There are 5 messages in this issue.
Topics in this digest:
1.1. Re: True Blood Language?
From: Patrick Dunn
2.1. Re: An Hypothetical Scenario
From: Charles W Brickner
2.2. Re: An Hypothetical Scenario
From: David McCann
2.3. Re: An Hypothetical Scenario
From: Gary Shannon
3. Re: Linguistics in Science Fiction
From: John H. Chalmers
Messages
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1.1. Re: True Blood Language?
Posted by: "Patrick Dunn" pwd...@gmail.com
Date: Sat Aug 18, 2012 5:00 pm ((PDT))
Oh, very cool! That's what I like about this list: I always learn
something new.
On Sat, Aug 18, 2012 at 9:05 AM, Alex Fink <000...@gmail.com> wrote:
> On Fri, 17 Aug 2012 18:28:44 -0500, Patrick Dunn <pwd...@gmail.com> wrote:
>
> >Waaaaaaaiiiit a minute.
> >
> >*What* labial-dental bias in "I-thou"? How the heck did I miss this?
>
> Well, people go on about m-t and n-m pronoun systems: see e.g.
> http://wals.info/feature/136A and http://wals.info/feature/137A. Whether
> these are more than just particularly old & persistent inherited or areal
> features is unclear, though.
>
> I've also heard the notion that the sound-symbolically best pronoun system
> has a back-of-mouth self-pointing velar for 1st person, and a
> front-of-mouth forward-pointing labial or dental for 2nd person. Thus e.g.
> Sino-Tibetan.
>
> Alex
>
--
Second Person, a chapbook of poetry by Patrick Dunn, is now available for
order from Finishing Line
Press<http://www.finishinglinepress.com/NewReleasesandForthcomingTitles.htm>
and
Amazon<http://www.amazon.com/Second-Person-Patrick-Dunn/dp/1599249065/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1324342341&sr=8-2>.
Messages in this topic (28)
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2.1. Re: An Hypothetical Scenario
Posted by: "Charles W Brickner" tepeyach...@embarqmail.com
Date: Sat Aug 18, 2012 5:40 pm ((PDT))
>From: Constructed Languages List [mailto:conl...@listserv.brown.edu] On
Behalf Of Douglas Koller
>From the folks who brought you "Never end a sentence with a preposition."
and "Don't split that infinitive!" comes "Always precede 'h-starting' words
with 'an', aspiration >or no." As George points out, that normally only
surfaces in the gravitas-invoking "an historical (whatever)". But
technically, we *are* supposed to say things like "an >hippopotamus", "an
hooker", and the like. Good luck with that. :)
In the movie "Hopscotch" it was beautiful to hear Glenda Jackson say "an
harmonious whole"!
Charlie
Messages in this topic (33)
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2.2. Re: An Hypothetical Scenario
Posted by: "David McCann" da...@polymathy.plus.com
Date: Sun Aug 19, 2012 8:37 am ((PDT))
On Sat, 18 Aug 2012 15:01:25 -0400
Douglas Koller <douglaskol...@hotmail.com> wrote:
> But technically, we *are* supposed to say
> things like "an hippopotamus", "an hooker", and the like. Good luck
> with that. :) Kou
I can't resist YAEPT! "Hooker has a primary stress and "hippopotamus"
a secondary one, so the h- is never dropped. An old dictionary of mine
has habitual, habitué, hallucination, harangue, hereditary, heretical,
historian, historic, horizon, and hotel permitting the dropping of the
h- when the word is not stressed; I'd say "a harangue", but drop the h-
in the rest. You note "hypothetical" is not included, because it has the
secondary stress. "Harmonious" keeps h-, probably because of "harmony",
but so does "hypotenuse": don't ask!
Messages in this topic (33)
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2.3. Re: An Hypothetical Scenario
Posted by: "Gary Shannon" fizi...@gmail.com
Date: Sun Aug 19, 2012 8:53 am ((PDT))
When I typed "an hypothetical" it had nothing to do with
pronunciation. It's an old orthographic habit formed back in the early
1950's when the nuns cracked my knuckles with a ruler for spelling
words the wrong way.
--gary
On Sun, Aug 19, 2012 at 8:37 AM, David McCann <da...@polymathy.plus.com> wrote:
> On Sat, 18 Aug 2012 15:01:25 -0400
> Douglas Koller <douglaskol...@hotmail.com> wrote:
>
>> But technically, we *are* supposed to say
>> things like "an hippopotamus", "an hooker", and the like. Good luck
>> with that. :) Kou
>
> I can't resist YAEPT! "Hooker has a primary stress and "hippopotamus"
> a secondary one, so the h- is never dropped. An old dictionary of mine
> has habitual, habitué, hallucination, harangue, hereditary, heretical,
> historian, historic, horizon, and hotel permitting the dropping of the
> h- when the word is not stressed; I'd say "a harangue", but drop the h-
> in the rest. You note "hypothetical" is not included, because it has the
> secondary stress. "Harmonious" keeps h-, probably because of "harmony",
> but so does "hypotenuse": don't ask!
Messages in this topic (33)
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3. Re: Linguistics in Science Fiction
Posted by: "John H. Chalmers" jhchalm...@ucsd.edu
Date: Sun Aug 19, 2012 8:47 am ((PDT))
There is "Omnilingual" by H. Beam Piper, IIRC. It's about an expedition
to Mars which finds the ruins of a university with a library,
classrooms, etc and uses the periodic table as an entry into the Martian
language.
L. Sprague De Camp wrote "Language for Time Travelers," an essay rather
than a story and I believe Larry Niven did something similar, though the
name of the article escapes me this AM. de Camp gives fragments of
several related conlangs in his Krishna series (Krishna is a planet
around, IIRC, Tau Ceti and has humanoid inhabitants). Portuguese, btw,
is the most prominent terrestrial language in these stories because a
nuclear war has devastated the Northern Hemisphere and Brazil is the
leading country in this future earth. In "The Glory That Was," De Camp
gives snatches of a future Greek dialect, it looks very much like modern
Greek to me.
I vaguely recall a story in Analog about two people competing to learn
the local language on an alien planet--the one who makes the most
progress does so because he is truly interested in what the aliens are
saying rather than how they are saying it.
In "The Coming Race," by Bulwer-Lytton, the outline of the language of
the Vril-ya is provided. It's a euroclone--two genders, 4 noun cases,
etc. as I recall.
Walter E. Meyers wrote a book, "Aliens and Linguists," in 1980 on this
subject. My recollection is that it's been discussed on this list in the
past. See this URL for a list of SF languages and works containing them.
http://stason.org/TULARC/languages/linguistics/15-What-are-some-stories-and-novels-that-involve-linguistic.html
--John
Messages in this topic (1)
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