Re: Language changes, spelling reform (was Conlangea Dreaming)

jesse stephen bangs wrote:

> That's the textbook for my Intro to Linguistics class.  In my conlanging
> years I've picked up quite a bit of linguistics, albeit very haphazardly,
> so this class is completely review.  The phonetic system described in the
> Akmajian book is an embarassment.  I retaliated when my teacher assigned
> me to transcribe some of my own speech by using the real IPA and
> transcribing every little detail that I could think of--aspiration,
> nasality, stress, pre-glottalization, flapping, etc.
LOL! I'd probably do something like that too. I've been picking through
the book, it's a good intro, seeing as I know almost nothing about
linguistics. I've read the first 4 chapters (4 being Phonology) and I
read chapter 8 - Language Change or whatever.

The phonetic system in the book is pretty useless, it seems very much so
designed for describing English, and forcing every other language into
an English mold - at least when they describe the symbols they use, they
also show the IPA equivalents. That's the only reason I didn't give up
when I got there.

I'm going to read the chapter on Syntax sooner or later, from skimming
through the first bit it seems pretty intense.

--
Robert