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

Yoon Ha Lee wrote:
>
> On Thu, 12 Oct 2000, Robert Hailman wrote:
>
> > Yoon Ha Lee wrote:
> > >
> > > On Thu, 12 Oct 2000, Robert Hailman wrote:
> > >
> > I've always wanted to make a con-script writing on a line like Hindi,
> > but I haven't gotten around to it.
>
> I sort of did mine within 2 days, but that was because I cheated and used
> similar shapes to that of Korean (since King Sejong knew what he was
> doing when he designed the thing, and was certainly a better phonologist
> than I am even accounting for the time difference).  The ordering
> principle is rather different, though.  I wanted to take into account, as
> Sejong did (or so argues one of the essays in _The Korean Alphabet_) the
> fact that the alphabet was invented at a time when writing with brush and
> innk was very common, and vertical strokes are easier to make, among
> other design principles.  (If the alphabet had developed when people were
> chiseling things into stone I'm sure it'd look very different indeed....)
Well, hey! - if it works, why not steal it.

> > Cool... where do you get all these? I have a copy of "Latin Made
> > Simple", but that's all.
>
> Regular bookstores often have decent grammars in the Foreign Language
> section.  In U.S. bookstores that often seems to be near the reference
> books section.  Also, used bookstores are absolutely wonderful for this
> sort of thing, since old German grammars aren't exactly in high-demand,
> and therefore cheaper.  The best grammar I have, period, is a 1960's
> German grammar.  (Gives some interesting insights into differentiation of
> sex-roles, among other things.)
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.

I'll have to look again, there's a few bookstores near me I should
probably check out.

> 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?
>
> I tend mostly to default to Japanese sounds because Japanese has a lovely
> set of sounds.  If the names look vaguely French, German or Italian I
> approximate using sound-principles from those languages (though very
> poorly for Italian).  Otherwise, it's anyone's guess.
German, Spanish, or French, depending on the mood I'm in. Never English,
that's for sure.

> Interestingly, though, while my sister and I have very similar language
> backgrounds, we end up pronouncing everything in a fantasy or sf novel
> differently.  We once spent an hour comparing pronunciations of names in
> Eddings' Belgariad.  =^)  I once had a vague dream of conducting some
> sort of survey or study to figure out what determines how people
> pronounce made-up names not-from-any-existing-language, but I don't have
> the background to do it properly and it's probably too frivolous for
> someone with the background to care.
I'd like to do that study, but your right, it's probably not going to
get done any time soon.

--
Robert