CONLANG Digest - 30 Oct 2000 to 31 Oct 2000 (#2000-298)

> From:    Robert Hailman <robert@...>
> Subject: Re: YAC: or more exactly: yet another conlang sketch
>
> > If I decide on { rijna } then it could be pronounced either [rijna]
> > or [rejna] depending on dialect. Hmm...
>
> You may be on to something there. A dialectical change of [ij] to [ej]
> could be interesting. Why don't you try it out with sample setances and
> see how it goes? It's really up to you, though...
Oh, I've got this!

Proto-Hadwan *ej becomes Hadwan i: [ij before vowels], but in the eastern
language (I need names for these...) it becomes ?e: [?ej before vowels].  So
you would have Hadwan ?hi:s,
?xi:s, where eastern ?xe:s or ?xejis from PH *xej- 'hook'.

(? = uncreated form)

> From:    John Cowan <jcowan@...>
> Subject: Re: YAC: or more exactly: yet another conlang sketch
>
> Irina Rempt wrote:
>
> > [...] 'c@ciul@', the latter
> > being the little bow above the 'a' occurring in Romanian, which
> > should be instead of the shwa symbols in the word for it.
>
> "Breve" in English.  It's used in Vietnamese, too.
I thought the Romanian sign was a circumflex?


> From:    Carlos Thompson <carlos_thompson@...>
> Subject: Re: Pronouncing "Boreanesia" (was: Kristian's name)
>
> In Kirsh /R/ is r flavored schwa, that vowel in "center" /sEntR/.  In
> X-SAMPA, american rotic schwa is represented as /@`/, a schwa with a
> retroflex diacritic, which I had also seen as /r=/ (syllabic r).  In
> SAMPA /R/ represents the voiced uvular fricative (French <r>).
X-SAMPA's /`/ is defined as retroflexy for consonants and rhoticity for
vowels.  (Indeed, it seems that its use for the rhotic mark is defined
first.)

> From:    "LeoMoser(Acadon@Acadon.com)" <acadon@...>
> Subject: The Combos [hj] [hw] and [gw] in Conlangs
>
> This would imply that [gw-] may not be very
> common beyond the western European area.
>
> Am I missing something? I would guess
> that some of the other major languages of
> the world have it.
Well, Proto-Indo-European had *kw, *gw (or *k'w), and *ghw (or *gw), which
seem to have delabialized (or develarized) everywhere except in Latin,
Germanic, and Hittite, so sounds of those type don't appear to be very
stable.  (Even in English it's mostly /w/ and /kw/ now.)

(Yes, in Hadwan, *kw *gw and *ghw became delabialized also, = k/g/g.)

> From:    Eric Christopherson <raccoon@...>
> Subject: Re: Hiatus within words
>
> > I've never heard the native pronunciation of "Hawai'i" or "Maui"-- but
> > theoretically, historically, they should be 4 and 3 syllables
respectively.
> > Hawai'i = other PN Sawa iki 'little Sawa' (the traditional homeland) --
> > since PH /s/ can correspond to Malay/Javanese /j/ (dZ), it has often
been
> > proposed that Sawa = Java (but nooooo, or at least, not likely).  IIRC
> > "Maui" corresponds to others ma'ui, and indeed to NZ maori, *ma+qudip
> > 'alive; to live'.
>
> From the spelling and etymology, it seems reasonable to me to assume
<Hawai'i>
> should be pronounced something like /ha.wa.i.?i/. In any case, it really
> annoys me when people say /ha.wa.?i/, since I figure they should at least
be
> pronouncing the other /i/ in there, whether there's a glottal stop or
hiatus
> or what. Myself, I go with /h@wa.i/ or more probably /h@waji/.
Odd.   I would never have thought of /ha.wa.i.?i/... usually if there's an
/?/ in it at all it'd be /ha.waI.?i/.   I forget how [friend from Hawai'i]
pronounces it.

     *Muke!
--
http://muke.twu.net/