There are 25 messages in this issue. Topics in this digest:
1a. Re: LLL idea From: And Rosta 1b. Re: LLL idea From: Eugene Oh 1c. Re: LLL idea From: Roger Mills 1d. OffTopic/THEORY Re: LLL idea From: And Rosta 1e. Re: LLL idea From: <deinx nxtxr> 1f. Re: LLL idea From: Maxime Papillon 2a. Re: Fonts with correct diacritic placement? From: Christophe Grandsire-Koevoets 3a. Re: Through the Language Glass - A Conlanger's Review From: And Rosta 3b. Re: Through the Language Glass - A Conlanger's Review From: Jim Henry 3c. Re: Through the Language Glass - A Conlanger's Review From: And Rosta 4a. Re: "Best" way to write a complete description of a language From: <deinx nxtxr> 5a. Re: Conlangs based on Endangered/Dead Languages From: <deinx nxtxr> 6. Third Draft Syllabary From: Gary Shannon 7a. Re: New Zhyler Orthography Page From: Matthew Turnbull 7b. {X} in Your Conscript (was Re: New Zhyler Orthography Page) From: David Peterson 7c. Re: {X} in Your Conscript (was Re: New Zhyler Orthography Page) From: Daniel Nielsen 7d. {X} in Your Conscript (was Re: New Zhyler Orthography Page) From: Charlie 7e. (no subject) From: Mechthild Czapp 7f. Re: {X} in Your Conscript (was Re: New Zhyler Orthography Page) From: <deinx nxtxr> 7g. Re: {X} in Your Conscript (was Re: New Zhyler Orthography Page) From: Samuel Stutter 7h. Re: {X} in Your Conscript (was Re: New Zhyler Orthography Page) From: Lars Finsen 8a. Kunu syllabary web page From: Gary Shannon 8b. Re: Kunu syllabary web page From: David Peterson 8c. Re: Kunu syllabary web page From: Gary Shannon 9a. Re: TECH Font Embedding (was Re: Could you take quick look at this?) From: Matthew Turnbull Messages ________________________________________________________________________ 1a. Re: LLL idea Posted by: "And Rosta" and.ro...@gmail.com Date: Sat Oct 23, 2010 7:33 am ((PDT)) Eugene Oh, On 22/10/2010 18:17: > 2010/10/22 And Rosta<and.ro...@gmail.com> >> IMO English 'sp,st,sk' clusters are actually /sb,sd,sg/, so if the /s/ were >> lost, you'd end up with /b,d,g/. >> > I'm interested in this analysis. Tell us more? The default obstruent 'sonants' are /b, d, g, v, ð, z/. Each has a 'sharp' version, /b♯, d♯, g♯, v♯, D♯, z♯/, or (notationally equivalent) /p, t, k, f, θ, s/. In any cluster of obstruents, either none is sharp or only the first is sharp. 'St' is /sd/: the obvious alternative analyses to 'st' being /sd/ are (i) /st/ and (ii) /zd/ (or with archiphonemes, /ST/, amounting to much the same analysis). Word-initially, grounds for choosing between /sd/ and /zd/ are meagre, but elsewhere, e.g. in _east_, it is clearly /sd/, not /zd/, because the sharp /s/ triggers prefortis clipping, and there is a contrast with /zd/ (cf _eased_). Arguments against /st/ are as follows. 'Onset' /p,t,k/ are aspirated, but you don't get aspirated [p_h, t_h, k_h] following an obstruent. 'Coda' /t/ is realized [?] in many accents, but you don't get [?] following an obstruent. And _mist_ and _missed_ (_rift_ and _riffed_, etc etc) are homophonous, which is to be expected if they are /misd/ an d /mis+d/, where /+d/ is the _ed_ suffix. --And. Messages in this topic (20) ________________________________________________________________________ 1b. Re: LLL idea Posted by: "Eugene Oh" un.do...@gmail.com Date: Sat Oct 23, 2010 8:55 am ((PDT)) But then what rule would tell us when an obstruent cluster is "none-sharp" or "first-sharp"? If we were to analyse those clusters as s + voiced, it would be akin to Russian/German devoicing, no? Which means that adding suffixes should restore the voicing, but we don't see that. Contrasting <misty> [mIsti:] vs. <misdeed> [mIsdi:d / mIzdi:d] would show that these were two separate phonemes. I have doubts about coda /t/ as [?] point too: IME in Cockney, <butter> indeed is [...@] but then so is <rest> [rEs]. Further, <rested> is [rEstid] but <rest a while> is [...@wajl]. Which can be analysed as having elided an original intervening [?]. Whereas 'lects that retain [t] do so everywhere, at least based on my London observations. Eugene 2010/10/23 And Rosta <and.ro...@gmail.com> > Eugene Oh, On 22/10/2010 18:17: > >> 2010/10/22 And Rosta<and.ro...@gmail.com> >> >>> IMO English 'sp,st,sk' clusters are actually /sb,sd,sg/, so if the /s/ >>> were >>> lost, you'd end up with /b,d,g/. >>> >>> I'm interested in this analysis. Tell us more? >> > > The default obstruent 'sonants' are /b, d, g, v, ð, z/. Each has a 'sharp' > version, /b♯, d♯, g♯, v♯, D♯, z♯/, or (notationally equivalent) /p, t, k, f, > θ, s/. In any cluster of obstruents, either none is sharp or only the first > is sharp. 'St' is /sd/: the obvious alternative analyses to 'st' being /sd/ > are (i) /st/ and (ii) /zd/ (or with archiphonemes, /ST/, amounting to much > the same analysis). Word-initially, grounds for choosing between /sd/ and > /zd/ are meagre, but elsewhere, e.g. in _east_, it is clearly /sd/, not > /zd/, because the sharp /s/ triggers prefortis clipping, and there is a > contrast with /zd/ (cf _eased_). Arguments against /st/ are as follows. > 'Onset' /p,t,k/ are aspirated, but you don't get aspirated [p_h, t_h, k_h] > following an obstruent. 'Coda' /t/ is realized [?] in many accents, but you > don't get [?] following an obstruent. And _mist_ and _missed_ (_rift_ and > _riffed_, etc etc) are homophonous, which is to be expected if they are > /misd/ an > d /mis+d/, where /+d/ is the _ed_ suffix. > > --And. > Messages in this topic (20) ________________________________________________________________________ 1c. Re: LLL idea Posted by: "Roger Mills" romi...@yahoo.com Date: Sat Oct 23, 2010 10:05 am ((PDT)) --- On Sat, 10/23/10, David McCann <da...@polymathy.plus.com> wrote: > > Den 22. okt. 2010 kl. 18.11 skreiv Jörg Rhiemeier: > > > > > > The sound change of the type /sp/ > /b/ looks > unlikely to me; > > > > Why? You only need two steps: /sp/ > /p/ > /b/ > > There's no motivation for /p/ > /b/ initially, where > there's nothing > preceding the /p/ to cause it to voice; voiceless stops are > the "default > consonants". Agreed. The only "reasonable" way(s) I could justify such a sound change would be: 1. pre-cons. (pre-stop?) *s > z , then the stop voices and the /z/ drops (but all for unnatural/ad hoc reasons IMHO :-)) ) OR 2.*s > z everywhere, then stops voice, pre-cons. z- drops (slightly more natural, except for the z-drop). There's some justification for general s > z, since that happened to VL -VsV- (Fr. Ital and IIRC Port.) and one could posit the change spreading by analogy; while VS -VssV- > /s/ (usu. written "ss") in those languages. (Final *s could remain /s/ if you have final devoicing) Messages in this topic (20) ________________________________________________________________________ 1d. OffTopic/THEORY Re: LLL idea Posted by: "And Rosta" and.ro...@gmail.com Date: Sat Oct 23, 2010 11:12 am ((PDT)) Eugene Oh, On 23/10/2010 16:52: > But then what rule would tell us when an obstruent cluster is "none-sharp" > or "first-sharp"? Word-initially, a simple stipulative rule that says fricatives that are initial in word-initial clusters are sharp. Elsewhere, none-sharp vs first-sharp is contrastive, so the rule is the lexical specification of word-shape (e.g. that _Asda_ contains /zd/ and _aster_ contains /sd/). > If we were to analyse those clusters as s + voiced, it would be akin to > Russian/German devoicing, no? Which means that adding suffixes should > restore the voicing, but we don't see that. My analysis is "s + default/generic/unsharp". The prediction is that a following vowel shouldn't make a difference. > Contrasting<misty> [mIsti:] vs. <misdeed> [mIsdi:d / mIzdi:d] would > show that these were two separate phonemes. I take these to be /misdy/ and /misdiyd/ (approximately). They differ in syntagmatic/prosodic structure; in _misty_ only the first syllable is strong/stressed; in _misdeed_ both are strong/stressed. If there is some slight phonetic difference between the realizations of d in these, it can be correlated with the prosodic difference. In some atypical words you do find obstruent sequences in which a noninitial is sharp, e.g. _vodka_, and in these rare cases you might be able to find a contrast between /sd/ and /st/, but these, I would argue, are not 'clusters', where 'cluster' is to be understood as (roughly) 'belonging to the same syllable' or (better) 'dependent on the same vowel'. (E.g. in _walrus_, /lr/ is a sequence but not a cluster.) > I have doubts about coda /t/ as [?] point too: IME in Cockney,<butter> > indeed is [...@] but then so is<rest> [rEs]. Further,<rested> is [rEstid] > but<rest a while> is [...@wajl]. Which can be analysed as having elided an > original intervening [?]. Whereas 'lects that retain [t] do so everywhere, > at least based on my London observations. It's possible (and exciting) that you have observed something that I never have, but assuming we've observed the same thing then [rEs] is not an instance of T-glottaling, but rather of T/D-elision that is found in all or most accents of English (and studied absolutely ad nauseam by sociolinguists). [...@wajl] strikes me as much less likely than [r...@wajl]but would nevertheless be an instance of T/D-elision rather than T-glottaling. --And. Messages in this topic (20) ________________________________________________________________________ 1e. Re: LLL idea Posted by: "<deinx nxtxr>" deinx.nx...@sasxsek.org Date: Sat Oct 23, 2010 11:37 am ((PDT)) On 10/22/10 6:02 AM, Peter Bleackley wrote: > Can anyone suggest where and how this might happen? If it's any help, Albania? Messages in this topic (20) ________________________________________________________________________ 1f. Re: LLL idea Posted by: "Maxime Papillon" salut_vous_au...@hotmail.com Date: Sat Oct 23, 2010 9:30 pm ((PDT)) > Date: Sat, 23 Oct 2010 15:31:01 +0100 > From: and.ro...@gmail.com > Subject: Re: LLL idea > To: conl...@listserv.brown.edu > > Eugene Oh, On 22/10/2010 18:17: > > 2010/10/22 And Rosta<and.ro...@gmail.com> > >> IMO English 'sp,st,sk' clusters are actually /sb,sd,sg/, so if the /s/ were > >> lost, you'd end up with /b,d,g/. > >> > > I'm interested in this analysis. Tell us more? > > The default obstruent 'sonants' are /b, d, g, v, ð, z/. Each has a 'sharp' > version, /b♯, d♯, g♯, v♯, D♯, z♯/, or (notationally equivalent) /p, t, k, f, > θ, s/. In any cluster of obstruents, either none is sharp or only the first > is sharp. 'St' is /sd/: the obvious alternative analyses to 'st' being /sd/ > are (i) /st/ and (ii) /zd/ (or with archiphonemes, /ST/, amounting to much > the same analysis). Word-initially, grounds for choosing between /sd/ and > /zd/ are meagre, but elsewhere, e.g. in _east_, it is clearly /sd/, not /zd/, > because the sharp /s/ triggers prefortis clipping, and there is a contrast > with /zd/ (cf _eased_). Arguments against /st/ are as follows. 'Onset' > /p,t,k/ are aspirated, but you don't get aspirated [p_h, t_h, k_h] following > an obstruent. 'Coda' /t/ is realized [?] in many accents, but you don't get > [?] following an obstruent. And _mist_ and _missed_ (_rift_ and _riffed_, etc > etc) are homophonous, which is to be expected if they are /misd/ an > d /mis+d/, where /+d/ is the _ed_ suffix. > > --And. Hi, Maybe it's me, but I don't see what is the advantage of this description over the down to earth "/t/ is realized as |t| after /s/ and as |t_h| elsewhere" kind. Is it more comprehensive, or does it provide a description of English phonotactics at a lesser algorithmic entropy? To me, it seems to be merely an alternative -perhaps as valid, but surely more difficult- description of the same thing, with no advantage over the traditional description that I can see. (Of course, I'd accept a link or a reference for an answer if it's too much to fit in an email.) Maxime. Messages in this topic (20) ________________________________________________________________________ ________________________________________________________________________ 2a. Re: Fonts with correct diacritic placement? Posted by: "Christophe Grandsire-Koevoets" tsela...@gmail.com Date: Sat Oct 23, 2010 7:48 am ((PDT)) On 23 October 2010 03:36, Josh Roth <tan...@gmail.com> wrote: > > Oh man. I had no idea about this stuff - I naively thought that once you > choose a font, it will look the same anywhere. Unfortunately, reality is far more complicated than that. Graphite is supposed to achieve that purpose, but is the least supported technology of all. > I'm using a Mac, and I see now that if I type in Mellel, DejaVu Sans > actually does what I want. Unfortunately though, it doesn't display properly > in the applications I usually type in, like TextEdit and DevonThink. In > Firefox the horns display ok with DejaVu, but many other diacritics are > placed way too far to one side or the other, so that they're actually closer > to the next character. In BBEdit, DejaVu generally looks right, but some > letter + diacritic combinations are off. Other than this issue, I'm pretty > happy with the applications I'm using now - do I have any options besides > switching to different ones, or creating a custom font? > > Unfortunately those are the only solutions, until the applications you like pull their acts together. Don't hold your breath though, correct font handling is not only not a priority for most programmers, it's also hard to get right. The only way to get the accents to look exactly as you want in every application to is to create a custom font with pre-composed characters. -- Christophe Grandsire-Koevoets. http://christophoronomicon.blogspot.com/ http://www.christophoronomicon.nl/ Messages in this topic (9) ________________________________________________________________________ ________________________________________________________________________ 3a. Re: Through the Language Glass - A Conlanger's Review Posted by: "And Rosta" and.ro...@gmail.com Date: Sat Oct 23, 2010 8:06 am ((PDT)) David McCann, On 23/10/2010 13:14: > On Fri, 2010-10-22 at 12:45 -0400, Jim Henry wrote: > >> In what grammatical category do "he", "she", and "it" differ, then? >> They're the same in person, case, and number, and the difference >> between them doesn't look like definiteness or any other category >> usually associated with nouns/pronouns. Some linguists (I think I >> first saw this in John Lyons, but I can't find the reference now) >> consider gender in English a crypto-category, requiring pronoun >> agreement but not adjective agreement and rarely marked on the noun >> itself. But I gather that's a minority usage, given how few of the >> Ghits for "crypto-category" have to do with linguistics rather than >> crypography. > > They differ in gender, and agree with the noun to which they refer. > There's nothing odd about English here; it only looks odd compared to > other European languages in that a noun's gender is almost always > semantically determined. "Bull" is masculine, "cow" is feminine, "table" > is neuter, "conglanger" varies. As I said previously, Dravidian > languages are much the same, except that non-sentients are neuter. Pure > semantic assignment can also be found in Africa and Australia. There are > also a few other languages resembling English in only showing agreement > in pronouns, such as Zande. > > There have been a few linguists who don't consider pronominal anaphora > to be agreement, but they don't have any convincing arguments. The answer to Jim's question depends on the larger question one is asking. The typological question is "What analytical framework best describes all languages?". The ontological question is "What knowledge must one have if one is to know language X?" You seem to be asking the typological question and providing an analytical apparatus intended to describe as many languages as possible. I ask the ontological question, and my answer to Jim was trying to establish what a knower of English must actually know. For English, under the ontological question, the arguments against gender and against pronominal anaphora being agreement boil down to the application of Occam's razor: there is simply no need for gender or agreement, and these things can be deleted from the inventory of what must be known. There's a kind of ObConlang point to be made here too, which is that the two approaches to language description described above pertain to description of conlangs too. The typological approach yields a description of the conlang, where the description can be very detailed or very sketchy and impressionistic. The ontological approach yields a *definition* of the conlang (and the definition may differ in how complete it is). I think engelangers generally feel themselves to be creating definitions, whereas artlangers generally (but not universally) feel themselves to be creating descriptions. --And. Messages in this topic (15) ________________________________________________________________________ 3b. Re: Through the Language Glass - A Conlanger's Review Posted by: "Jim Henry" jimhenry1...@gmail.com Date: Sat Oct 23, 2010 9:41 am ((PDT)) On Sat, Oct 23, 2010 at 6:14 AM, And Rosta <and.ro...@gmail.com> wrote: > Jim Henry, On 22/10/2010 17:45: >> In what grammatical category do "he", "she", and "it" differ, then? >> They're the same in person, case, and number, and the difference >> between them doesn't look like definiteness or any other category >> usually associated with nouns/pronouns. > One plausible answer is that they differ in no grammatical category, and the > difference is purely lexical. OK, that makes a certain amount of sense. > In my own analysis of how English truly works, I take him/her/it to be > phonological manifestations of the syntactic phrases "the > male/female/thing", so the difference is essentially lexical, but the > lexical difference (obtaining at the level of syntax) is not between > different pronouns/determiners. Does the fact that "he/him/his/his" and "she/her/her/hers" (though not "it/its") have distinct dative and nominalized-genitive (not sure if that's the right term) forms, like first-person pronouns and unlike nouns, have any bearing on your analysis? >> Maybe we need a new term for the category English third-person >> singular pronouns are marked for. Since it's semantically based on >> sex and animacy (with minor exceptions like "she" for ships and "it" ..... > Fair point. So there'd be one term for "noun class system triggering > agreement" and another for "grammaticalization of sex distinctions". And similarly, I suppose, "grammaticalization of animacy" for some languages' pronouns and "grammaticalization of IRC status" for Naeso pronouns, etc.? > There's a kind of ObConlang point to be made here too, which is that the two > approaches to language description described above pertain to description of > conlangs too. The typological approach yields a description of the conlang, > where the description can be very detailed or very sketchy and > impressionistic. The ontological approach yields a *definition* of the > conlang (and the definition may differ in how complete it is). I think > engelangers generally feel themselves to be creating definitions, whereas > artlangers generally (but not universally) feel themselves to be creating > descriptions. To the extent that distinction makes sense, auxlangers can probably be described as creating definitions, like engelangers; while conlang speakers documenting a conlang made by someone else which has acquired a certain number of speakers and a certain independence of its creator are certainly creating descriptions, whether they're writing reference grammars or lessons (e.g., Bertilo Wennergren in his Plena Manlibro de Esperanta Gramatiko, or B.J. Knight in his Toki Pona lessons). But it also seems valid to describe the different activities of the same conlanger dealing with the same language, when writing a reference grammar vs. a "teach yourself" series of lessons. -- Jim Henry http://www.pobox.com/~jimhenry/ Messages in this topic (15) ________________________________________________________________________ 3c. Re: Through the Language Glass - A Conlanger's Review Posted by: "And Rosta" and.ro...@gmail.com Date: Sat Oct 23, 2010 12:38 pm ((PDT)) Jim Henry, On 23/10/2010 17:39: > On Sat, Oct 23, 2010 at 6:14 AM, And Rosta<and.ro...@gmail.com> wrote: >> In my own analysis of how English truly works, I take him/her/it to be >> phonological manifestations of the syntactic phrases "the >> male/female/thing", so the difference is essentially lexical, but the >> lexical difference (obtaining at the level of syntax) is not between >> different pronouns/determiners. > > Does the fact that "he/him/his/his" and "she/her/her/hers" (though not > "it/its") have distinct dative and nominalized-genitive (not sure if > that's the right term) forms, like first-person pronouns and unlike > nouns, have any bearing on your analysis? It in no way motivates the analysis. But perhaps it is necessary for the grammar to recognize a category of, let us call them, 'Personals' -- I'm not sure. There are certain grammatical environments in which personals have 'subjective forms' (forms I/we/thou/he/she/they), and I'm not sure whether the generalizations about the grammatical environments can be stated without reference to the category Personal. And again I'm not sure if the rules stating the surface forms of me/us/thee/you/him/her/them/it+'s (i.e. my, mine, our, ours/ourn, thy, thine, your, yours/yourn, his, her, hers, their, theirs) need to refer to Personals as such: I tentatively think that they do need to, so that one can say that in the syntagm "Personal + 's", when 's has a nonelliptical complement, it has a zero form (with _his_ maybe being an exception to this rule). (The rules for the possessive forms are that when in syntactic combination with 's, the forms me, us, thee, you, him, them are replaced by my, our, thy, your, hi (or maybe his), their. The form _her_ is unchanged, and so too with _us_ in some dialects. When the 's has a nonelliptical complement, the resulting forms are my, our, thy, your, his, her, their. When the 's doesn't have a nonelliptical complement, it has the default /z/ form in most cases, but is replaced by /n/ when in combination with me and thee and in some dialects us and you (and maybe others), yielding the forms mine, ours/ourn, thine, yours/yourn, his, hers, theirs.) >> So there'd be one term for "noun class system triggering >> agreement" and another for "grammaticalization of sex distinctions". > > And similarly, I suppose, "grammaticalization of animacy" for some > languages' pronouns and "grammaticalization of IRC status" for Naeso > pronouns, etc.? Yes. >> There's a kind of ObConlang point to be made here too, which is that the two >> approaches to language description described above pertain to description of >> conlangs too. The typological approach yields a description of the conlang, >> where the description can be very detailed or very sketchy and >> impressionistic. The ontological approach yields a *definition* of the >> conlang (and the definition may differ in how complete it is). I think >> engelangers generally feel themselves to be creating definitions, whereas >> artlangers generally (but not universally) feel themselves to be creating >> descriptions. > > To the extent that distinction makes sense, auxlangers can probably be > described as creating definitions, like engelangers; I wondered about that. You'd think that this was so, but in fact all nonengelang auxlangs I've ever seen seem to be merely described, in that the putative definitions fail so comprehensively to define the language. > But it also seems valid to describe the different activities of the > same conlanger dealing with the same language, when writing a > reference grammar vs. a "teach yourself" series of lessons. I of course see your point. But I would see a reference grammar as a detailed description rather than a definition. A definition should be something that spells out the underlying machinery of the language. In linguistics, formal or so-called 'theoretical' descriptions aim to discover what amounts to the definition of the language. To be honest, I've never yet seen a conlang with an explicit definition, tho maybe there are some engelang sketches that approach that state. The task requires such great understanding and such great labour, that we haven't succeeded in getting there yet. --And. Messages in this topic (15) ________________________________________________________________________ ________________________________________________________________________ 4a. Re: "Best" way to write a complete description of a language Posted by: "<deinx nxtxr>" deinx.nx...@sasxsek.org Date: Sat Oct 23, 2010 11:57 am ((PDT)) On 10/16/10 4:07 PM, Miles Forster wrote: > I have written grammar descriptions of several of my conlangs, but the > order in which different grammar points were being desribed was usually > somewhat random. Also, I often felt a bit disoriented about where to put > what in the description. Looking through grammars for some natural > languages I studied it felt as though there was some "magical" order in > them that made it easier to follow. So, I would like to get some opinions > on how to best structure a complete description of a language, so that > when someone who knows nothing about the language in advance is able to > pick the book up, read through it, and understand how the language works. > I'm looking for more than the obvious "Introduce the most basic things > before the more complex ones". I am really curious whether you would say > there is a *best* way to do this and of course what you would consider > that best way to be. (I am aware that not every language can be described > in the same order). Looking forward to responses. What's "best" is highly subjective of course so I'm sure if you ask 100 different people, you'll get 100 different ways of doing things. I have my preferred method of describing my conlangs. Generally I take the referencec from another language that's most similar to the project I'm starting and procede to modify it. All of these though are modeled on the reference I used for SASXSEK. I will add or delete certain passages, and sometimes entire chapters as appropriate to suit the language but generally keep the example sentences and same basic format. As far as writing some type of primer for a students rather than a simple conlang description, there's a book I've had for years called "French in 20 Lessons" which has turned out to be the best format for trying to learn a language for me. I tend to use that format for my conlangs though I've never gotten to the point of completing any of them for publication. Messages in this topic (9) ________________________________________________________________________ ________________________________________________________________________ 5a. Re: Conlangs based on Endangered/Dead Languages Posted by: "<deinx nxtxr>" deinx.nx...@sasxsek.org Date: Sat Oct 23, 2010 12:07 pm ((PDT)) On 10/16/10 1:26 PM, Matthew Martin wrote: > First, thanks to everyone who gave me feedback on how to create an easy a > priori language, I took notes and wrote them up on my blog > > http://www.suburbandestiny.com/conlang/?p=51 > > My real question of the moment is how should one proceed when creating a > conlang based on an Endangered or already dead language? I've wanted to > create a Ute-Lite or Virginia Algonquian language for a long time. (A VA > Algonquian language was made for the movie The New World) I've wanted to incorporate a bit of Tongva/Gabrieleño into one of my languages but just haven't been able to find much information. What exists of the modern language is little more than an attempted reconstruction anyway. Messages in this topic (7) ________________________________________________________________________ ________________________________________________________________________ 6. Third Draft Syllabary Posted by: "Gary Shannon" fizi...@gmail.com Date: Sat Oct 23, 2010 2:53 pm ((PDT)) I've selected 40 of the 64 second draft symbols for use in the third draft syllabary, plus two diacritical marks that can be used to modify the syllable. There are a total of 65 unique syllables. 40 use unique symbols and 25 use diacritics on some of the other 40 symbols. The syllabary is available as a pdf or as an image: http://fiziwig.com/conlang/kunu/kunu_syllabary.pdf http://fiziwig.com/conlang/kunu/syllabary.png with a sample of some text at http://fiziwig.com/conlang/kunu/sample1.png Comments are greatly appreciated. --gary Messages in this topic (1) ________________________________________________________________________ ________________________________________________________________________ 7a. Re: New Zhyler Orthography Page Posted by: "Matthew Turnbull" ave....@gmail.com Date: Sat Oct 23, 2010 4:40 pm ((PDT)) On Fri, Oct 22, 2010 at 9:09 PM, Douglas Koller <lao...@comcast.net> wrote: > ----- Original Message ----- > From: "David Peterson" <deda...@gmail.com> > To: conl...@listserv.brown.edu > Sent: Friday, October 22, 2010 5:10:58 AM > Subject: New Zhyler Orthography Page > > >So the recent discussion of X-SAMPA, which led to a short > >discussion of font embedding, led me to a series of resources > >which have allowed me to (finally!) embed fonts in my site. Part > >one of the massive site overhaul this new knowledge has led > >me to enact has been completed: a redone Zhyler orthography > >page. You can view it below: > > > http://dedalvs.com/zhyler/orthography.html > It loads nicely for me ... > (well, it's basically the letter "x", so I imagine a number of other > alphabets have this symbol) > ... Yep, I know one of mine does, for /k/ but it hardly ever looks like it, since the script is strictly cursive and the letter rarely occurs in isolation. A worse correspondence is a <t> shaped sign for /t/...oh well. Messages in this topic (14) ________________________________________________________________________ 7b. {X} in Your Conscript (was Re: New Zhyler Orthography Page) Posted by: "David Peterson" deda...@gmail.com Date: Sat Oct 23, 2010 10:15 pm ((PDT)) On Oct 23, 2010, at 4◊39 PM, Matthew Turnbull wrote: > On Fri, Oct 22, 2010 at 9:09 PM, Douglas Koller <lao...@comcast.net> wrote: > >> (well, it's basically the letter "x", so I imagine a number of other >> alphabets have this symbol) >> > ... > > Yep, I know one of mine does, for /k/ but it hardly ever looks like it, > since the script is strictly cursive and the letter rarely occurs in > isolation. A worse correspondence is a <t> shaped sign for /t/...oh well. The shape "X" seems common enough that it should show up in a variety of conscripts. I say we start a thread tracking it! So so far we have: Zhyler (David Peterson): /l/ ? (Matt Turnbull): /k/ Teonaht (Sally Caves): /k/ Géarthnuns (Kou): /tʃ/ And then I can add the following: Kamakawi (David Peterson): /a/ Sathir (David Peterson): /o/ Njaama (David Peterson): low tone marker Gweydr (David Peterson): /f/ Sheli (David Peterson): null (vowel carrier) Tan Tyls (David Peterson): number 7 Sidaan (David Peterson): /o/ I bet we can add a *ton* more to this list. -David ******************************************************************* "Sunlü eleškarez ügrallerüf üjjixelye ye oxömeyze." "No eternal reward will forgive us now for wasting the dawn." -Jim Morrison http://dedalvs.com/ LCS Member Since 2007 http://conlang.org/ Messages in this topic (14) ________________________________________________________________________ 7c. Re: {X} in Your Conscript (was Re: New Zhyler Orthography Page) Posted by: "Daniel Nielsen" niel...@uah.edu Date: Sun Oct 24, 2010 12:22 am ((PDT)) { X } would be interpretted as /&k/ (CXSAMPA) or `k (by the specific Romanization) The associated language & script don't have a name - calling them Wfn (/ufn/) for now. Dan N Messages in this topic (14) ________________________________________________________________________ 7d. {X} in Your Conscript (was Re: New Zhyler Orthography Page) Posted by: "Charlie" caeruleancent...@yahoo.com Date: Sun Oct 24, 2010 3:22 am ((PDT)) --- In conlang@yahoogroups.com, David Peterson <deda...@...> wrote: > > The shape "X" seems common enough that it should show up in a > variety of conscripts. I say we start a thread tracking it! So so far we > have: > > Zhyler (David Peterson): /l/ > ? (Matt Turnbull): /k/ > Teonaht (Sally Caves): /k/ > Géarthnuns (Kou): /tÊ/ > > And then I can add the following: > > Kamakawi (David Peterson): /a/ > Sathir (David Peterson): /o/ > Njaama (David Peterson): low tone marker > Gweydr (David Peterson): /f/ > Sheli (David Peterson): null (vowel carrier) > Tan Tyls (David Peterson): number 7 > Sidaan (David Peterson): /o/ > In Senjecas, <x> = IPA's /ç/; X-Sampa's /C/. Charlie Messages in this topic (14) ________________________________________________________________________ 7e. (no subject) Posted by: "Mechthild Czapp" 0zu...@gmx.de Date: Sun Oct 24, 2010 4:10 am ((PDT)) <1193067971.234021.1287799782297.javamail.r...@sz0037a.westchester.pa.mail.comcast.net> <aanlktinaib4+ppmwzqbmtvogbx9+5d8d8q4u07xnb...@mail.gmail.com> <09ac77cb-221f-4db8-be5d-499575e0a...@gmail.com> Subject: Re: {X} in Your Conscript (was Re: New Zhyler Orthography Page) To: Constructed Languages List <conl...@listserv.brown.edu> X-Authenticated: #18510118 X-Flags: 0001 X-Mailer: WWW-Mail 6100 (Global Message Exchange) X-Priority: 3 X-Provags-ID: V01U2FsdGVkX1+e5fBald2eHTCO2Dey6Vco2s5bTc7doq2eNLScCB 1FYrN/IxqHeMyr4ywytexXlWHH+7CX7XyTUg== Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit X-GMX-UID: qT7xeDYjRkkNe1ILaWVqGFhudWkvKBMu > Von: David Peterson <deda...@gmail.com> > An: conl...@listserv.brown.edu > Betreff: {X} in Your Conscript (was Re: New Zhyler Orthography Page) > On Oct 23, 2010, at 4◊39 PM, Matthew Turnbull wrote: > > > On Fri, Oct 22, 2010 at 9:09 PM, Douglas Koller <lao...@comcast.net> > wrote: > > > >> (well, it's basically the letter "x", so I imagine a number of other > >> alphabets have this symbol) > >> > > ... > > > > Yep, I know one of mine does, for /k/ but it hardly ever looks like it, > > since the script is strictly cursive and the letter rarely occurs in > > isolation. A worse correspondence is a <t> shaped sign for /t/...oh > well. > > > The shape "X" seems common enough that it should show up in a > variety of conscripts. I say we start a thread tracking it! So so far we > have: > > Zhyler (David Peterson): /l/ > ? (Matt Turnbull): /k/ > Teonaht (Sally Caves): /k/ > Géarthnuns (Kou): /tʃ/ > > And then I can add the following: > > Kamakawi (David Peterson): /a/ > Sathir (David Peterson): /o/ > Njaama (David Peterson): low tone marker > Gweydr (David Peterson): /f/ > Sheli (David Peterson): null (vowel carrier) > Tan Tyls (David Peterson): number 7 > Sidaan (David Peterson): /o/ > > I bet we can add a *ton* more to this list. > Rejistanian (Mechthild Czapp): number 7 Kenshuite He Mo Gie (Mechthild Czapp): 'a -- Sanja'xen mi'lanja'kynha ,mi'la'ohix'ta jilih, nka. My life would be easy if it was not so hard! GMX DSL Doppel-Flat ab 19,99 €/mtl.! Jetzt auch mit gratis Notebook-Flat! http://portal.gmx.net/de/go/dsl Messages in this topic (14) ________________________________________________________________________ 7f. Re: {X} in Your Conscript (was Re: New Zhyler Orthography Page) Posted by: "<deinx nxtxr>" deinx.nx...@sasxsek.org Date: Sun Oct 24, 2010 5:26 am ((PDT)) On 10/24/10 1:13 AM, David Peterson wrote: > On Oct 23, 2010, at 4◊39 PM, Matthew Turnbull wrote: > >> On Fri, Oct 22, 2010 at 9:09 PM, Douglas Koller<lao...@comcast.net> wrote: >> >>> (well, it's basically the letter "x", so I imagine a number of other >>> alphabets have this symbol) >>> >> ... >> >> Yep, I know one of mine does, for /k/ but it hardly ever looks like it, >> since the script is strictly cursive and the letter rarely occurs in >> isolation. A worse correspondence is a<t> shaped sign for /t/...oh well. > > The shape "X" seems common enough that it should show up in a > variety of conscripts. I say we start a thread tracking it! So so far we > have: In Classic Deini a small center-height cross symbol like "x" is used as an end-of-sentence marker, roughly equivalent to a period (.) . Messages in this topic (14) ________________________________________________________________________ 7g. Re: {X} in Your Conscript (was Re: New Zhyler Orthography Page) Posted by: "Samuel Stutter" sam.stut...@student.manchester.ac.uk Date: Sun Oct 24, 2010 5:33 am ((PDT)) In Nauspayr <x> = IPA's /x/ or /ɣ/ In New-Mancunian <x> = IPA's /ʃ/ Are we culturally preconditioned to think of <x> as representing the / ks/ sound in English / Latin? That is, either as a velar plosive or a fricative or a combination of both? On 24 Oct 2010, at 11:10, Charlie wrote: > --- In conlang@yahoogroups.com, David Peterson <deda...@...> wrote: >> >> The shape "X" seems common enough that it should show up in a >> variety of conscripts. I say we start a thread tracking it! So so >> far we >> have: >> >> Zhyler (David Peterson): /l/ >> ? (Matt Turnbull): /k/ >> Teonaht (Sally Caves): /k/ >> Géarthnuns (Kou): /tÊf/ >> >> And then I can add the following: >> >> Kamakawi (David Peterson): /a/ >> Sathir (David Peterson): /o/ >> Njaama (David Peterson): low tone marker >> Gweydr (David Peterson): /f/ >> Sheli (David Peterson): null (vowel carrier) >> Tan Tyls (David Peterson): number 7 >> Sidaan (David Peterson): /o/ >> > > In Senjecas, <x> = IPA's /ç/; X-Sampa's /C/. > Charlie Messages in this topic (14) ________________________________________________________________________ 7h. Re: {X} in Your Conscript (was Re: New Zhyler Orthography Page) Posted by: "Lars Finsen" lars.fin...@ortygia.no Date: Sun Oct 24, 2010 6:35 am ((PDT)) Den 24. okt. 2010 kl. 07.13 skreiv David Peterson: > > The shape "X" seems common enough that it should show up in a > variety of conscripts. I say we start a thread tracking it! So so > far we > have: > > Zhyler (David Peterson): /l/ > ? (Matt Turnbull): /k/ > Teonaht (Sally Caves): /k/ > Géarthnuns (Kou): /tʃ/ > > And then I can add the following: > > Kamakawi (David Peterson): /a/ > Sathir (David Peterson): /o/ > Njaama (David Peterson): low tone marker > Gweydr (David Peterson): /f/ > Sheli (David Peterson): null (vowel carrier) > Tan Tyls (David Peterson): number 7 > Sidaan (David Peterson): /o/ > > I bet we can add a *ton* more to this list. Obviously, it's one of the basic shapes, especially for an incised alphabet. The Mait (Urianian 'runes') have a big X for the vowel /i/. The Suraetua learnt the alphabet from the Phoenicians. They used the ayin (O) for the vowel /i/ because they didn't find a letter for it, and had no other use for the ayin. Urianians later learnt it from the Suraetua, and simply replaced it with an X because they found it difficult to incise the round shape. The taw by then had lost one of its legs, and was aligned differently from an early date anyway, more like a _+_ sign. In handwriting it was drawn with a loop at the top, and the lower legs used for connecting. Its name in Suraetua was ajin. This became aina: in Old Urianian, ena in Middle Urianian and ine or jana in modern Urianian. In divination and magic it stands for hardness and strength. LEF Messages in this topic (14) ________________________________________________________________________ ________________________________________________________________________ 8a. Kunu syllabary web page Posted by: "Gary Shannon" fizi...@gmail.com Date: Sat Oct 23, 2010 4:43 pm ((PDT)) Thanks to assistance from David Peterson this font-embedded web page for the Kunu syllabary font should work with all browsers now. http://fiziwig.com/conlang/kunu/index.html I'm using a more restricted phoneme inventory than I started with. Even so, I have 65 syllables. I've tried to pick sounds that are held in common by many languages to represent the "International" flavor of the conlang (in a conworld where Kunu is the universal Lingua Franca of the planet). Since this is a syllabary it should not be terribly difficult to write a computer program that can generate a couple thousand words to use as an initial seed vocabulary. --gary Messages in this topic (3) ________________________________________________________________________ 8b. Re: Kunu syllabary web page Posted by: "David Peterson" deda...@gmail.com Date: Sat Oct 23, 2010 10:08 pm ((PDT)) On Oct 23, 2010, at 4◊41 PM, Gary Shannon wrote: > Thanks to assistance from David Peterson this font-embedded web page > for the Kunu syllabary font should work with all browsers now. > > http://fiziwig.com/conlang/kunu/index.html Looks great on Google Chrome, but, unfortunately, does not work on the iPhone Safari browser. I had this same problem at first, though, and the thing was the code following the .svg didn't match. You have this in your CSS: kunu-webfont.svg#webfontF2zLcdT3 But on your actual svg font page at fiziwig.com/conlang/kunu/kunu-webfont.svg, you have: font id="webfonttnFSHJck" Make those numbers match, and you should be good to go! -David ******************************************************************* "A male love inevivi i'ala'i oku i ue pokulu'ume o heki a." "No eternal reward will forgive us now for wasting the dawn." -Jim Morrison http://dedalvs.com/ LCS Member Since 2007 http://conlang.org/ Messages in this topic (3) ________________________________________________________________________ 8c. Re: Kunu syllabary web page Posted by: "Gary Shannon" fizi...@gmail.com Date: Sat Oct 23, 2010 10:54 pm ((PDT)) Thanks. How do you look at a .SVG file? I couldn't see the font id="..." that you referred to. Anyway, I made the css match. They got out of synch when I loaded a new version of the font but didn't realize I needed to update the css as well. I replied on list because I figure anybody that wants to put a conscript on their web page needs to know this stuff. Now comes the long, unending job of building a lexicon and finding the right grammar. --gary On Sat, Oct 23, 2010 at 10:06 PM, David Peterson <deda...@gmail.com> wrote: > On Oct 23, 2010, at 4◊41 PM, Gary Shannon wrote: > >> Thanks to assistance from David Peterson this font-embedded web page >> for the Kunu syllabary font should work with all browsers now. >> >> http://fiziwig.com/conlang/kunu/index.html > > Looks great on Google Chrome, but, unfortunately, does not work on the > iPhone Safari browser. I had this same problem at first, though, and the > thing was the code following the .svg didn't match. You have this in your > CSS: > > kunu-webfont.svg#webfontF2zLcdT3 > > But on your actual svg font page at fiziwig.com/conlang/kunu/kunu-webfont.svg, > you have: > > font id="webfonttnFSHJck" > > Make those numbers match, and you should be good to go! > > -David > ******************************************************************* > "A male love inevivi i'ala'i oku i ue pokulu'ume o heki a." > "No eternal reward will forgive us now for wasting the dawn." > > -Jim Morrison > > http://dedalvs.com/ > > LCS Member Since 2007 > http://conlang.org/ > Messages in this topic (3) ________________________________________________________________________ ________________________________________________________________________ 9a. Re: TECH Font Embedding (was Re: Could you take quick look at this?) Posted by: "Matthew Turnbull" ave....@gmail.com Date: Sat Oct 23, 2010 4:45 pm ((PDT)) On Fri, Oct 22, 2010 at 2:22 AM, David Peterson <deda...@gmail.com> wrote: > ...You should trademark this word and sell it to schools. > Indeed, imagine what I could charge for it, it's OED entry could have an exact time for it's introduction into the language! Messages in this topic (18) ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Yahoo! Groups Links <*> To visit your group on the web, go to: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/conlang/ <*> Your email settings: Digest Email | Traditional <*> To change settings online go to: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/conlang/join (Yahoo! ID required) <*> To change settings via email: conlang-nor...@yahoogroups.com conlang-fullfeatu...@yahoogroups.com <*> To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to: conlang-unsubscr...@yahoogroups.com <*> Your use of Yahoo! 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