There are 11 messages in this issue.
Topics in this digest:
1.1. Re: Most phonetically beautiful sentence in a natlang
From: Leonardo Castro
1.2. Re: Most phonetically beautiful sentence in a natlang
From: C. Brickner
1.3. Re: Most phonetically beautiful sentence in a natlang
From: Roger Mills
1.4. Re: Most phonetically beautiful sentence in a natlang
From: James Kane
1.5. Re: Most phonetically beautiful sentence in a natlang
From: John Q
1.6. Re: Most phonetically beautiful sentence in a natlang
From: Eugene Oh
1.7. Re: Most phonetically beautiful sentence in a natlang
From: James Kane
1.8. Re: Most phonetically beautiful sentence in a natlang
From: Alex Fink
1.9. Re: Most phonetically beautiful sentence in a natlang
From: Christophe Grandsire-Koevoets
2.1. Re: Euphony
From: R A Brown
2.2. Re: Euphony
From: R A Brown
Messages
________________________________________________________________________
1.1. Re: Most phonetically beautiful sentence in a natlang
Posted by: "Leonardo Castro" leolucas1...@gmail.com
Date: Wed Aug 28, 2013 6:54 am ((PDT))
2013/8/27 H. S. Teoh <hst...@quickfur.ath.cx>:
> ObConlang: do your conlang(s) have court-dictated (i.e., rigid) euphony
> rules, or do they have more mellifluous euphony rules? (Or do they have
> no euphony rules? Or no euphony whatsoever? :-P)
I don't have a conlang with euphony rules, but once I outlined some
phonotactic rules to what would be the most smooth, suave, soft
language I could imagine. I have also considered to create a conlang
with different pronunciations for males and females that could have
been evolved from stereotypes of how females and males should speak (I
wonder if there's anything remotely similar to this in natlangs
[similar to the Nushu script phenomenon but afecting phoneme
pronunciation]).
Some of the imagined sex-related phone changes are:
In the beggining of words:
M - F
[v] -> [f] - [v] -> [w]
[d] -> [t] - [d] -> [j]
In the middle:
[lt] -> [rt] - [lt] -> [ld]
[nd] -> [nt] - [nd] -> [nd]
So, the expression pronounced by females as "welda yoi wanda la
yoldia" would be pronounced by males as "ferta toi fanta la toldia".
>
> AFMCL, Ebisédian doesn't really have very much phonology to speak of; I
> made it when I was young and inexperienced, and basically didn't put
> very much thought into its phonological aspects. :) So there aren't any
> euphony rules to speak of, though I did have somebody comment that the
> proliferation of glottal stops, caused by the lack of any vowel glides,
> makes it good for singing.
>
>
> Tatari Faran has quite a number of phonological mutations to preserve
> euphony. Euphony, however, is in the ear of the native speakers; it may
> not correspond with *our* sense of aesthetics. :) Nevertheless, I think
> TF does have some nice mutation rules, e.g.:
>
> huna + na -> hunan da (vs. *huna na)
> asusu + sei -> asusei (vs. *asusu sei)
> panis + -is -> panitis (vs. *panisis)
> pasanan + -an -> pasanaran (vs. *pasananan)
>
>
> My new alienlang also has some mutation rules, but since it's still very
> incomplete, I can't really say very much about its overall phonological
> characteristics. One of its most prominent features is the
> fricativisation of clusters of stops:
>
> ehrlutek /'ExR\_0lUtEk/ -> ehrlutekmi /,ExR\_0lUtEx'mi/ (/k/ -> /x/)
> apfat /'apfVt/ -> apfattek /'apfVTtEk/ (/t/ -> /T/)
> gorl /'gOrl/ -> gorltai /'gOrKtaj/ (/l/ -> /K/)
>
> This fricativisation may appear word-internally as well:
>
> glett [glETt] (vs. *[glEt:])
Fricativisation is something I like about Spanish /b/, /g/ and /d/
that makes it somewhat more mellifluous.
>
> Another feature is the lenition of /tu/ after /n/ or /N/:
>
> bufen + -tu -> bufendu (vs. *bufentu)
> cheŋ + -tu -> cheŋdu (vs. *cheŋtu)
>
> I'd say both Tatari Faran and the alienlang have mellifluous mutation
> rules, but "mellifluous" isn't exactly how I'd describe the alienlang,
> what with its [r] / [xR\_0] contrast. :) That's a voiced alveolar trill
> vs. a pre-fricativised voiceless uvular trill -- the latter imparts
> quite a harsh feel to the language due to its frequent occurrence (e.g.,
> in _ehrlu_ "tongue/speak", _ahr-_ "two-/double-", _hreis_ "three",
> _shtehr_ "four", _hrvat_ "five" -- it's written as <hr>).
BTW, I wonder what a language with the maximum quantity of harmonizing
features would sound like (a challenge to someone?). For instance,
imagine a language with
* vowel harmony within words (maybe multidimensional: nasalization,
ATR, roundness, etc.);
* fricativisation and voicing of consonants when they occur intervocalic;
* suppression of any consonant cluster involving two non-nasal stops;
* clustering of nasal stops only with their homorganic;
* clustering of liquid consonants only with their homorganic;
* what more can I suggest?
Messages in this topic (43)
________________________________________________________________________
1.2. Re: Most phonetically beautiful sentence in a natlang
Posted by: "C. Brickner" tepeyach...@embarqmail.com
Date: Wed Aug 28, 2013 2:24 pm ((PDT))
----- Original Message -----
On Tue, Aug 27, 2013 at 07:53:45PM -0300, Leonardo Castro wrote:
ObConlang: do your conlang(s) have court-dictated (i.e., rigid) euphony
rules, or do they have more mellifluous euphony rules? (Or do they have
no euphony rules? Or no euphony whatsoever? :-P)
____________________________________________________________________
Senjecas has four rules which contribute to the euphony of the language (IMO).
1. Clusters of more than two consonants are not permitted. Therefore in
forming a compound the epenthetic vowel ë (/ə,@/) is inserted between the two
parts, e.g, ‘reud-‘, red, + ‘sténos’, chest = ‘reùdësténes’, robin redbreast.
This also pertains across word boundaries, when the same consonant may be
repeated, e.g., ‘èroonúes eróm ðèèa pínonë nóda’, the rowers are using boards
for oars.
2. Consonant clusters may not consist of two occlusives so the first one is
lenited, e.g., ‘gob-‘, beautiful, + ‘-tas’, -tude, -hood, etc. = ‘góvtas’,
beauty.
3. Elision occurs in three instances:
a. when the negating particle ‘ne’, is followed by an initial vowel, e.g., ‘n'
ìðu’, not here.
b. when the final vowel of a word is the same as the initial vowel of the
following word, e.g., ‘réésant’ éryes’, the running fallow deer.
c. when a postposition (all of which end in <a>) is followed by a word
beginning with a vowel, e.g., ‘nùes vérso cúrĸom ànt' éra’, they are paddling
against the swift current.
4. Certain prefixes consist of only one consonant. These are affixed to the
word using vowel harmony. This is done with two of the three weak vowels (the
third is the schwa as in #1 above): ï (/ɪ,I/) for the front vowels and ü
(/ʊ,U/) for the back vowels. The prefix ‘v-‘ means ‘without’. Thus,
‘vïvárdis’, beardless, and ‘vüqósis’, remorseless.
Charlie
Messages in this topic (43)
________________________________________________________________________
1.3. Re: Most phonetically beautiful sentence in a natlang
Posted by: "Roger Mills" romi...@yahoo.com
Date: Wed Aug 28, 2013 6:29 pm ((PDT))
From: Leonardo Castro <leolucas1...@gmail.com>
BTW, I wonder what a language with the maximum quantity of harmonizing
features would sound like (a challenge to someone?). For instance,
imagine a language with
* vowel harmony within words (maybe multidimensional: nasalization,
ATR, roundness, etc.);
* fricativisation and voicing of consonants when they occur intervocalic;
* suppression of any consonant cluster involving two non-nasal stops;
* clustering of nasal stops only with their homorganic;
* clustering of liquid consonants only with their homorganic;
* what more can I suggest?
===============================================
Hmm, sounds a bit like Prevli-- http://cinduworld.tripod.com/prevli.phon2.pdf
(It still need work :-((( )
Messages in this topic (43)
________________________________________________________________________
1.4. Re: Most phonetically beautiful sentence in a natlang
Posted by: "James Kane" kane...@gmail.com
Date: Wed Aug 28, 2013 6:50 pm ((PDT))
'So, the expression pronounced by females as "welda yoi wanda la
yoldia" would be pronounced by males as "ferta toi fanta la toldia".'
I wonder if at this point the two would be mutually unintillegible. They are
some very big contrasts.
I think differences in pronunciation in women's and men's speech is quite a
common thing, just as many languages have slight lexical differences as well. I
know that Chinese woman frequently pronounce the alveolopalatal series <q j x>
/ts\_h ts\ s\/ as [ts_jh ts_j s_j].
James
On 29/08/2013, at 1:53 AM, Leonardo Castro <leolucas1...@gmail.com> wrote:
> 2013/8/27 H. S. Teoh <hst...@quickfur.ath.cx>:
>> ObConlang: do your conlang(s) have court-dictated (i.e., rigid) euphony
>> rules, or do they have more mellifluous euphony rules? (Or do they have
>> no euphony rules? Or no euphony whatsoever? :-P)
>
> I don't have a conlang with euphony rules, but once I outlined some
> phonotactic rules to what would be the most smooth, suave, soft
> language I could imagine. I have also considered to create a conlang
> with different pronunciations for males and females that could have
> been evolved from stereotypes of how females and males should speak (I
> wonder if there's anything remotely similar to this in natlangs
> [similar to the Nushu script phenomenon but afecting phoneme
> pronunciation]).
>
> Some of the imagined sex-related phone changes are:
>
> In the beggining of words:
> M - F
> [v] -> [f] - [v] -> [w]
> [d] -> [t] - [d] -> [j]
>
> In the middle:
> [lt] -> [rt] - [lt] -> [ld]
> [nd] -> [nt] - [nd] -> [nd]
>
> So, the expression pronounced by females as "welda yoi wanda la
> yoldia" would be pronounced by males as "ferta toi fanta la toldia".
>
>>
>> AFMCL, Ebisédian doesn't really have very much phonology to speak of; I
>> made it when I was young and inexperienced, and basically didn't put
>> very much thought into its phonological aspects. :) So there aren't any
>> euphony rules to speak of, though I did have somebody comment that the
>> proliferation of glottal stops, caused by the lack of any vowel glides,
>> makes it good for singing.
>>
>>
>> Tatari Faran has quite a number of phonological mutations to preserve
>> euphony. Euphony, however, is in the ear of the native speakers; it may
>> not correspond with *our* sense of aesthetics. :) Nevertheless, I think
>> TF does have some nice mutation rules, e.g.:
>>
>> huna + na -> hunan da (vs. *huna na)
>> asusu + sei -> asusei (vs. *asusu sei)
>> panis + -is -> panitis (vs. *panisis)
>> pasanan + -an -> pasanaran (vs. *pasananan)
>>
>>
>> My new alienlang also has some mutation rules, but since it's still very
>> incomplete, I can't really say very much about its overall phonological
>> characteristics. One of its most prominent features is the
>> fricativisation of clusters of stops:
>>
>> ehrlutek /'ExR\_0lUtEk/ -> ehrlutekmi /,ExR\_0lUtEx'mi/ (/k/ -> /x/)
>> apfat /'apfVt/ -> apfattek /'apfVTtEk/ (/t/ -> /T/)
>> gorl /'gOrl/ -> gorltai /'gOrKtaj/ (/l/ -> /K/)
>>
>> This fricativisation may appear word-internally as well:
>>
>> glett [glETt] (vs. *[glEt:])
>
> Fricativisation is something I like about Spanish /b/, /g/ and /d/
> that makes it somewhat more mellifluous.
>
>>
>> Another feature is the lenition of /tu/ after /n/ or /N/:
>>
>> bufen + -tu -> bufendu (vs. *bufentu)
>> cheŋ + -tu -> cheŋdu (vs. *cheŋtu)
>>
>> I'd say both Tatari Faran and the alienlang have mellifluous mutation
>> rules, but "mellifluous" isn't exactly how I'd describe the alienlang,
>> what with its [r] / [xR\_0] contrast. :) That's a voiced alveolar trill
>> vs. a pre-fricativised voiceless uvular trill -- the latter imparts
>> quite a harsh feel to the language due to its frequent occurrence (e.g.,
>> in _ehrlu_ "tongue/speak", _ahr-_ "two-/double-", _hreis_ "three",
>> _shtehr_ "four", _hrvat_ "five" -- it's written as <hr>).
>
> BTW, I wonder what a language with the maximum quantity of harmonizing
> features would sound like (a challenge to someone?). For instance,
> imagine a language with
>
> * vowel harmony within words (maybe multidimensional: nasalization,
> ATR, roundness, etc.);
>
> * fricativisation and voicing of consonants when they occur intervocalic;
>
> * suppression of any consonant cluster involving two non-nasal stops;
>
> * clustering of nasal stops only with their homorganic;
>
> * clustering of liquid consonants only with their homorganic;
>
> * what more can I suggest?
Messages in this topic (43)
________________________________________________________________________
1.5. Re: Most phonetically beautiful sentence in a natlang
Posted by: "John Q" jquijad...@gmail.com
Date: Wed Aug 28, 2013 9:54 pm ((PDT))
>BTW, I wonder what a language with the maximum quantity of harmonizing
>features would sound like (a challenge to someone?). For instance,
>imagine a language with
>
>* vowel harmony within words (maybe multidimensional: nasalization,
>ATR, roundness, etc.);
>
>* fricativisation and voicing of consonants when they occur intervocalic;
>
>* suppression of any consonant cluster involving two non-nasal stops;
>
>* clustering of nasal stops only with their homorganic;
>
>* clustering of liquid consonants only with their homorganic;
>
>* what more can I suggest?
>===============================================
In the last part of my talk at LCC2 back in 2007, I proposed/presented a
phonology for the ideal language for singing which incorporated almost all of
the above suggestions and a few more, designed for maximum phonetic euphony.
--John Q.
Messages in this topic (43)
________________________________________________________________________
1.6. Re: Most phonetically beautiful sentence in a natlang
Posted by: "Eugene Oh" un.do...@gmail.com
Date: Thu Aug 29, 2013 1:00 am ((PDT))
Those are two different sets of phonemes in Mandarin that you've listed...
Eugene
Sent from my iPhone
On 29 Aug 2013, at 03:50, James Kane <kane...@gmail.com> wrote:
> 'So, the expression pronounced by females as "welda yoi wanda la
> yoldia" would be pronounced by males as "ferta toi fanta la toldia".'
>
> I wonder if at this point the two would be mutually unintillegible. They are
> some very big contrasts.
>
> I think differences in pronunciation in women's and men's speech is quite a
> common thing, just as many languages have slight lexical differences as well.
> I know that Chinese woman frequently pronounce the alveolopalatal series <q j
> x> /ts\_h ts\ s\/ as [ts_jh ts_j s_j].
>
> James
>
> On 29/08/2013, at 1:53 AM, Leonardo Castro <leolucas1...@gmail.com> wrote:
>
>> 2013/8/27 H. S. Teoh <hst...@quickfur.ath.cx>:
>>> ObConlang: do your conlang(s) have court-dictated (i.e., rigid) euphony
>>> rules, or do they have more mellifluous euphony rules? (Or do they have
>>> no euphony rules? Or no euphony whatsoever? :-P)
>>
>> I don't have a conlang with euphony rules, but once I outlined some
>> phonotactic rules to what would be the most smooth, suave, soft
>> language I could imagine. I have also considered to create a conlang
>> with different pronunciations for males and females that could have
>> been evolved from stereotypes of how females and males should speak (I
>> wonder if there's anything remotely similar to this in natlangs
>> [similar to the Nushu script phenomenon but afecting phoneme
>> pronunciation]).
>>
>> Some of the imagined sex-related phone changes are:
>>
>> In the beggining of words:
>> M - F
>> [v] -> [f] - [v] -> [w]
>> [d] -> [t] - [d] -> [j]
>>
>> In the middle:
>> [lt] -> [rt] - [lt] -> [ld]
>> [nd] -> [nt] - [nd] -> [nd]
>>
>> So, the expression pronounced by females as "welda yoi wanda la
>> yoldia" would be pronounced by males as "ferta toi fanta la toldia".
>>
>>>
>>> AFMCL, Ebis�mdian doesn't really have very much phonology to speak of; I
>>> made it when I was young and inexperienced, and basically didn't put
>>> very much thought into its phonological aspects. :) So there aren't any
>>> euphony rules to speak of, though I did have somebody comment that the
>>> proliferation of glottal stops, caused by the lack of any vowel glides,
>>> makes it good for singing.
>>>
>>>
>>> Tatari Faran has quite a number of phonological mutations to preserve
>>> euphony. Euphony, however, is in the ear of the native speakers; it may
>>> not correspond with *our* sense of aesthetics. :) Nevertheless, I think
>>> TF does have some nice mutation rules, e.g.:
>>>
>>> huna + na -> hunan da (vs. *huna na)
>>> asusu + sei -> asusei (vs. *asusu sei)
>>> panis + -is -> panitis (vs. *panisis)
>>> pasanan + -an -> pasanaran (vs. *pasananan)
>>>
>>>
>>> My new alienlang also has some mutation rules, but since it's still very
>>> incomplete, I can't really say very much about its overall phonological
>>> characteristics. One of its most prominent features is the
>>> fricativisation of clusters of stops:
>>>
>>> ehrlutek /'ExR\_0lUtEk/ -> ehrlutekmi /,ExR\_0lUtEx'mi/ (/k/ -> /x/)
>>> apfat /'apfVt/ -> apfattek /'apfVTtEk/ (/t/ -> /T/)
>>> gorl /'gOrl/ -> gorltai /'gOrKtaj/ (/l/ -> /K/)
>>>
>>> This fricativisation may appear word-internally as well:
>>>
>>> glett [glETt] (vs. *[glEt:])
>>
>> Fricativisation is something I like about Spanish /b/, /g/ and /d/
>> that makes it somewhat more mellifluous.
>>
>>>
>>> Another feature is the lenition of /tu/ after /n/ or /N/:
>>>
>>> bufen + -tu -> bufendu (vs. *bufentu)
>>> che�� + -tu -> che��du (vs. *che��tu)
>>>
>>> I'd say both Tatari Faran and the alienlang have mellifluous mutation
>>> rules, but "mellifluous" isn't exactly how I'd describe the alienlang,
>>> what with its [r] / [xR\_0] contrast. :) That's a voiced alveolar trill
>>> vs. a pre-fricativised voiceless uvular trill -- the latter imparts
>>> quite a harsh feel to the language due to its frequent occurrence (e.g.,
>>> in _ehrlu_ "tongue/speak", _ahr-_ "two-/double-", _hreis_ "three",
>>> _shtehr_ "four", _hrvat_ "five" -- it's written as <hr>).
>>
>> BTW, I wonder what a language with the maximum quantity of harmonizing
>> features would sound like (a challenge to someone?). For instance,
>> imagine a language with
>>
>> * vowel harmony within words (maybe multidimensional: nasalization,
>> ATR, roundness, etc.);
>>
>> * fricativisation and voicing of consonants when they occur intervocalic;
>>
>> * suppression of any consonant cluster involving two non-nasal stops;
>>
>> * clustering of nasal stops only with their homorganic;
>>
>> * clustering of liquid consonants only with their homorganic;
>>
>> * what more can I suggest?
Messages in this topic (43)
________________________________________________________________________
1.7. Re: Most phonetically beautiful sentence in a natlang
Posted by: "James Kane" kane...@gmail.com
Date: Thu Aug 29, 2013 1:47 am ((PDT))
I'm not sure where the confusion is. Sorry for the use of CXS, I was being
lazy. The phonemes are <q j x> /tɕʰ tɕ ɕ/, realised as [tsʲʰ tsʲ sʲ] by some
speakers, which is still distinct from <c z s> /tsʰ ts s/.
James
On 29/08/2013, at 7:59 PM, Eugene Oh <un.do...@gmail.com> wrote:
> Those are two different sets of phonemes in Mandarin that you've listed...
>
> Eugene
>
> Sent from my iPhone
>
> On 29 Aug 2013, at 03:50, James Kane <kane...@gmail.com> wrote:
>
>> 'So, the expression pronounced by females as "welda yoi wanda la
>> yoldia" would be pronounced by males as "ferta toi fanta la toldia".'
>>
>> I wonder if at this point the two would be mutually unintillegible. They are
>> some very big contrasts.
>>
>> I think differences in pronunciation in women's and men's speech is quite a
>> common thing, just as many languages have slight lexical differences as
>> well. I know that Chinese woman frequently pronounce the alveolopalatal
>> series <q j x> /ts\_h ts\ s\/ as [ts_jh ts_j s_j].
>>
>> James
>>
>> On 29/08/2013, at 1:53 AM, Leonardo Castro <leolucas1...@gmail.com> wrote:
>>
>>> 2013/8/27 H. S. Teoh <hst...@quickfur.ath.cx>:
>>>> ObConlang: do your conlang(s) have court-dictated (i.e., rigid) euphony
>>>> rules, or do they have more mellifluous euphony rules? (Or do they have
>>>> no euphony rules? Or no euphony whatsoever? :-P)
>>>
>>> I don't have a conlang with euphony rules, but once I outlined some
>>> phonotactic rules to what would be the most smooth, suave, soft
>>> language I could imagine. I have also considered to create a conlang
>>> with different pronunciations for males and females that could have
>>> been evolved from stereotypes of how females and males should speak (I
>>> wonder if there's anything remotely similar to this in natlangs
>>> [similar to the Nushu script phenomenon but afecting phoneme
>>> pronunciation]).
>>>
>>> Some of the imagined sex-related phone changes are:
>>>
>>> In the beggining of words:
>>> M - F
>>> [v] -> [f] - [v] -> [w]
>>> [d] -> [t] - [d] -> [j]
>>>
>>> In the middle:
>>> [lt] -> [rt] - [lt] -> [ld]
>>> [nd] -> [nt] - [nd] -> [nd]
>>>
>>> So, the expression pronounced by females as "welda yoi wanda la
>>> yoldia" would be pronounced by males as "ferta toi fanta la toldia".
>>>
>>>>
>>>> AFMCL, Ebisédian doesn't really have very much phonology to speak of; I
>>>> made it when I was young and inexperienced, and basically didn't put
>>>> very much thought into its phonological aspects. :) So there aren't any
>>>> euphony rules to speak of, though I did have somebody comment that the
>>>> proliferation of glottal stops, caused by the lack of any vowel glides,
>>>> makes it good for singing.
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> Tatari Faran has quite a number of phonological mutations to preserve
>>>> euphony. Euphony, however, is in the ear of the native speakers; it may
>>>> not correspond with *our* sense of aesthetics. :) Nevertheless, I think
>>>> TF does have some nice mutation rules, e.g.:
>>>>
>>>> huna + na -> hunan da (vs. *huna na)
>>>> asusu + sei -> asusei (vs. *asusu sei)
>>>> panis + -is -> panitis (vs. *panisis)
>>>> pasanan + -an -> pasanaran (vs. *pasananan)
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> My new alienlang also has some mutation rules, but since it's still very
>>>> incomplete, I can't really say very much about its overall phonological
>>>> characteristics. One of its most prominent features is the
>>>> fricativisation of clusters of stops:
>>>>
>>>> ehrlutek /'ExR\_0lUtEk/ -> ehrlutekmi /,ExR\_0lUtEx'mi/ (/k/ -> /x/)
>>>> apfat /'apfVt/ -> apfattek /'apfVTtEk/ (/t/ -> /T/)
>>>> gorl /'gOrl/ -> gorltai /'gOrKtaj/ (/l/ -> /K/)
>>>>
>>>> This fricativisation may appear word-internally as well:
>>>>
>>>> glett [glETt] (vs. *[glEt:])
>>>
>>> Fricativisation is something I like about Spanish /b/, /g/ and /d/
>>> that makes it somewhat more mellifluous.
>>>
>>>>
>>>> Another feature is the lenition of /tu/ after /n/ or /N/:
>>>>
>>>> bufen + -tu -> bufendu (vs. *bufentu)
>>>> cheŋ + -tu -> cheŋdu (vs. *cheŋtu)
>>>>
>>>> I'd say both Tatari Faran and the alienlang have mellifluous mutation
>>>> rules, but "mellifluous" isn't exactly how I'd describe the alienlang,
>>>> what with its [r] / [xR\_0] contrast. :) That's a voiced alveolar trill
>>>> vs. a pre-fricativised voiceless uvular trill -- the latter imparts
>>>> quite a harsh feel to the language due to its frequent occurrence (e.g.,
>>>> in _ehrlu_ "tongue/speak", _ahr-_ "two-/double-", _hreis_ "three",
>>>> _shtehr_ "four", _hrvat_ "five" -- it's written as <hr>).
>>>
>>> BTW, I wonder what a language with the maximum quantity of harmonizing
>>> features would sound like (a challenge to someone?). For instance,
>>> imagine a language with
>>>
>>> * vowel harmony within words (maybe multidimensional: nasalization,
>>> ATR, roundness, etc.);
>>>
>>> * fricativisation and voicing of consonants when they occur intervocalic;
>>>
>>> * suppression of any consonant cluster involving two non-nasal stops;
>>>
>>> * clustering of nasal stops only with their homorganic;
>>>
>>> * clustering of liquid consonants only with their homorganic;
>>>
>>> * what more can I suggest?
Messages in this topic (43)
________________________________________________________________________
1.8. Re: Most phonetically beautiful sentence in a natlang
Posted by: "Alex Fink" 000...@gmail.com
Date: Thu Aug 29, 2013 2:04 am ((PDT))
On Thu, 29 Aug 2013 13:50:26 +1200, James Kane <kane...@gmail.com> wrote:
>'So, the expression pronounced by females as "welda yoi wanda la
>yoldia" would be pronounced by males as "ferta toi fanta la toldia".'
>
>I wonder if at this point the two would be mutually unintillegible. They are
>some very big contrasts.
Well, they wouldn't be as mutually unintelligible as the two halves of Taino
were, at one point. Quoth Wikipedia:
| Carib warriors invading from South America took Taíno wives, or raided
| north and took female Taíno captives back to the southern Antilles. The
| women continued to speak Taíno, but the men taught their sons Carib. This
| resulted in a situation where the women spoke an Arawakan language and
| the men an unrelated Cariban language.
Such a drastically divergent gender diglossia wasn't stable, though, and the
two began to fall together. (So I dunno what the ANADEW consequences for
Leonardo's idea are...)
| However, because boys' maternal language was Arawak, their Carib became
| mixed, with Carib vocabulary on an Arawak grammatical base. Over time the
| amount of distinct male Carib vocabulary was eroded, both as boys
| retained more and more Arawak from their first language and as women
| adopted male Carib words, so that both sexes came to speak Arawak (Taíno)
| with a strong Carib component and a decreasing amount of exclusively male
| Carib vocabulary.
The language is now called Garifuna, and apparently most of the speaker-gender
contrasts are obsolescent, though it seems to still survive robustly enough in
the singular pronouns: men have 1sg _au_, 2sg _amürü_, 3sg _ligía_, women 1sg
_nugía_ 2sg _bugía_ 3sg _tugía_. (_ü_ is /1/ I think.)
Alex
Messages in this topic (43)
________________________________________________________________________
1.9. Re: Most phonetically beautiful sentence in a natlang
Posted by: "Christophe Grandsire-Koevoets" tsela...@gmail.com
Date: Thu Aug 29, 2013 2:31 am ((PDT))
On 29 August 2013 11:04, Alex Fink <000...@gmail.com> wrote:
> The language is now called Garifuna, and apparently most of the
> speaker-gender contrasts are obsolescent, though it seems to still survive
> robustly enough in the singular pronouns: men have 1sg _au_, 2sg _amürü_,
> 3sg _ligía_, women 1sg _nugía_ 2sg _bugía_ 3sg _tugía_. (_ü_ is /1/ I
> think.)
>
>
Such speaker-gender contrast can be very stable actually. Cue for instance
Japanese, where it's well known that males and females will use different
sets of personal pronouns (although some personal pronouns are somewhat
neutral and can be used by both). It goes further, with differences in
grammar and lexicon as well, although one cannot talk about different
languages.
Gender "diglossia" is not an unknown phenomenon, although it usually
appears as dialectical differences at most (slight phonological and grammar
changes, often different lexemes as used by men and women). Typically men
will know the women's dialect and vice-versa, but they'll never speak it,
except when quoting a member of the opposite sex.
Such a phenomenon appears usually in societies with very strict gender role
distinctions, especially ones where men and women don't often interact with
each other. The relative isolation of the male and female communities
results in effectively two partially separate linguistic groups, whose
lects start to diverge. The strict distinction in gender roles and
behaviours in the culture ensures that the divergence stays stable: the
different speech patterns become seen as part of the male or female
identity. And indeed, I read that in societies where such diglossia used to
be common and stable for centuries, a change in cultural behaviour in the
form of a loss of the traditional gender role distinctions will usually
result in a (quite rapid) loss of the male and female language
distinctions: the two dialects will merge again in a single form, although
some small differences may linger longer than others.
--
Christophe Grandsire-Koevoets.
http://christophoronomicon.blogspot.com/
http://www.christophoronomicon.nl/
Messages in this topic (43)
________________________________________________________________________
________________________________________________________________________
2.1. Re: Euphony
Posted by: "R A Brown" r...@carolandray.plus.com
Date: Wed Aug 28, 2013 9:18 am ((PDT))
On 28/08/2013 12:54, Padraic Brown wrote:
[snip]
>
>>> I still find French terribly choppy and
>>> unmellifluous. (Pace Dma. Brown et familia!) But I do
>>> like the sound of it.
>>
>> Still don't understand what you mean by choppiness in
>> this context.
>
> As I said before, de gustibus. It's short little bits.
> Listen to this (get up to the five or six minute mark):
>
> http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=smEqnnklfYs
.
> This (an example of English, preacher's cadence) strikes
> me as rolling, and indeed a mellifluous confluence of
> diction, wordchoice, rhythm, accent and so forth.
Yes, but it really has little to do with English as such.
It's the result of more than two thousand years of
_European_ rhetorical style which has its origin in Athens
of the 5th BC. It owes much to Athenian orators such as
Demosthenes, Aiskhines, Kysia et_al., to the great Roman
orator Cicero and others, to oratorical schools of the
Middle ages and the Renaissance and so on into modern times.
Strange to say, France has had (and still has) its
preachers! The mark of oratory, whether English, French,
German, Latin or whatever is "a mellifluous confluence of
diction, wordchoice, rhythm, accent."
> Or here, again, there is a cadence that flows:
>
> http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MkTw3_PmKtc
A good orator was Churchill - at least with his war-time
speeches. But strangely you haven't given us anything by the
French war-time leader, Charles de Gaulle.
> Now, again, listen to these gentle folk:
>
> http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ahIuHzpeV_E
>
> This (mid-centruty French) strikes me as staccatoish.
> Very short, highly accented, separated, sliced, diced and
> julienned little bits of talk.
Hardly typical French, tho, is it!
Characters speaking slowly in short sentences in an
artificial setting for purpose of those learning the
language. I think you find a similar artificial setting in
_English_ of the early 1950s, where characters are speaking
short sentences unnaturally slowly, just as choppy.
IMHO it tells us next to nothing about what what the
language sounds like in a normal conversation between two
native speakers; it tells what language is like in a
situation where people are speaking short sentences
unnaturally slowly for education purposes.
[snip]
> indeed. This is not mellifluous to me at all.
IMHO the equivalent in English would not be mellifluous either.
> And, here again, the choppiness and rapid vacillation of
> accented / unaccented, etc:
>
> http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MM1-tVPOPHE
I suppose English doesn't have rapid vacillation of
accented/ unaccented.
I don't hear anything particularly choppy about M. Fran�ois
Hollande. He doesn't seem very different to me to leading
politicians of other nations.
> For me, these Frenches are just a little less choppy, but
> still not what I'd think of as flowing like sweet honey:
>
> http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0Kux1FuRYUg
Again, not a setting in which one uses natural everyday
speech.
> http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dw5Re7k1KBA
This is the closest, it seems to me, that you've got to
ordinary conversation. Tho it a couple of people comparing
Hexoganal French with that of Quebec. We ought to be
comparing, at least, to a couple contrasted British English
with American.
> Now, th�s French flows more smoothly for me:
>
> http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wvPqifZqjM4
> http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IZ5yV34QmFM
> http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pVnobajUHlI
Except of course it's Cajun French - and music helps give
any language a sort of mellifuousness.
But you have _not_ IMO been comparing like with like. You
have chosen certain styles of English and rather different
ones of French. In oratory, and in lessons for beginners
with short sentences deliberately spoken, addressing a group
at a conference etc. certain styles are adopted. You have
made the point that oratory is more mellifluous than short,
artificially delivered sentences - but not much about
English & French as such. I have been talking in terms of
the ordinary, everyday speech on the lips of people at work,
meeting in the street, exchanging gossip etc etc.
[snip]
>
>> But whether French is choppy or not, it does not per_se
>> IMO prevent there being among the millions of
>> _sentences_ spoken in the language at least one that
>> is phonetically very beautiful - which is what the
>> subject line was about.
>
> Oh, sure! Just have to dig through squillions of others
> to find that diamond in the rough!
That applies to all languages. The point I was trying to
make was that the thread was actually about the most
phonetically beautiful sentence in a natlang, not about
which natlang may or may not be more mellifluous than another.
I really don't want to continue the "this natlang is more
mellifluous than that one" thread, as the different
contributors are never going to agree. Also, it seems we've
given up on identifying the most phonetically beautiful
sentence. So I'll confine any further posts today strictly
to euphony (the new subject line).
--
Ray
==================================
http://www.carolandray.plus.com
==================================
"language � began with half-musical unanalysed expressions
for individual beings and events."
[Otto Jespersen, Progress in Language, 1895]
Messages in this topic (43)
________________________________________________________________________
2.2. Re: Euphony
Posted by: "R A Brown" r...@carolandray.plus.com
Date: Wed Aug 28, 2013 9:30 am ((PDT))
On 28/08/2013 01:27, H. S. Teoh wrote:
[snip]
> ObConlang: do your conlang(s) have court-dictated (i.e.,
> rigid) euphony rules, or do they have more mellifluous
> euphony rules? (Or do they have no euphony rules? Or no
> euphony whatsoever? :-P)
All the many incarnations of 'briefscript' (BrSc, BrScA,
BrScB, Bax, Brx etc), were designed to euphonious. They
deliberately avoided sounds that are often found to be
difficult; they eschewed consonant clusters, all syllables
being either CV or just V. Some early versions even had
vowel harmony :)
Some, tho not all, of this may be gleaned from:
http://www.carolandray.plus.com/Briefscript/ClassicalBS.html
http://www.carolandray.plus.com/Briefscript/RomSyllab.html
http://www.carolandray.plus.com/Briefscript/Piashi.html
http://www.carolandray.plus.com/Briefscript/PhonAndOrthog.html
TAKE is just Ancient Greek without inflexions and given a
more or less Erasmian pronunciation. Its phonology is,
therefore, predetermined and no extra allowance has been
made for euphony.
Outidic, however, does have some regard for euphony; e.g.
consonant clusters are restricted to a few permitted
syllable initial ones. The somewhat quaint euphonic
considerations of the fictitious Dr Outis are given here:
http://www.carolandray.plus.com/Outis/OrthoAndPhono.html
What considerations of euphony will or will not be given to
my as yet unnamed British Romlang, I do not yet know.
--
Ray
==================================
http://www.carolandray.plus.com
==================================
"language … began with half-musical unanalysed expressions
for individual beings and events."
[Otto Jespersen, Progress in Language, 1895]
Messages in this topic (43)
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