.
One Esperanto book I have uses 'best-seller' as an example. (Dunno how
relevant that is, but it helped me.)
> From: Carlos Thompson <chlewey@...>
> Subject: Re: phonemic spellin of "science"
>
> > It's clusters like that that give Esperanto an ugly sound, IMHO. /sts/,
> > /kn/, /kv/ (and why kvar and not kwar?) are hideous, I think.
>
> Why, /kv/ is a nice cluster even resticting /v/ from becoming
aproximant...
> ;-)
Sure, /kv/ isn't too hard (it's as easy as /qu/, but more unfamiliar)
/kn/ is evil though, if you're expected to go without a schwa... I have to
try it unaspirated... even then it's hit&miss.
> > Of course, /sts/ can also occur in English as in "guests" (or worse yet,
> > "guest's story", with /stst/!).
>
> Or clusters like _next_ /kst/... or how 'bout "The next's better" with an
> interesting /ksts/. But well, those clusters are okay for me as longer as
> are syllable final, which Eo's sciencio is not.
If you think _this_ Eastern country's monarch is difficult, wait till you
meet the next's tsar!
/kststs/, I win! >;)
*Muke!
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