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There are 22 messages in this issue.
Topics in this digest:
1. Re: DECAL: Examples #1: Phonetic inventory examples & motivations
From: Paul Bennett <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
2. Re: "Uncleftish Beholding" by Poul Anderson
From: "Pascal A. Kramm" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
3. Re: Senyecan Verb Idiom I
From: Carsten Becker <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
4. Let's ... constructions in Ayeri
From: Carsten Becker <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
5. more of Ut Aw Gyu:ll (interlinears)
From: Rodlox <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
6. Re: Intro to Frankish, was Re: A Franco-Turkic a posteriori language
From: Rodlox R <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
7. Re: more of Ut Aw Gyu:ll (interlinears)
From: caeruleancentaur <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
8. Re: OT: Units (was Re: Numbers in Qthen|gai (and in Tyl Sjok) [long])
From: Philip Newton <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
9. OT: Units (was Re: Numbers in Qthen|gai (and in Tyl Sjok) [long])
From: Philip Newton <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
10. Orthography of palatalized consonants
From: "James W." <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
11. Re: DECAL: Examples #1: Phonetic inventory examples & motivations
From: Sai Emrys <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
12. Re: DECAL: Examples #2: Phonotactics
From: Sai Emrys <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
13. Re: DECAL: Examples #3: Phonological change rules
From: Sai Emrys <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
14. DECAL: Examples #3: Phonological change rules
From: Sai Emrys <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
15. Re: Isolating natlangs?
From: J Y S Czhang <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
16. DECAL: Research questions #1
From: Sai Emrys <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
17. Re: Orthography of palatalized consonants
From: Steven Williams <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
18. Re: gomilego was re: Christophe
From: J Y S Czhang <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
19. Re: more of Ut Aw Gyu:ll (interlinears)
From: Rodlox <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
20. Re: Orthography of palatalized consonants
From: Isaac Penzev <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
21. Re: infixes (was Re: what does -il- do (when it exists))
From: Muke Tever <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
22. Re: DECAL: Examples #1: Phonetic inventory examples & motivations
From: Mike Ellis <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
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Message: 1
Date: Thu, 13 Jan 2005 13:56:14 -0500
From: Paul Bennett <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Re: DECAL: Examples #1: Phonetic inventory examples & motivations
----- Original Message -----
From: Paul Bennett <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
> Thagojian:
>
> A b g d e u ts) E T i 7 k l K m n N ks) o p r s S t M f x ps) O q h
Gah.
Replace /r/ above with /r\/.
The fact that |r| is /r\/ is a key feature.
The vowels /A/ /7/ /M/ are majorly ill-defined. Graphically, they're {alpha},
{yod} and {upsilon}. Typologically, they occur in either front-harmony or
back-harmony words. Phonetically, little is actually known.
Paul
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Message: 2
Date: Thu, 13 Jan 2005 14:00:09 -0500
From: "Pascal A. Kramm" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Re: "Uncleftish Beholding" by Poul Anderson
On Tue, 11 Jan 2005 21:56:58 +0000, Tim May <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
>Bryan Parry wrote at 2005-01-11 16:27:24 (-0500)
> > Does anyone have the text of this article? It is the article he wrote in
> > English purged of its romance elements.
> >
> > Bryan
>
>It's online here:
>http://groups-beta.google.com/group/alt.language.artificial/msg/69250bac6c7cbaff
I really like this - excellent work!
--
Pascal A. Kramm, author of:
Chatiga: http://www.choton.org/chatiga/
Choton: http://www.choton.org
Ichwara Prana: http://www.choton.org/ichwara/
Skälansk: http://www.choton.org/sk/
Advanced English: http://www.choton.org/ae/
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Message: 3
Date: Thu, 13 Jan 2005 20:18:47 +0100
From: Carsten Becker <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Re: Senyecan Verb Idiom I
Hey!
Just coming back from a whole-day school trip to Düsseldorf ...
On Monday 10 January 2005 20:13, caeruleancentaur wrote:
> In your various conlangs how do you express the concepts:
> 1. to have just
> and
> 2. to be about to
1) There exists a near past tense (NP), which is marked on
the verb with the prefix "ca-":
Example: "I've just seen" = Ca-silv-ay-ang (NP.see.1sg.AGT)
2) The continuous aspect, eh? There is no such aspect in
Ayeri, but I guess you could use the word "edauyi" (now,
this time) or edatacanoea ("in this moment"). I don't like
the last one because it's too long. Maybe just "at the
moment", "tacanoea"? That'd be much better.
Example: "I'm about to listen" = Tang-ay-ang
edauyi/tacano-ea. (hear/listen.1sg.AGT now/moment.LOC)
Carsten
--
Eri silveváng aibannama padangin.
Nivaie evaenain eri ming silvoieváng caparei.
-- Antoine de Saint-Exupéry, Le Petit Prince
http://www.beckerscarsten.de/?conlang=ayeri
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Message: 4
Date: Thu, 13 Jan 2005 20:18:53 +0100
From: Carsten Becker <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Let's ... constructions in Ayeri
Manisu!
I fetched my Payne from the bookshelf for binding it into a
"dust jacket" (as my dictionary calls this). The corners are
already bent and the cover is scratched -- although I
haven't used that book very much and only took it with me
to school for few times. I didn't manage to wrap it
into that damn plastic film because it was so slippy, but I
leafed through that book again. Seems to get interesting.
Somewhere, I saw an example of a language explaining how it
manages "Let's ..." constructions. By reduplication! Neat
idea, I immediately had to steal it.
Let's go: saru-saru! <- saráo
Let's see: silvu-silvu! <- silvao - also means "watch"
Let's hear: tangu-tangu! <- tangao - also means "listen"
Let's eat: condu-condu! <- condao
What I did was first applying the imperative mood to the
verbs (stem+u) and then duplicating the verb.
There only is a problem with "Let's do this again":
"again" is formed reduplicating the first bit of a verb,
this would yield:
Let's go again: *sasaru-sasaru!
Let's see again: *sisilvu-sisilvu!
Let's hear again: *tatangu-tatangu!
Let's eat again: *cocondu-cocondu!
This is too long however, so as of writing this, I'm
thinking about how to make things shorter ... I'd favour
something like either "tatatangu!" or better "tatangu-ta!".
This idea could be developed further into applying the
rules for consonant mutation and dissimilation I already
use for the conditional, so this would lead to
"tatangu-na!". Things get funny with [k] because it changes
to [N], yielding e.g. "cocondu-anga!".
Any other suggestions? I think I'd stick to
<ve>verb.IMP.-<ve>
Cutanoie tangyam!
Carsten
NB: I'm thinking about to change the orthography so that the
plural with nouns is "-ye" as well, just like with
adjectives. Maybe I'll also change [k] = |c| to |k| and,
more likely, [Ng] = |ng| to |ngg|. See the sig.
--
Eri silveváng aibannama padanggin.
Nivaye evaenain eri ming silvoieváng kaparei.
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Message: 5
Date: Thu, 13 Jan 2005 21:32:31 +0200
From: Rodlox <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: more of Ut Aw Gyu:ll (interlinears)
And here is the second half of it:
Each 'paragraph' is a sentance, as accurately using the typographical/literary
styles of this language's native speakers.
FEATURES:
* true isolating, at least predominantly {like Vietnamese}.
* glottal stops and long vowels {like Hawaiian}.
REGULAR VOWELS:
a
e
o
u
y
LONG VOWELS:
a:
e:
o:
u:
y:
NON-VOWELS:
'
b
d
p
t
m
n
l
v
c
ch
GRAMMAR IN USE:
Has the /C/ with the hook underneath that is found in Turkish and French. The
French form is noted with a /c/, while the Turkish form is noted with a /ch/.
There is no /h/ in this language.
u:d | I
emn ce: ula: | so-do [trigger] work
opte e:vu e:vu | repeditively labor labor
o:d | [related to the above/aforementioned]
e:vu ula: | labor work
e:bd | [statement of fact]
ekt ekt ekt | completed
a'e | [differing from before topic]
a:n' 'en | fish (predatory) large
o'o:t e:mu: | entrap/capture string
u:d ec-ech | I does/performed
Versions thereof:
*Valid:
a:n' 'en | fish (predatory) large
o'o:t e:mu: | entrap/capture string
u:d ec-ech | I does/performed
*Valid:
u:d ec-ech | I does/performed
o'o:t e:mu: | entrap/capture string
a:n' 'en | fish (predatory) large
*Not Valid:
u:d ec-ech | I does/performed
a:n' 'en | fish (predatory) large
o'o:t e:mu: | entrap/capture string
o:'e | [theme change, subject same]
a:n | fish (common)
ubu: u:bu a:n' | eaten caught fish (predatory)
*Ubu: is a word whose meaning can change based upon the Actor {ie, a fish eats,
a sheep chews, a cow works its cud, a snake swallows}, though it presumes a
stereotypical behavior -- "fish" and "motion" in a sentance with "ubu:" would
be "fish swims"...one would have to drop the ubu: & insert a different mode of
travel to make it otherwise.
Ubu: -style words:
move
eat
sound
act
another example:
a:pta | simile/?/paralel
e:mm 'og | motion, [based]-foot
u:ptu: de | coal, upon
ok pfe | [pertaining to the above/aforementioned], simmering hot
gu:lu: se'e | midday, [at the time of
TRANSLATION:
"Like walking on [hot] coals at midday"; aka, an action that seems redundant in
context {ie, like pouring a bucket of water on someone immersed in a swimming
pool, or washing a car in the rain}.
NOTE:
Had it been _og_ rather than _'og_, then it would have meant _foot_ rather than
_[based]-foot_ . . . suggesting a motion soley of the feet, such as wiggling
toes.
[This message contained attachments]
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Message: 6
Date: Thu, 13 Jan 2005 19:55:11 +0000
From: Rodlox R <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Re: Intro to Frankish, was Re: A Franco-Turkic a posteriori language
>From: Doug Dee <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
>Reply-To: Constructed Languages List <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
>To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
>Subject: Re: Intro to Frankish, was Re: A Franco-Turkic a
>posteriori language
>Date: Wed, 12 Jan 2005 18:03:53 EST
>
>In a message dated 1/12/2005 3:43:53 PM Eastern Standard Time,
>[EMAIL PROTECTED] writes:
>
> >my historical geography's a mite rusty...weren't there a lot more Turks
> >in/near Byzantium than there were in/near the Crusader states?
>
>Maybe, but I figure that if they succeeded in conquering Byzanitum, they'd
>eventually turn their attention southwards towards the Crusaders again.
>
>Also note that in my conhistory, there will be no Fourth Crusade and sack
>of
>Constantinople to weak the Byzantines.
I agree that the 4th Crusade did weaken the Byzantines...but I beg to
differ that it was the only thing that weakened the Byzantines. (unless I
misunderstand you, which is possible).
for example, one of the Seljuk leaders was in alliance with the Emperor of
the Holy Roman Empire against the Byzantines.
>So I'm assuming both the Byzantines and the Crusaders will weather the
>Turkish storm.
there's still Arabs to deal with, and Greeks, and Armenians, and a plethoria
of other groups.
> >> Therefore, there will be a Greek-speaking empire
> > next door
> > >to these Frankish-speakers, which might lead to more Greek influence
>than I
> > >initially planned on.
>
> >not neccessarily...the Byzantine Empire might undergo a third change
>(from
> >Latin-speaking to Greek-speaking to Turk/Arabic-speaking).
it was pointed out that the Empire itself overall wasn't
Latin-speaking.....rather than slice and dice the details of what the vast
masses spoke, I'll just offer the idea of the leadership changing their
language.
(given how frequent coups were in Byzantium, I think that may be viable).
>It could, but it doesn't seem likely to me under the circumstances. I
>can't
>think of an example of a sizable country adopting the language of hostile
>neighbors who tried & failed to conquer it.
ahh, but the neighbors wouldn't be hostile forever.
(someone else pointed out that English remained the language of the masses
both before and after the Norman Invasion in 1066.....well, what happened to
all the /ae/ and such Anglo-Saxon letters? *curious*).
>Doug
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Message: 7
Date: Thu, 13 Jan 2005 20:19:56 -0000
From: caeruleancentaur <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Re: more of Ut Aw Gyu:ll (interlinears)
--- In conlang@yahoogroups.com, Rodlox <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
>*Ubu: is a word whose meaning can change based upon the Actor {ie, a
>fish eats, a sheep chews, a cow works its cud, a snake swallows},
How, then, do you say "A sheep works its cud" and "a cow chews"?
Both sheep and cattle chew grass initially. Both sheep and cattle
chew cuds.
Charlie
http://wiki.frath.net/User:Caeruleancentaur
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Message: 8
Date: Thu, 13 Jan 2005 21:24:05 +0100
From: Philip Newton <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Re: OT: Units (was Re: Numbers in Qthen|gai (and in Tyl Sjok) [long])
On Thu, 13 Jan 2005 12:39:55 +1100, Tristan McLeay
<[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> On 13 Jan 2005, at 2.44 am, Andreas Johansson wrote:
>
> > It's the one of the commonest length units here - probably more common
> > than the
> > metre itself. We use decimetres too, but not quite as frequently.
> > Decilitres and
> > centilitres are of course quite common.
Not in Germany :) I also noticed from a few recipes I had seen that
Swedes appeared to be fond of their decilitres, but in Germany,
centilitres are used for glasses of spirits and that's about it; other
volumes are in mL or L. (For example, a "standard" soft drink can
would be 330 mL, not 33 dL.)
> Before computers, I would've said mega- and giga- were used exclusively
> with litres, and then almost only when talking about reservoirs.
I've heard of GeV (giga-electron volts), used in particle physics.
> I doubt most people here would know what a
> hectolitre was if it jumped up and bit 'em.
It seems to be a common measurement for wine over here, for some reason.
On Thu, 13 Jan 2005 12:18:04 +0100, Andreas Johansson <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> Quoting Tristan Mc Leay <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>:
>
> > Andreas Johansson wrote:
>
> > >Here the tablespoon is 15ml, the teaspoon 5ml, while the cup to my
> > >knowledge
> > >isn't used. The units are almost exclusively used in recipes.
> > >
> > Yeah, ditto (I'll be careful not to use a swedish recipe book without
> > adaption, though :). Do you measure litres of flour, or do you just do
> > it by weight?
>
> Typically decilitres in recipes, I guess.
And typically grammes here.
A typical recipe might call for 500g of flour, and this is exploited
by people who make baking powder: IIRC, one little packet of baking
powder is used for 500g of flour. Hence, recipes call for x number of
packets of baking powder rather than, say, ml or teaspoons or mg.
Cheers,
--
Philip Newton <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Watch the Reply-To!
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Message: 9
Date: Thu, 13 Jan 2005 21:31:04 +0100
From: Philip Newton <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: OT: Units (was Re: Numbers in Qthen|gai (and in Tyl Sjok) [long])
On Wed, 12 Jan 2005 09:17:44 -0500, Mark J. Reed <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> On Wed, Jan 12, 2005 at 04:32:17PM +1100, Tristan Mc Leay wrote:
> > Hectares and decibels are so rarely if ever used without those prefixes
> > that I mostly forget they *are* normal metric prefixes+measurement,
> > seeming more like tons* than kilograms (and in fact, decibel is often
> > pronounced as one inseperable word, /[EMAIL PROTECTED]@l/).
>
> That's the usual pronunciation here as well, but I don't think it's
> relevant; "kilometer" gets the same treatment (/k@'[EMAIL PROTECTED]/), even
> though we hear "meter" all the time.
I have /"[EMAIL PROTECTED]:t@/, but it's true that for both that and kilogram,
1000 of them would sound weird to call megametre and megagram. (It
doesn't help that the SI unit is the kilogram, not the gramme.)
So yes, even though I'm familiar with the morphemes "kilo-" and
"metre", I still consider "kilometre" to be monomorphemic and would be
tempted to call 1000 km a "kilo-km"; similarly, saying that a ton = 1
Mg looks weird.
(Incidentally, a usage I find confusing is the notation "mcg", which
looks like "milli-centigram" to me but is actually "microgram", i.e.
what SI would spell µg.)
Cheers,
--
Philip Newton <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Watch the Reply-To!
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Message: 10
Date: Thu, 13 Jan 2005 14:51:15 -0600
From: "James W." <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Orthography of palatalized consonants
Hi,
Just getting back into conlanging after a bit of a break. I am reworking
emindahken's orthography so it uses no digraphs. I have a series of
palatalized consonants, and was thinking of using letter-plus-cedilla
to represent them. Is this done in any natlang or standard
transliteration
scheme? If not, what is the common way to represent palatalization with
one symbol? (Besides using the IPA symbol).
The consonants in question
t
d
s
z
l
n
Any help will be appreciated. Thanks.
James W.
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Message: 11
Date: Thu, 13 Jan 2005 12:57:01 -0800
From: Sai Emrys <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Re: DECAL: Examples #1: Phonetic inventory examples & motivations
First off: *wow*. I wasn't expecting quite such a response.
(Especially since I got almost nil responses to my previous DECAL:
posts... maybe it's the chance to talk about your own conlangs that
means I get a response? :-P)
I will probably compile all the answers (to these and future
questions) into a huge Excel file, so that I can compare side-by-side
- perhaps a binderfull of standardized fact sheets per conlang. I'll
try to put it on my personal livejournal, since I think I can have it
host files now (though maybe that's limited to pictures), and update
as I go along.
That'll take a while, though. For now, a couple small responses:
AA:
"Will these materials also be available to list members? I'm sure that
I'm not the only one here who would be interested in seeing what you
use. :)
Will your students be assigned required reading or research topics
from this list? That might be interesting. I wonder how many people in
your class will become conlangers afterward? :)"
Of course. Everything possible is being hosted on the class website
(as I mentioned in an earlier DECAL: post) -
http://www.livejournal.com/~conlangs_decal (/info).
So far, I've posted mostly-finished (heh... heh... yeah right) lesson
plans for five units (~= 8-15 days), in the form of detailed outlines,
and a list of research questions I need to answer to flesh them out
more. (Actually, I think I'll respost that one here, since I'm pretty
sure at least some of y'all will know the answers offhand.) Of
course, I've come up with *more* stuff to add to them in the (one day)
interim, but that's to be expected. ;-)
All of the homework, handouts, etc. etc. etc. will be posted as much
as possible. The reader will probably include a few things that I'm
not allowed to post online, like selections from some books. Some more
things will probably just reside in my scra^H^H^H^H notes until I
manage to edit them into the online versions. Plus, there are some
handouts, homework, etc., that l may want to keep private until I post
them (even if they're done).
I have yet to find someone willing to host the videorecordings of the
classes, though, so I don't know if I'll be able to have those
available online. I may resort to serving it from my home computer via
login-req'd FTP, but that adds complications - and my upload bandwidth
is not that large.
Research topics *from the list*? No. However, the list is cited as a
major resource; one homework is to at least look at it. And there will
be research-type questions.
That, and it'll be hard to avoid becoming a conlanger, since the final
project is to have a conlang good enough to do a Babel translation.
:-P
HT:
"Haha, usually anything *but* conlanging is referred to as Real Life
(tm). :-)"
I didn't call it Real Life (tm), I called it "Real Live [Conlangs]".
:-P As in, more alive than the yet-to-be-made ones for my class. ;-)
On the other hand, I guess you could say that by making a "secret
vice" into a college class, it is now Real Life. Progress!
General:
Almost everyone seems to have chosen phonologies purely on aesthetic
grounds (or a desire to sound funny :-P). Any of you have
otherwise-motivated examples?
- Sai
P.S. I'd prefer if you only do reply-to-list for these threads; if you
send to me also, gmail gets a bit confused. Not a big deal, though.
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Message: 12
Date: Thu, 13 Jan 2005 13:07:02 -0800
From: Sai Emrys <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Re: DECAL: Examples #2: Phonotactics
AA:
> Answering these directed questions is rather fun. :)
Good - more answers for me! ;-)
>> Q4: Any changes depending on place in word, etc.?
> Nope. (Although, could you give an example of what you mean?)
E.g., having different codas / onset clusters allowable at word
boundaries - e.g. #CV(C)CV#.
RM:
" The conculture was also important; it's a melange
of the better qualities of some of the ethnic groups I had studied or had
contact with, plus a lot of influence from the works of Ursula Le Guin, who
I was reading en masse at the time. "
How did the conculture influence your choices? (Give me an idea of
your train-of-thought for decisionmaking.)
HT:
" To save posting count, maybe you could do this in one posting, Sai, or
on different days, as we only have five postings/person/day and only a
hundred in total/day."
Eep. I wasn't aware there was a maximum list cap. Are we hitting it?
I'll try to compact it, though; thanks for the notice.
" If there is need for more markers, we could discuss that, of course.
E.g. this could be 'POLL', or something, for example."
Mm. Hopefully the DECAL: markers should be enough, for this. However,
I figure that stuff I post under it will vary pretty widely in topic -
from example solicitations like this, to notes on how the class is
going, research questions, etc.
... and who knows, maybe my students will find these too, and start
posting themselves. ;-)
- Sai
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Message: 13
Date: Thu, 13 Jan 2005 13:19:32 -0800
From: Sai Emrys <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Re: DECAL: Examples #3: Phonological change rules
Oh, one addition - be sure to include the names for these changes, if
you have one.
- Sai
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Message: 14
Date: Thu, 13 Jan 2005 13:18:20 -0800
From: Sai Emrys <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: DECAL: Examples #3: Phonological change rules
Same deal.
Try to use /UR/->[SR] / X_# type rules (e.g. /C/ -> [-vd C] / [-vd C]
_ ) (# = word boundary).
Q1: What are your *phonologically driven* sound change rules? I.e.,
these will apply to *all* situations, once higher-level UR processes
are done (e.g., morphology). Be sure to include the order of
application, if it's relevant (e.g., you have feeding). This includes
cases that are caused by word boundaries, syllable boundaries, cluster
conflicts (e.g. VC + CV in a CVCV limit), etc.
Q2: Ditto - but for *morphophonology* or otherwise non-general cases.
E.g., the prefix in- for English (-> r, l, m by context) - it only
applies to that morpheme, not generally AFAIK. Again, include order of
application.
(Note: don't go into morphology just yet; that'll be another post. For
this, all I'm asking for is underlying -> surface representation
rules.)
Q3: Motivation, again? (If anything other than purely aesthetic, or
you can give details of why you think your choices made for better
aesthetics.)
- Sai
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Message: 15
Date: Thu, 13 Jan 2005 16:46:41 -0500
From: J Y S Czhang <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Re: Isolating natlangs?
One of the best examples of an isolating language in the wild - so to speak -
is Vietnamese.
Z.
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Message: 16
Date: Thu, 13 Jan 2005 14:00:18 -0800
From: Sai Emrys <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: DECAL: Research questions #1
So. While sitting down with my books, writing outlines and figuring
out what to do with various classes, I came up with a bunch of
questions I need to answer.
These are pretty wide range. If you know answers - or links to answers
- for any of them, please tell me (offlist or on). I'll research it
myself, of course, if necessary, but I figure that some of you are
likely to have bookmarks or offhand knowledge for at least some of
these questions.
Anything to help me research these, or come up with better ideas for
how to run the class (in general or specific) would be appreciated.
- Sai
Class-meta:
* Types of learners / how to balance for that - e.g., repetition,
modes, concrete vs. theory, etc
* general ideas about how to structure the class, do activities, be an
effective teacher
Translations / well-known conlangs:
* "Hello, and welcome to the first constructed languages class." -
Klingon, Lojban, Quenya, Esperanto.
* phonetic inventories of Klingon, Quenya, Lojban, Esperanto
Intarweb stuff:
* phonetics FAQ w/ full feature descriptions, pref. including good
sound examples, for all them weird sounds ;-) (e.g. clicks, ejectives,
aspiration, murmur, etc.) - i.e., a guide for the phonetically
uninformed to understand & use the full range of sounds
* Latex / metafont / etc FAQ - how to make fonts, possibilities,
limitations of available software (e.g., do they just make
serial-discrete type fonts? extensive / multilayer diacritics OK?
complex-character [a la Chinese]? ...)
Conlangs general:
* timeline of conlang development - dates of major events, language births, etc.
* rough timeline of conlang development by type of language (auxlang,
loglang, etc.) (to give an idea of the overall trends)
* timeline of natural-language reforms (Korean, Hebrew, Turkish, etc.)
that could be called conlang-like
* list of goals/criteria by which to design a language - something
like this essay - http://www.rickharrison.com/language/optimal.html -
does for IALs, but for other prototypes, e.g., artlangs, MTIs, etc.
Essentially, overall top-down guiding ideas to keep in mind, and pref.
some elaboration of application. Also pref. ones that take into
account conlficting viewpoints (a la auxlang).
* list of unusual or otherwise unique conlangs, or attempts at them
(e.g. Laadan viz. "women's language")
* introductions (e.g., the intro chapter in the Laadan book), "how I
became a conlanger" stories, manifestos (a la "a conlanger's
manifesto" ?), position papers, etc. - anything in this vein, really,
to give an idea of the range of personal experience, reasons to be
doing this, things gotten out of it, opinions on conlanging in
general, opinions (ranty or not) on what constitutes a worthy project
and how to go about it, etc. (Already-written and public-domain essays
only, please, for that last one - no desire to start more flamewars.)
Natlang/Conlang Universals:
* page with list of universals, pref. by category and including the
relative percentage likelihood of occurance; also incl. absolute vs
probable vs implicative universals. (= Greenberg's list?)
* corollary: can we apply the above to make a sort of "naturalness
index" of how far a particular conlang is from "universal normal"?
(It'd probably be in std. dev.s, and natlangs wouldn't be at 0 s.d.
either.) Might be useful to make a "prototypically natural" language,
or gauge how unusual one is.
* sign language - list of possible MOV / POS / OR / HC types, or at
least some idea for this. An explanation of alternate description
systems would be good (heard something about a "mov/hold" system, but
know nothing about it). To be used analagously to IPA chart for giving
an idea of sign cheremes.
* range of # of phonemes (C / V)
* range of onset/coda clusters allowable
* example list of possible sound changes by context (e.g. equal
voicing in clusters)
Homework:
* phonetics & phonology
* context change - examples before and after application of //->[]
rules (assignment - to guess what the rules were inbetween the two
forms given; range of difficulty from simple one-step to
three-plus-step [pref. with the sub-steps attested in previous
examples])
* writing systems homework?
* signing systems homework?
* linguistic typology readings / homework?
Meta:
* Permission to copy into reader (if any of the authors of these are
here): Laadan introduction; Omniglot (intros, selections, or whole
site); the IPA+CXS .pdf chart (the one with blue markup); the
"conlanger's manifesto" I lost track of.
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Message: 17
Date: Thu, 13 Jan 2005 23:01:32 +0100
From: Steven Williams <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Re: Orthography of palatalized consonants
--- "James W." <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> schrieb:
> Hi,
>
> Just getting back into conlanging after a bit of a
> break. I am reworking
> emindahken's orthography so it uses no digraphs. I
> have a series of
> palatalized consonants, and was thinking of using
> letter-plus-cedilla
> to represent them. Is this done in any natlang or
> standard
> transliteration
> scheme? If not, what is the common way to represent
> palatalization with
> one symbol? (Besides using the IPA symbol).
>
> The consonants in question
> t
> d
> s
> z
> l
> n
Orthographically, Polish represents palatalized
consonants with /C + i/; to make up an example, since
I don't know any Polish, the word /piak/ would be
pronounced [p_jak]. I do the same thing in Gi-nàin,
and many transliteration schemes of Chinese do it as
well. If you want to disambiguate, like if your
language had a series of diphthongs with the first
element being [i] (for example, [EMAIL PROTECTED], [iu], etc), then
you could concievably use /j/ or /y/, though that'd
look a bit ugly in my opinion.
In cases where I _need_ to disambiguate in Gi-nàin, I
use dotless /i/ as a palatalization marker and dotted
/i/ as the full vowel marker.
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Message: 18
Date: Thu, 13 Jan 2005 17:00:55 -0500
From: J Y S Czhang <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Re: gomilego was re: Christophe
In a message dated 1/11/2005 1:31:44 AM Eastern Standard Time, Philip Newton
<[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes:
>On Fri, 7 Jan 2005 20:38:03 +0100, Henrik Theiling <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
>> 'Gomilego' contains 'Lego' reminding me of toys.
>
>It also contains 'gomi' which is Japanese for 'rubbish/trash/garbage'.
>Not sure whether that's significant :)
It IS!!!! Gomilego is a creole conlang so it has that "aesthetic" of a _gutter
language_.
>Cheers,
>--
>Philip Newton <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
>Watch the Reply-To!
>
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Message: 19
Date: Fri, 14 Jan 2005 00:40:43 +0200
From: Rodlox <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Re: more of Ut Aw Gyu:ll (interlinears)
----- Original Message -----
From: caeruleancentaur <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
To: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Sent: Thursday, January 13, 2005 10:19 PM
Subject: Re: more of Ut Aw Gyu:ll (interlinears)
thanks for replying.
> --- In conlang@yahoogroups.com, Rodlox <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
>
>
> >*Ubu: is a word whose meaning can change based upon the Actor {ie, a
> >fish eats, a sheep chews, a cow works its cud, a snake swallows},
>
> How, then, do you say "A sheep works its cud" and "a cow chews"?
probably by saying it twice in successive lines...so it would
interlinear-translate as
"singular
"sheep
"chew
"{ubu:} chew."
> Both sheep and cattle chew grass initially. Both sheep and cattle
> chew cuds.
okay, I see I picked bad examples (having not realized sheep had a cud).
> Charlie
> http://wiki.frath.net/User:Caeruleancentaur
>
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Message: 20
Date: Fri, 14 Jan 2005 00:26:44 +0200
From: Isaac Penzev <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Re: Orthography of palatalized consonants
James W. scripsit:
> Just getting back into conlanging after a bit of a break. I am reworking
> emindahken's orthography so it uses no digraphs. I have a series of
> palatalized consonants, and was thinking of using letter-plus-cedilla
> to represent them. Is this done in any natlang or standard
> transliteration
> scheme? If not, what is the common way to represent palatalization with
> one symbol? (Besides using the IPA symbol).
>
> The consonants in question
> t
> d
> s
> z
> l
> n
Hmm. A tough question to answer in two words. The problem is that although
there are languages with palatalized consonants that use Latin script, but
they do it in different ways, and I don't know a natlang that would have all
those 6 consonants at once.
Let us see. Cedilla is used in Latvian for this purpose, but it has only l :
l, n : n, k : k and g : g pairs (and I suspect they are not palatalized but
mere palatal).
Polish has many palatalized consonants, but it uses a silent "i" after them
if they stand before a vowel, so it uses digraphs in this case. Before
consonants only few of them are met, and those are s : ´s, z : ´z, dz : d´z, c
: ´c and n : ´n (again they are rather palato-alveolar than palatalized).
Czech has three palatalized consonants, they are marked with a haczek, that
is written as an apostrophe next to small t and d, as this n : n, t : T/t, d
: D/d. Haczek is also used there to denote alveolar sibilants, e.g. s [s] :
s [S].
Feel free to use anything. From my personal taste, I would prefer plain good
old apostrophes after the character. But I may be biased by phonetic
transcriptions of Russian and 12:25pm here now.
-- Yitzik
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Message: 21
Date: Thu, 13 Jan 2005 15:48:36 -0700
From: Muke Tever <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Re: infixes (was Re: what does -il- do (when it exists))
On Thu, 13 Jan 2005 19:47:32 +0200, Steg Belsky <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
>>>> On Tue, 11 Jan 2005 22:45:40 +0200, Rodlox <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
>>>> wrote:
>>>>> are there any languages which would have infixes?
>
>>> Abso-bloody-lutely! (I don't know any serious examples, though...)
>
>> In a similar vein, "hizzouse" and friends show an -izz- infix.
>
> And there's the -ma- infix in "gradumatation", "edumacator", and
> "congratumalations".
When I was younger I thought that "edification" was in a similar
class (i.e., some expanded version of "education") -- it only
appeared in contexts where they were interchangeable.
*Muke!
--
website: http://frath.net/
LiveJournal: http://kohath.livejournal.com/
deviantArt: http://kohath.deviantart.com/
FrathWiki, a conlang and conculture wiki:
http://wiki.frath.net/
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Message: 22
Date: Thu, 13 Jan 2005 17:52:32 -0500
From: Mike Ellis <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Re: DECAL: Examples #1: Phonetic inventory examples & motivations
Sai Emrys jarhe:
>Q1: What is your *phonemic* inventory? I.e., what are all of the
>discriminated phonemes in your conlang(s). (IPA / CXS / X-SAMPA)
Rhean has these phonemes in its official 'standard' dialect:
a E i O u 2 y
p b t d k g m n r 4 B f v s z S Z x G h ts) tS) dZ j l
Tolborese has these:
a @\ e i o u
p_h t_h k_h p t k dZ l m n N h r s S v w y z
Omurax:
a e i o u
p t k b d g m n r l s z S Z T f v
>Q2: What are the allophones? I.e., for each phoneme, what are the
>"normal" variants that don't change meaning?
Rhean sounds vary from one dialect to another, and there are quite a few
dialects. In the capital, /B/ is almost always realised as [v] nowadays, /r/
and /4/ are merging, and /dZ/ is pronounced [Z] everywhere except
word-initially. /n/ of course becomes [N] before the velar sounds. Outside
the capital, /x/ and /G/ are usually [X] and [R]. Vowels are all over the
place too: [9] is heard for /2/ in Azicstanz and Ferinstanz, and /2/ is
lately becoming [8] or even [EMAIL PROTECTED] in Mavrius.
Tolborese unaspirated stops /p t k/ between vowels or after a nasal are [b d g].
Omurax has the allophones [tS] and [dZ] for /S/ and /Z/ respectively,
usually only heard in a stressed syllable. /d/ and /g/ become [D] and [G]
between vowels except in a stressed syllable (for some reason /b/ is immune
to this).
>Q2b: If you have any, what are the connotations / implications of the
>different allophones? E.g., do you use them for different dialects,
>registers, "accents", etc.?
Proper Rhean speech adheres to prescribed pronunciation: newscasters
preserve not only the /r/, /4/ and /B/, /v/ contrasts but also the
long-short vowel contrast, which has almost vanished from most dialects.
Omurax and Tolborese are 'dead' languages; what is known of them comes from
the written form and related modern languages. There's very little info on
the non-written registers/*lects etc.
>Q3: How do your choices for the above reflect the goals of your
>language? E.g., if it's an auxlang [here!?], it's probably motivated
>by having common, strongly "universal" common-use phonetics to
>maximize learnability. So, for whatever your goals are for the
>conlang, how do they apply to the choices you made for phonetics /
>phonology?
All three are artlangs/fictional-langs for the same alternate Earth. Rhean
came first, and in the early days its sound-flavour was the most important
goal. It's meant to sound sort of Slavic and sort of Turkic without really
being either of those, and that influenced most of the choices I made for
phonemes and phonotactics. Omurax has a very Greek-esque phonology, maybe
too much... might have to rethink some of that. Tolborese is made with a
sound-flavour in mind, too, but it's not as easy to describe.
>Thanks,
> Sai
M
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