Re: Tsuhon: tentative phonology

Yoon Ha Lee <yl112@...> writes:

> I apologize in advance to fluent speakers of Japanese and/or German, to
> whom this will probably look Really Hideous (TM).
Ah, I love the idea. :-))))

> (*)
> [@] (so far) mostly occurs as word-final--when things like "Ritter" have
> the final -er mutilated into simply [@]--and is written "e," e.g.
> "Ritter" -> "rite" (amusingly enough).
I'd strongly suggest `Ritter' -> `rita' as -er is [6] (a-Schwa), not
[@].

In many German dialects, first grade pupils at school first try to
write `Ritta' and have to be corrected.  The distinction `Ritte'
[RIt@] and `Ritter' [RIt6] is easy to hear for Germans.  But an ending
-a (very seldom) cannot be distinguished from -er (Pupils having been
told that `Ritter' is written with -er will write `Sofa' as `Sofer'
then...).  My mom often encountered these mistakes as she's a teacher
at a primary schoool.

> Rounded vowels shift to their non-rounded equivalent.
Very good, that's typical for many dialects.

> I'm going to have to work on glides and stuff (e.g. "Haus") on a case by
> case basis when I have more time.
Just a vague thought: You could think about using dialects as a basis
that have not undergone some sound changes that led to diphthongs.
E.g. many middle-German dialects (Palatinian, Saarlandian, etc.).
Then you'd get [hu:s] for `Haus'.  But you'd have to pay attention
since /au/ has developed from two long vowels.  The other one occurs
in `Baum' which would be [ba:m].


> Consonants:
> ...
>          [r]
What kind of R will you use?  I'l suggest Japanese, it has so many
nice variants (see below for `tV' syllables) as well. :-)

> I would like to preserve at least some of the fun/ky consonant
> distributions in Japanese, e.g. "ta chi tsu te to," so "Tier" -> (maybe)
> "chi:re".  Or "du" -> (maybe) "zu:".
Oh, yeah!  Great. :-)

`Svarutsu' is also great!

Resuming: that's really a very good idea you have!

**Henrik

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