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

> I got _Latin Made Simple_ at a used book store, there's one near me that
> has some interesting linguistics-related books, tho I only bought
> _Linguistics: An Introduction to Language & Communication_ by Ardrian
> Akmajian et. al. thus far - which, BTW, is a decent text, tho in the
> chapter on Phonetics it uses some sort of non-IPA system, and it really
> bothers me.
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.

> > On a somewhat related note, what language, if any, do you default to when
> > you're reading made-up names in a fantasy or sf book?
Yivríndil, actually :-).  Actually, I tend to use a sort-of-IPA reading,
except that I always take {y} as [j] and {j} as [Z] or [dZ].

ObOrthography:  The other day I found out that my favorite Vietnamese
noodle dish, pho, is actually pronounced [fV] (minus the tones, which I
won't even attempt.)  I had assumed it was something like [pO], where
the {h} in the spelling represented aspiration, or [Po] with a bilabial
fricative.  Pronouncing the {o} as [V] never even occurred to me

Jesse S. Bangs jaspax@u.washington.edu
"It is of the new things that men tire--of fashions and proposals and
improvements and change.  It is the old things that startle and
intoxicate.  It is the old things that are young."
-G.K. Chesterton _The Napoleon of Notting Hill_