There are 9 messages in this issue.
Topics in this digest:
1a. Re: Phrasebooks
From: Sam Stutter
1b. Re: Phrasebooks
From: MorphemeAddict
2a. Re: Historical phonology of Tirelat
From: BPJ
2b. Re: Historical phonology of Tirelat
From: Alex Fink
2c. Re: Historical phonology of Tirelat
From: Alex Fink
2d. Re: Historical phonology of Tirelat
From: Herman Miller
3.1. Re: NATLANG: Con-scripting a Hamer writing system
From: Garth Wallace
4. (Recall) Name that Glyph | Round Nine « Pseudoglyph s
From: A. Mendes
5a. Re: A New Lang is Born
From: Padraic Brown
Messages
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1a. Re: Phrasebooks
Posted by: "Sam Stutter" [email protected]
Date: Thu Mar 8, 2012 11:59 am ((PST))
I completely forgot that, quite recently after I had posted these, I put
together a completed Caccigga version. If anyone fancies a look it's here:
http://dl.dropbox.com/u/19312392/Lonely%20Planet%20for%20Caccigga.pdf
It was actually quite a productive exercise. As well as the lexicon building,
it drove me to develop the more un-English auxiliary verbs and the use of
apostrophes in grammatical contractions.
I'm assuming there's probably more than a few typos in it.
Sam Stutter
[email protected]
"No e na'l cu barri"
On 3 Feb 2012, at 15:08, Sam Stutter wrote:
> I've been trying to increase my touch-typing speed recently and, as well as
> the usual "the quick brown fox jumped over the lazy dog" nonsense, I decided
> I ought to type something *useful*.
>
> Hence, if anyone is remotely interested, I've knocked out transcriptions of
> two foreign language phrasebooks. I'm in the process of making Caccigga
> versions of them (and plan to make Nauspayr versions too) but thought that if
> anyone else wanted to use them, I'd share them here (and I've exported in
> various formats for your viewing pleasure).
>
> "Harper's Spanish Phrasebook" (1987)
> http://dl.dropbox.com/u/19312392/Harper%27s%20Spanish%20Dictionary%20for%20Conlangs.pdf
>
> .pages (the original working copy, with some ninja like advanced automatic
> formatting techniques):
> http://dl.dropbox.com/u/19312392/Harper%27s%20Spanish%20Dictionary%20for%20Conlangs.pages
>
> .rtf (very little original formatting)
> http://dl.dropbox.com/u/19312392/Harper%27s%20Spanish%20Dictionary%20for%20Conlangs.rtf
>
> .doc (largely correct formatting)
> http://dl.dropbox.com/u/19312392/Harper%27s%20Spanish%20Dictionary%20for%20Conlangs.doc
>
> "Lonely Planet Guide" (a composite of the "Lonely Planet Cuba" and the
> "Lonely Planet Bali & Lombok" language sections)
> http://dl.dropbox.com/u/19312392/Lonely%20Planet%20for%20Conlangs.pdf
>
> .pages (the original working copy, much prettiness and superfluous
> formatting):
> http://dl.dropbox.com/u/19312392/Lonely%20Planet%20for%20Conlangs.pages
>
> .doc (the right text but the formatting is completely screwed, which will
> need to be fixed):
> http://dl.dropbox.com/u/19312392/Lonely%20Planet%20for%20Conlangs.doc
>
> I'd also like to point out that, for copyright purposes, the word your
> looking for is "inspired by text X" ;)
>
> Sam Stutter
> [email protected]
> "No e na il cu barri"
>
>
>
Messages in this topic (8)
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1b. Re: Phrasebooks
Posted by: "MorphemeAddict" [email protected]
Date: Fri Mar 9, 2012 12:38 am ((PST))
On Fri, Feb 3, 2012 at 2:50 PM, A. da Mek <[email protected]> wrote:
> Other interesting phrasebook is described in:
> Three Men on the Bummel by Jerome K. Jerome
> http://www.gutenberg.org/**ebooks/2183<http://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/2183>
I have this book in Esperanto and German. I should read them.
stevo
>
>
> He handed me a small book bound in red cloth. It was a guide to English
> conversation for the use of German travellers. It commenced "On a
> Steam-boat," and terminated "At the Doctor's"; its longest chapter being
> devoted to conversation in a railway carriage, among, apparently, a
> compartment load of quarrelsome and ill-mannered lunatics: "Can you not get
> further away from me, sir?"-"It is impossible, madam; my neighbour, here,
> is
> very stout"-"Shall we not endeavour to arrange our legs?"-"Please have the
> goodness to keep your elbows down"-"Pray do not inconvenience yourself,
> madam, if my shoulder is of any accommodation to you," whether intended to
> be said sarcastically or not, there was nothing to indicate-"I really must
> request you to move a little, madam, I can hardly breathe," the author's
> idea being, presumably, that by this time the whole party was mixed up
> together on the floor. The chapter concluded with the phrase, "Here we are
> at our destination, God be thanked! (Gott sei dank!)" a pious exclamation,
> which under the circumstances must have taken the form of a chorus.
>
> ...
>
> "You cannot deny," said George, "that these books are in large request.
> They are bought by the thousand, I know. In every town in Europe there
> must
> be people going about talking this sort of thing."
> "Maybe," I replied; "but fortunately nobody understands them. I have
> noticed, myself, men standing on railway platforms and at street corners
> reading aloud from such books. Nobody knows what language they are
> speaking; nobody has the slightest knowledge of what they are saying. This
> is, perhaps, as well; were they understood they would probably be
> assaulted."
>
> George said: "Maybe you are right; my idea is to see what would happen if
> they were understood. My proposal is to get to London early on Wednesday
> morning, and spend an hour or two going about and shopping with the aid of
> this book. ... I want to try this sort of talk where I can properly judge
> of its effect. I want to see how the foreigner feels when he is talked to
> in this way."
>
> ...
>
> We walked round to Harris's, and put the proposal before him. He examined
> the book, especially the chapters dealing with the purchase of shoes and
> hats. He said:
>
> "If George talks to any bootmaker or any hatter the things that are put
> down
> here, it is not support he will want; it is carrying to the hospital that
> he
> will need."
>
> That made George angry.
>
> "You talk," said George, "as though I were a foolhardy boy without any
> sense. I shall select from the more polite and less irritating speeches;
> the grosser insults I shall avoid."
>
Messages in this topic (8)
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2a. Re: Historical phonology of Tirelat
Posted by: "BPJ" [email protected]
Date: Thu Mar 8, 2012 3:06 pm ((PST))
On 2012-03-07 02:16, Herman Miller wrote:
> One of the problems with my languages is that they don't have much
> of a history. As a consequence, they tend to feel artificial and
> overly regular. I'd like to try to fix that by elaborating the
> earlier history of a few languages and ultimately building
> language families around each one. Tirelat and Jarda are two of
> the languages I want to start with, along with the Sangari roots
> of Zharranh (a mixed Sangari-Zireen language) and whatever source
> languages may have contributed words to Jaghri (an artificial
> language with Sangari roots).
>
> I know a few things about how languages develop historically, but
> I've been having a hard time trying to work backwards from
> existing languages to reconstruct earlier versions. Still, I think
> it's worth exploring, so here goes.
The way to learn to visualize in both directions is
to read lots of historical linguistic books; some
good textbooks and lots of historical grammars,
and anything else you can come by. Access to an
academic library obviously helps -- something I've
become painfully aware of after losing my database access...
Two good textbooks, although they don't coÅk > Åg > Åme
anywhere near "Describing Morphosyntax" are:
<http://books.google.com/books?id=vswGyb5sfRIC>
<http://books.google.com/books?id=DmjaZtOtLi8C>
Search google-books for "historical linguistics",
"historical grammar", "language change", "comparative
grammar/linguistics/philology" -- each book will
contain *something* interesting which the other don't
cover. bookfinder.com is your friend if you want to get
the books. With a bit of patience one can one day find
really good prices for most books.
>
> The consonant inventory of modern Tirelat looks something like this:
>
> p b t̪ d̪ ʦ ʣ k ɡ
> m n̪ Å
> r̥ r
> f v s z Ê Ê x É£
> ɬ l
> w j
This makes me think of a twist on the Old High German sound shift:
Imagine an original system with
p t k
----- ----- --- -----
b d g
f/v θ/ð x/É£
s/z
m n Å
l r
w j
Not knowing your synchronic phonotactics it's hard
to say which cluster types may have existed, but I'll
assume a basic minimum with:
- Cj, Cw
- Obstruent + l/r, perhaps excluding s/z Åk > Åg > Å+ r/l
- Nasal/liquid + obstruent
- liquid + nasal
One preliminary sound change:
Ë Cj/Cw > CC
- but since vcd/vcl fricatives are
allophonic no geminate vcl fricatives
- but perhaps /s/ V_V was [s] so that
[z] occurred only in /sj/sw/ > [zz].
The chain shift:
- pp > pɸ > ɸɸ > f
- p > ɸ > h
- bb > pp > p
- b > p
- f > f
- vv > bb > b
- v > v|ð
- ww > bb > b
- w > β > v
- tt > ts
- t > s
- dd > tt > t
- d > t
- θ > h
- ðð > dd > d
- ð > z
- s > Ê
- ?rs > ÊÊ > Ê / ÊÊ > Ê
- zz > ÊÊ > Ê
- j > j/z?/0
- jj > ddj > dz
- kk > kx > x
- k > x > h?
- gg > kk > k
- g > k
- x > h
- ɣɣ > gg > g
- ɣ > g
- mm > m
- m > v/w
- nn > n
- n > ð|ɾ > d|r
- ÅÅ > Å
- Š> ɣ
- rr > r
- ll > l
- l > ð|l > d|l
(initial singletons may be like geminates, but
nothing in principle precludes initial geminates,
at least when the preceding word ends in a vowel.)
Later:
- hr/rh > r̥
- hl/lh > ɬ
- h > 0
Later still:
- uV/oV > wV
- Vu/Vo > Vw
- iV/eV > jV
- Vi/Ve > Vj
Be warned though that I'm thinking along similar
lines to have MOC Isturjeb diverge radically after
it split from Kijeb/Sohlob! My target phonology
happens to be very similar to yours.
> Now what I need to do is figure out how it got that way.
ɪt might sound odd, but it helps to make up an idea
what you like the source phonology to be/feel like, and
find possible pathways from then to now. You *will*
revise your source phonology in the process, and the
darn thing *will* take on a life of its own (a good
thing, actually, of course) but a sketch of a possible
source phonology is good as scaffolding. Working
blindly by applying whatever sound changes come to mind
is considerably harder.
I got a good piece of advice from an offlist histlanger
once: whenever in doubt which way to take, create a
dialect or sister language.
> I know
> there've been some splits and mergers along the way. One that I've
> mentioned is a phoneme (call it /D/ for now) that merged with /d/
> in one dialect and /r/ in another.
>
> orig. dial. A dial. B
> /vidu/ /vidu/ /vidu/
> /niDu/ /nidu/ /niru/
> /viru/ /viru/ /viru/
>
> One possibility is that this /D/ was actually /t/, and that modern
> /t/ (maybe also /ts/ in some cases) descends from /tÊ°/. It's a
> little clearer what might have happened if you look at a broad
> phonetic transcription, where /d/ and /t/ between vowels weakened
> to [ð] and [d]. In one dialect the [d] changed to [ð], and in the
> other both [d] and [r] changed to [ɾ].
>
> orig. later dial. A dial. B
> [vidu] [viðu] [viðu] [viðu]
> [nitu] [nidu] [niðu] [niɾu]
> [viru] [viru] [viru] [viɾu]
I don't think I've ever encountered aspiration blocking
intervocalic voicing. A better choice would be gemination,
but with a different spinoff from the above:
* Geminate [tt] would become [t]
* Single [t] would become [d] and may eventually
move on to [ð] or [ɾ], or [ɹ]. It may also go
straight to [ɾ]. Another possibility is [θ],
which might then go on to become [h/s/f/ɬ/ð]
and then anything *they* may become.
* /d/ might become, or already be, [ð] and then
may become [z/ɹ/j/l/d]. (I'm not 100% sure I've
seen [ð] > [l] actually attested, but [l] > [ð]
is attested, and in Sogdian */ð/ was written
with _l_ (Lamad)).
* [dd] may degeminate to [d] and then partake in
whatever happens to *[d], or it may degeminate after
*[d] > [ð], or it may merge with [tt] prior to degemination,
perhaps leaving behind a length in the preceding vowel.
* [tt] > [st] and [dd] > [zd] are also attested, BTW.
* [l] and [ll] may also either merge or one of them
changes while the other remains [l]. Look at Cree
dialects for lots of different outcomes of [l].
[ll] might most likely become a stop or rhotic.
* [ɾ] and [r] frequently act as a long/short pair
and in some Romance varieties [ɾ] remained coronal
while [r] became [Ê], which may be a source of [É£]
if original [É£] did not exist or became something
else ([ɦ/h/x/w/j/0]).
> So I'll assume for now there was a whole set of voiceless
> aspirated, voiceless unaspirated, and voiced stops in Early Modern
> Tirelat (possibly including a post-alveolar series). It's also
> likely that there was a glottal stop, and corresponding voiced and
> voiceless fricatives for each place of articulation.
>
> pÊ° p b tÊ° t d á¹Ê° ṠḠkÊ° k É¡ Ê
> f v s z Ê Ê x É£ h
>
> The post-alveolar stops mainly seemed to have developed into
> affricates, either /ts/ /dz/ or /tÊ/ /dÊ/ depending on the dialect.
Postalvealar/retroflex stops becoming affricates
doesn't strike me as all that likely, although it
wouldn't surprise me if there is an ANADEW. The usual
culprits are palatal stops, often themselves from
assimilation of velars to following front vowels/[j],
becoming alveopalatal affricates, which then may become
either palatoalveolar/alveolar/retroflex with or
without losing their stop part. You get all variations
on this theme in various Romance varieties. In the
history of Chinise original palatalized velars became
retroflex while a more recent round of palatalization
turned velars into alveopalatals! Another likely source
of coronal affricates is stop + [r]; in Tibetan *any*
stop + [r] became retroflex stops or affricates! In
Swedish velars after front vowels become palatal,
including after *and* before [a], which is kind of
neat. Swedish already went through [c] \> [É], [É] \>
[j], [sc] \> [Ê] \> [Ê/Ï] and is now doing it again
with velars ending up before front vowels because of
loans/fronting of [É] and following front vowels.
>
> One sound that sticks out in the modern Tirelat phoneme inventory
> is the voiceless trill /r̥/. This is likely to have come from an
> originally voiced trill /r/, which became voiceless by
> assimilation when adjacent to a voiceless stop or fricative. (This
> is one reason I've postulated the existence of the glottal stop in
> Early Modern Tirelat.) Indeed, in the standard dialect, trills
> adjacent to voiceless stops or consonants are always voiceless,
> although other dialects allow voiced trills in those instances.
[Êr/rÊ] doesnËt strike me as the likeliest source of
[r̥]. Any surrounding voiceless fricatives or preceding
oral voiceless stops seem more likely -- the latter
perhaps after becoming fricatives. I can also imagine
*/rr/ devoicing while */r/ remains voiceless.
> It's also possible that there may have been a voiced lateral
> fricative /É®/ in EMT, to account for the /l/ ~ /d/ variations
> between dialects in some words, but there may be other ways to
> account for that.
One likely source of both [ɬ] and d/l variation is the
fact that many languages seem to avoid/get rid of [tl]
and [dl].
>
> Approximants /w/ and /j/ are probably reduced forms of vowels
> (especially when you consider that one Tirelat dialect has a
> phonemic /É¥/, which could be related to /y/).
I agree with Alex that a lot of hiatus needs an
explanation, but to paraphrase Yoda: intervocalic
position leads to lenition, lenition leads to
fricatives, fricatives lead to approximants (or [h]),
approximants lead to hiatus
> I haven't looked much at the vowels yet.
Vowels and consonants don't develop in isolation,
however. Loss of vowels and palatalization rear their
ugly heads everywhere, loss of obstruent voicing may
trigger vowel length etc.
/bpj
Messages in this topic (7)
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2b. Re: Historical phonology of Tirelat
Posted by: "Alex Fink" [email protected]
Date: Thu Mar 8, 2012 6:08 pm ((PST))
[two-in-one response]
Benct: I haven't digested your whole post, but
On Fri, 9 Mar 2012 00:05:10 +0100, BPJ <[email protected]> wrote:
>I don't think I've ever encountered aspiration blocking
>intervocalic voicing.
Surely it would, though? Geminates and aspirates both have a longer period
of voicelessness than plain unvoiced stops; in both cases, stops with short
devoicing between two voiced sounds lose it and stops with long devoicing
retain it. Stop closure being a different feature to phonation, I'd expect
this to be a correct analogy.
Was your claim that you haven't even seen /t/ > [d] V_V in a system
containing /t_h/? Am I missing something?
>Postalvealar/retroflex stops becoming affricates
>doesn't strike me as all that likely, although it
>wouldn't surprise me if there is an ANADEW.
Retroflex stops this is perhaps so, but I'd think postalveolar stops i.e.
stops in the position of [S] are the most affrication-prone stops out there!
One bumps fairly frequently into languages with a phoneme called /c/,
although sometimes its usual realisation will be [cC)]; but aside from
Australian languages (with their many areal anomalies, e.g. sibilancy being
right out) I can't name offhand any language I've seen described as having a
phoneme /t_-/, rather than /tS/.
>[?r/r?] does'nt strike me as the likeliest source of
>[r_0]. Any surrounding voiceless fricatives or preceding
>oral voiceless stops seem more likely -- the latter
>perhaps after becoming fricatives.
Yeah, glottal stops are voiceless in the opposite of the fashion that most
other things are voiceless, glottis completely shut rather than not
vibrating but completely open. Modal voicing uses an intermediate degree of
aperture. As a consequence, devoicing (specially) near [?] doesn't really
happen. If [?r] went somewhere special the normal thing would be [r_k],
proximally at least. (But creakiness doesn't interact with non-phonation
features of consonants much either. Maybe it could > laryngealisation >
pharyngealisation or such.)
>One likely source of both [K] and d/l variation is the
>fact that many languages seem to avoid/get rid of [tl]
>and [dl].
Yes, just so. And usually they don't get rid of it by making lateral
obstruents; instead [dl] does things like [d(:)] or [l(:)] or [gl] or [d@l]
or [ld]. That said, in a language that already had some lateral obstruents
I'm not sure what would happen; I would buy affricate formation, as Herman
suggested.
On Wed, 7 Mar 2012 22:12:05 -0500, Herman Miller <[email protected]> wrote:
>On 3/7/2012 1:00 PM, Alex Fink wrote:
>> Have you looked through your lexicon for lumpiness in the phoneme
>> distributions? Sounds which occur more than they should be "expected" to
>> (probably the result of a merger), sounds which are nearly absent from
>> certain environments (probably reflect an old conditional change), ...
>
>It would be nice if I could find patterns like that, but since the
>existing Tirelat vocabulary hasn't actually gone through those
>historical changes that a real language would have done, probably the
>best I could hope for is a few vague hints. It's worth a try though.
Mhmm. Also, if you're willing to change a few words here and there to
amplify any vague gossamer patterns that do seem to be barely surfacing,
you'll probably get a more satisfactory protolang than if you don't allow
for this.
>> [re production of /j/ and /w/]
>
>I'm thinking some sort of vowel breaking may be involved, like what
>happened in Spanish with /ie/ and /ue/.
Yes, that could well be. But the distributional corollary of thàt would be
that /j/ and /w/ occur with only one or a few nuclear vowels apiece, unless
later umlauts or similar changes increased the range of vowels you could
have after them. Does that square with the facts?
>One clue is the word "r'jandi"
>/r_0jandi/, which I'm assuming came from an original *hrjandi or *?rjandi.
>A 3-consonant initial cluster is unusual for Tirelat (I can't find any
>examples of one)
You mention on your website (I checked your website since last time!)
/tkw1r/ -- which is a three-consonant cluster, but with an approximant in
the third place! If the glides are recent creations then they were probably
created after two-consonant onsets just as well as after one-consonant ones,
which means you should expect initial three-consonant clusters of the form C
+ C + /j,w/. So I wouldn't be bothered by this.
Riffing on the theme more loosely, what sort of initial two-consonant
clusters are out there?
>Well, [D] is just the allophone of /d/ between vowels.
Ah! Missed that.
But then I see on your website that /d/ and /b/ have intervocalic fricative
allophones, but not /dz/ and /g/. Presumably this has something to do with
the existence of /z/ and /G/ but not of */D/ and */B/ (though note that a
distinction between /B/ and /v/ is rare! I'd be a little surprised if /b/
fricated to something other than [v] in a language with extant [v]).
Seeing that state of affairs, what I would hope is true is that /dz/ and /g/
are absent intervocalically (except in cases where they morphologically vary
with non-intervocalic stops), because they were subject to the same
intervocalic frication as /b/ and /d/ but the results merged into extant /z/
and /G/. If you were rather thinking that their frication was _blocked_ by
the existence of /z/ and /G/, that's more suspect IMO. (Especially given
that voiced stops are less stable the further back in the mouth they go.)
>> But if your second posited [d] > [D] in dialect
>> A has parallels in other places, then you get rid of all the voiced stops.
>> (Is that ok?)
>
>There's a variation between /G/ and /g/ between dialects that may
>parallel the /d/ ~ /r/ variation (or may be unrelated). It's possible
>that Early Modern Tirelat only had voiceless fricatives (not an uncommon
>situation) and that the voiced fricatives of the modern language were
>originally voiced stops. But that would only explain voiced fricatives
>between vowels, not in other places (where voiced stops are still
>present in all dialects).
Sorry, I meant to say that you'd eliminate all the _intervocalic_ voiced
stops.
Alex
Messages in this topic (7)
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2c. Re: Historical phonology of Tirelat
Posted by: "Alex Fink" [email protected]
Date: Thu Mar 8, 2012 6:13 pm ((PST))
On Thu, 8 Mar 2012 21:08:34 -0500, Alex Fink <[email protected]> wrote:
>On Fri, 9 Mar 2012 00:05:10 +0100, BPJ <[email protected]> wrote:
>>I don't think I've ever encountered aspiration blocking
>>intervocalic voicing.
>
>Surely it would, though? Geminates and aspirates both have a longer period
>of voicelessness than plain unvoiced stops; in both cases, stops with short
>devoicing between two voiced sounds lose it and stops with long devoicing
>retain it. Stop closure being a different feature to phonation, I'd expect
>this to be a correct analogy.
and a few minutes later an example comes to mind: Korean is just this. /t_h
t t*/ (where /*/ means faucalised), with /t/ realised as /d/ between voiced
sounds.
Alex
Messages in this topic (7)
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2d. Re: Historical phonology of Tirelat
Posted by: "Herman Miller" [email protected]
Date: Thu Mar 8, 2012 6:52 pm ((PST))
On 3/8/2012 6:05 PM, BPJ wrote:
> The way to learn to visualize in both directions is
> to read lots of historical linguistic books; some
> good textbooks and lots of historical grammars,
> and anything else you can come by. Access to an
> academic library obviously helps -- something I've
> become painfully aware of after losing my database access...
>
> Two good textbooks, although they don't coÅk > Åg > Åme
> anywhere near "Describing Morphosyntax" are:
>
> <http://books.google.com/books?id=vswGyb5sfRIC>
>
> <http://books.google.com/books?id=DmjaZtOtLi8C>
I have the Lyle Campbell book but not the Andrew Sihler one; I'll have
to check that out. I've also got Terry Crowley's book "An Introduction
to Historical Linguistics". While there's a lot of good information in
books like those, they're less useful for trying to work backwards from
one language when I don't have related ones to compare with. On the
other hand, if I find a rule that I like for relating sounds in the
historical and modern languages, I have the advantage of being able to
change either the old or the new language to fit the rule.
> ɪt might sound odd, but it helps to make up an idea
> what you like the source phonology to be/feel like, and
> find possible pathways from then to now. You *will*
> revise your source phonology in the process, and the
> darn thing *will* take on a life of its own (a good
> thing, actually, of course) but a sketch of a possible
> source phonology is good as scaffolding. Working
> blindly by applying whatever sound changes come to mind
> is considerably harder.
>
> I got a good piece of advice from an offlist histlanger
> once: whenever in doubt which way to take, create a
> dialect or sister language.
I have quite a few variations of Tirelat words to work with, and I'm
hoping to fit those into Tirelat dialects (or closely related
languages). One of those "dialects" for instance has the phoneme /É¥/,
which corresponds with /vj/ in the standard dialect. It's easy to
imagine a development along the lines of [vj] > [βj] > [Bɥ] > [ɥ], so I
think it's reasonable to reconstruct something like *vj for the old
language.
>> I know
>> there've been some splits and mergers along the way. One that I've
>> mentioned is a phoneme (call it /D/ for now) that merged with /d/
>> in one dialect and /r/ in another.
>>
>> orig. dial. A dial. B
>> /vidu/ /vidu/ /vidu/
>> /niDu/ /nidu/ /niru/
>> /viru/ /viru/ /viru/
>>
>> One possibility is that this /D/ was actually /t/, and that modern
>> /t/ (maybe also /ts/ in some cases) descends from /tÊ°/. It's a
>> little clearer what might have happened if you look at a broad
>> phonetic transcription, where /d/ and /t/ between vowels weakened
>> to [ð] and [d]. In one dialect the [d] changed to [ð], and in the
>> other both [d] and [r] changed to [ɾ].
>>
>> orig. later dial. A dial. B
>> [vidu] [viðu] [viðu] [viðu]
>> [nitu] [nidu] [niðu] [niɾu]
>> [viru] [viru] [viru] [viɾu]
>
> I don't think I've ever encountered aspiration blocking
> intervocalic voicing. A better choice would be gemination,
> but with a different spinoff from the above:
>
> * Geminate [tt] would become [t]
> * Single [t] would become [d] and may eventually
> move on to [ð] or [ɾ], or [ɹ]. It may also go
> straight to [ɾ]. Another possibility is [θ],
> which might then go on to become [h/s/f/ɬ/ð]
> and then anything *they* may become.
I'm thinking the [t] straight to [ɾ] is looking like the best option.
[tt] > [t] is possible, but you'd have to account for /tt/ in the modern
language in words like "metti". It could be that glottal stop again, *meÊti.
> * /d/ might become, or already be, [ð] and then
> may become [z/ɹ/j/l/d]. (I'm not 100% sure I've
> seen [ð] > [l] actually attested, but [l] > [ð]
> is attested, and in Sogdian */ð/ was written
> with _l_ (Lamad)).
> * [dd] may degeminate to [d] and then partake in
> whatever happens to *[d], or it may degeminate after
> *[d] > [ð], or it may merge with [tt] prior to degemination,
> perhaps leaving behind a length in the preceding vowel.
While the modern language does have /pp/, /tt/, and /kk/, the voiced
equivalents /bb/, /dd/, /gg/ are absent. So there's a clue. I've also
got examples of /ll/, /rr/, /mm/, /nn/, and /ss/. Something must have
happened to those voiced geminated stops.
> * [tt] > [st] and [dd] > [zd] are also attested, BTW.
> * [l] and [ll] may also either merge or one of them
> changes while the other remains [l]. Look at Cree
> dialects for lots of different outcomes of [l].
> [ll] might most likely become a stop or rhotic.
> * [ɾ] and [r] frequently act as a long/short pair
> and in some Romance varieties [ɾ] remained coronal
> while [r] became [Ê], which may be a source of [É£]
> if original [É£] did not exist or became something
> else ([ɦ/h/x/w/j/0]).
[É£] > [j] and/or [w] is worth considering, and I've got dialectal
variations between [É£] and [x].
>> So I'll assume for now there was a whole set of voiceless
>> aspirated, voiceless unaspirated, and voiced stops in Early Modern
>> Tirelat (possibly including a post-alveolar series). It's also
>> likely that there was a glottal stop, and corresponding voiced and
>> voiceless fricatives for each place of articulation.
>>
>> pÊ° p b tÊ° t d á¹Ê° ṠḠkÊ° k É¡ Ê
>> f v s z Ê Ê x É£ h
>>
>> The post-alveolar stops mainly seemed to have developed into
>> affricates, either /ts/ /dz/ or /tÊ/ /dÊ/ depending on the dialect.
>
> Postalvealar/retroflex stops becoming affricates
> doesn't strike me as all that likely, although it
> wouldn't surprise me if there is an ANADEW. The usual
> culprits are palatal stops, often themselves from
> assimilation of velars to following front vowels/[j],
> becoming alveopalatal affricates, which then may become
> either palatoalveolar/alveolar/retroflex with or
> without losing their stop part. You get all variations
> on this theme in various Romance varieties. In the
> history of Chinise original palatalized velars became
> retroflex while a more recent round of palatalization
> turned velars into alveopalatals! Another likely source
> of coronal affricates is stop + [r]; in Tibetan *any*
> stop + [r] became retroflex stops or affricates! In
> Swedish velars after front vowels become palatal,
> including after *and* before [a], which is kind of
> neat. Swedish already went through [c] \> [É], [É] \>
> [j], [sc] \> [Ê] \> [Ê/Ï] and is now doing it again
> with velars ending up before front vowels because of
> loans/fronting of [É] and following front vowels.
I'll definitely want to investigate the Chinese historical changes. I
think there may be some similarities with the variation between Tirelat
dialects. I do use the Tirelat affricates for words with palatal stops
borrowed from Jarda, so I should look into the possibility of a palatal
series in early Tirelat. I've already used the "stop + [r] > affricate"
trick in Yasaro, but there's no reason I'd need something different for
Tirelat if that works.
>> One sound that sticks out in the modern Tirelat phoneme inventory
>> is the voiceless trill /r̥/. This is likely to have come from an
>> originally voiced trill /r/, which became voiceless by
>> assimilation when adjacent to a voiceless stop or fricative. (This
>> is one reason I've postulated the existence of the glottal stop in
>> Early Modern Tirelat.) Indeed, in the standard dialect, trills
>> adjacent to voiceless stops or consonants are always voiceless,
>> although other dialects allow voiced trills in those instances.
>
> [Êr/rÊ] doesnËt strike me as the likeliest source of
> [r̥]. Any surrounding voiceless fricatives or preceding
> oral voiceless stops seem more likely -- the latter
> perhaps after becoming fricatives. I can also imagine
> */rr/ devoicing while */r/ remains voiceless.
Well, [hr] / [rh] is also a possible source, but voiceless r in Tirelat
is unaspirated. Also, any possible rules to account for voiced &
voiceless r will have to work in all positions of the word: initial
(e.g. Åaku vs. raku), medial (laÅa vs. lara), and final (žaÅ vs. žar).
Actually [sr] / [rs] > [r̥] does look possible. The only occurrence of
/rs/ or /r̥s/ in Tirelat is a Jarda borrowing. Similarly, [šr] > [r̥j] is
a bit of a stretch, but could account for the absence of /Å¡r/ in modern
Tirelat.
>> It's also possible that there may have been a voiced lateral
>> fricative /É®/ in EMT, to account for the /l/ ~ /d/ variations
>> between dialects in some words, but there may be other ways to
>> account for that.
>
> One likely source of both [ɬ] and d/l variation is the
> fact that many languages seem to avoid/get rid of [tl]
> and [dl].
>
>>
>> Approximants /w/ and /j/ are probably reduced forms of vowels
>> (especially when you consider that one Tirelat dialect has a
>> phonemic /É¥/, which could be related to /y/).
>
> I agree with Alex that a lot of hiatus needs an
> explanation, but to paraphrase Yoda: intervocalic
> position leads to lenition, lenition leads to
> fricatives, fricatives lead to approximants (or [h]),
> approximants lead to hiatus
>
>> I haven't looked much at the vowels yet.
>
> Vowels and consonants don't develop in isolation,
> however. Loss of vowels and palatalization rear their
> ugly heads everywhere, loss of obstruent voicing may
> trigger vowel length etc.
>
> /bpj
Vowel length is one thing I've thought about, and one of the big
differences between versions of Tirelat. The current standard dialect
has /katÉË/ "arch" where an older version has /kaËtÉ/. Maybe the early
language had something like *katÉh ~ *katÉÊ in the older version of the
two dialects, the first dialect lengthened the /É/ and lost the /h/,
while the second dialect attracted the stress to the glottal stop.
There's a lot of potentially useful clues in the vowels, like the
variation between /É/ and /É/, or the existence of the front rounded
vowels /y/ and /ø/ in one dialect. I just haven't had the time to sort
through it all yet.
Messages in this topic (7)
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3.1. Re: NATLANG: Con-scripting a Hamer writing system
Posted by: "Garth Wallace" [email protected]
Date: Thu Mar 8, 2012 5:08 pm ((PST))
On Thu, Mar 8, 2012 at 3:27 AM, Paul Bennett <[email protected]> wrote:
> On Wed, 07 Mar 2012 09:50:35 -0500, Alex Fink <[email protected]> wrote:
>
>> On Mon, 5 Mar 2012 10:57:32 -0800, Garth Wallace <[email protected]> wrote:
>>
>>> Idle thoughts: I wonder if a Hamer tengwar mode would work.
>>
>>
>> Hey, it would actually work pretty well, wouldn't it? Hamer has just four
>> C
>> series and just five V qualities and not too many bizarre manner-phonation
>> combos, so it should fit tidily.
>
>
> Oh, boy. You're trying to get me to cause a minor stir on Languagelog and
> Wikipedia, aren't you?
Hee hee hee... >:)
> I can see the headlines now. They'd be marginally-more sensationalized
> versions of the headlines we had when that Indonesian language decided to go
> with Hangul as its writing system.
Wait, what was this?
> "Amateur linguist teaches Elvish to Ethiopian tribe! Film at eleven!"
>
> However, I'm going to give this whackadoo notion at least a little bit of
> serious thought. Dang it.
You have to admit, it'd be kind of awesome.
Messages in this topic (27)
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4. (Recall) Name that Glyph | Round Nine « Pseudoglyph s
Posted by: "A. Mendes" [email protected]
Date: Thu Mar 8, 2012 6:12 pm ((PST))
Last week's glyph samples were erroneous. Please find the correction below
and name those glyphs.
Thank you.
http://pseudoglyphs.wordpress.com/2012/03/09/recall-name-that-glyph-round-nine/
Messages in this topic (1)
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5a. Re: A New Lang is Born
Posted by: "Padraic Brown" [email protected]
Date: Thu Mar 8, 2012 6:42 pm ((PST))
--- On Sat, 3/3/12, Nicole Valicia Thompson-Andrews <[email protected]>
wrote:
> I guess I just made Conlang history. When I was younger, I use to put
> words in fractions, I don't know if that counts as a Conlang.
Could you describe this?
> Could that work as a way to teach Yemoran children math?
Could be. I don't understand / can't conceptualise what you mean by putting
words in fractions!
Padraic
> Nicole Thompson-Andrews
Messages in this topic (24)
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