There are 10 messages in this issue.
Topics in this digest:
1a. Re: Translation: Christmas songs in May-- Completed !!
From: Roger Mills
1b. Re: Translation: Christmas songs in May-- Completed !!
From: Herman Miller
2.1. Re: Modalities of alien languages (was: Phonetic Transcription)
From: Dan Henry
2.2. Re: Modalities of alien languages (was: Phonetic Transcription)
From: Logan Kearsley
3a. Re: Conlang X Sampa
From: Garth Wallace
3b. Re: Conlang X Sampa
From: Nicole Valicia Thompson-Andrews
3c. Re: Conlang X Sampa
From: H. S. Teoh
3d. Re: Conlang X Sampa
From: Nicole Valicia Thompson-Andrews
4a. Re: natlang precedent?? vcc > v:c
From: Matthew Boutilier
5. Dictionary of Sound Changes -- Day 1
From: Paul Bennett
Messages
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1a. Re: Translation: Christmas songs in May-- Completed !!
Posted by: "Roger Mills" [email protected]
Date: Sat May 4, 2013 12:34 pm ((PDT))
A bit of whimsy. Don't know why this was going thru my head this morning:
Gwr.
lu-H doq-L o-H trang-M how-F leN-M dr-L
ki-L ye-M hing-hing-M how-F
Lu-do? that red-nose (k.o. animal)
to him very-shiny nose...
((From here on I'm going to eliminate the tone marks, since they're hard to
type, plus in the sung version they won't matter)
ho dzu-ka shwa daw chiq oq
if ever happen you see him/it
tu-tra daw chaw gi: qoq.
maybe you say glow even.
o hu: beq leng-dr-de
the all other (animal)-pl
gang hi-hi oq ngung fiw kèy
used to laugh(at) him use nasty name
aq noq jÿh pi-sèw lu-doq
and never allow little-sad lu-doq
dòng doq ye-de mr dong-da
play with then when game-pl
tri shwa mu pang-hu sho wa:
then happen day-important-of fog(gy) night (mu pang 'festival')
Sang-da geh fa chu--
(name) come approach ask:
lu-doq ngu daw hing-hing how
LD, using your very-bright nose
ko i: wa: tong mo feng-nyaq ko
? this night guide my snow-wagon ?
tri o hu leng-dr te:q oq
then the all (anim.)-pl love him
aq ye-de xe keyq tsi:ng-tsi:ng
and they shout loudly happily
lu doq o trang how leng-dr
LD the red nose (anim.)
ji-juq daw hoq ko-tso guÿng
now you enter/go into history
===========================================
In order to make the line with "ko......ko" fit the tune, it's necessary to
blend "ko i:...." into a diphthong [koj] or maybe [kwi]. There's just no way
around initial and final _ko_ in questions :-((((
The "leng-dr" is a smaller relative of the _yaw-gÿh_ a moose-like animal that
lives in the north woods. During the long winters, leng-dr would hang around
near human settlements, where they found food (and later were fed), to keep out
of danger from the various predatory creatures of the forest. So they have
become more or less domesticated, and can be used as a draft animal as well as
occasional meat. They do not like to be ridden, even though Gwr people aren't
very heavy..... Except in some out-of-the-way areas, they are gradually being
replaced by motorized "feng-nyaq"
Sang-da, of course, is a mythological figure who is part of Mid-winter Day
celebrations (2 months after the winter solstice, when the days are getting
noticeably longer and the sun may even shine for a while). . I suppose he gives
gifts to good little Gwr children.....
It has been suggested that I should make a recording of this, but I'm afraid
too many mirrors might break at the sound of my voice.........
Messages in this topic (5)
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1b. Re: Translation: Christmas songs in May-- Completed !!
Posted by: "Herman Miller" [email protected]
Date: Sat May 4, 2013 1:53 pm ((PDT))
On 5/4/2013 3:32 PM, Roger Mills wrote:
> A bit of whimsy. Don't know why this was going thru my head this morning:
>
>
> Gwr.
>
> lu-H doq-L o-H trang-M how-F leN-M dr-L
> ki-L ye-M hing-hing-M how-F
>
> Lu-do? that red-nose (k.o. animal)
> to him very-shiny nose...
Nice work getting it all to fit the melody. Let's see how far I can get
in Jarda.
ÅudoÅ, tis-kjul sÅl-vaz-ni,
Rudolph, ice-deer fire-nose-with
(Jarda does technically have a word for "red", but it dates from before
I decided that Jarda was a Sangari language, and Sangari don't see red
as a color distinct from yellow. Besides, I like the idea of an ice deer
with a fire nose.)
ni-an vÅ vaz Åim-ê Åá¹a.
have-PAST.IMPF he nose shine-ACT.PART very
It should really be "nian vÅra (ergative) vaz Åimê Åá¹a", but that
doesn't fit. The whole sentence would normally go "Nian ÅudoÅá¹a,
tiskjulá¹a sÅlvazni, vaz Åimê Åá¹a".
au sin nês-ki lô-á¹a vÅ
and if see-SUBJ you-ERG it
têz-ki lô-á¹a pa Åim vÅ
say-SUBJ you-ERG that glow it
Yes, unfortunately the word for "shine" and "glow" is the same in Jarda.
kêb-an sjul tis-kjul-Åa klêd
laugh-PAST.IMPF all ice-deer-ERG other
It should technically be "kêban sjulnên" (with a classifier).
au nÅ-vôn-an dü-á¹a vÅ
and dis-honor-PAST.IMPF they-ERG him
va-tên-an RudoÅ bá¹aá¹-vam
not-allow-PAST.IMPF Rudolph luck-less
zur büz á¹ix plin tis-kjul-i
associate ever for game ice-deer-GEN
Hey, it sort of mostly works. Maybe I'll try to finish it some time.
Messages in this topic (5)
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2.1. Re: Modalities of alien languages (was: Phonetic Transcription)
Posted by: "Dan Henry" [email protected]
Date: Sat May 4, 2013 1:29 pm ((PDT))
The difficulty for bioradio communication is that communicative abilities
evolve to use existing sensory capabilities. Radio senses will only evolve
in an environment in which practically useful radio data exists fairly
consistently over long periods of time. It may well be that an environment
that would favor such senses would produce life too alien for us to
understand their psychology in any depth, much less imagine it from our
armchairs. Or not. It depends on how universal our own notions of
intelligence prove to be. One has a great deal of freedom in speculating on
alien biology/psychology, as we are extrapolating from a single reference
point of terrestrial evolution.
I do think, though, that any such natural radio communication is likely to
look a great deal different from our own, where radio is not the actual
medium of the message, but merely an encoded carrier for an audio message.
If you wanted to actually work out such a system of natural radio language,
you'd do best to start by figuring out what the radio sense was originally
evolved for. Communication would probably use frequencies near those of the
sources of interest, but not the same frequencies, so that communications
and navigational (or whatever) radio did not interfere. Then you could
start working out basic signals that the language uses.
On Fri, May 3, 2013 at 2:21 PM, Jörg Rhiemeier <[email protected]>wrote:
> Hallo conlangers!
>
> On Friday 03 May 2013 23:10:01 H. S. Teoh wrote:
>
> > On Fri, May 03, 2013 at 10:47:11PM +0200, Jörg Rhiemeier wrote:
> > > Hallo conlangers!
> > >
> > > On Friday 03 May 2013 22:33:58 And Rosta wrote:
> > [...]
> > > > Would you class languages based on the medium of radio waves
> > > > together with auditory languages, on the grounds that they're
> > > > one-dimensional, don't require line of sight and light source, do
> > > > work at long range, and so forth?
> > >
> > > They are another modality entirely, and may exist in alien beings,
> > > especially in ones that have evolved further by means of technology.
> > > Radio is quite like auditory, indeed even better (which is the reason
> > > why people use it - its only drawback is that we need gadgets to use
> > > it).
> >
> > [...]
> >
> > I don't see why technology is necessary to be able to deal with radio
> > waves. They are electromagnetic waves just like light, and our eyes can
> > see light very well. Certain biochemical reactions can produce light
> > too, so there's no need for technological transmitters either.
>
> Yes. It is not inconceivable that biological radio transmitters
> and receivers evolve on an alien planet. Nature can do a lot of
> awesome things, often superior to the most advanced technologies
> we have. Are there precedents for "bio-radio" on Earth?
>
> > Instead of processing light as *visual* information, though, as in
> > perspective projection and reconstruction of geometric 3D models based
> > on projection images received from the eyes, an alien species could well
> > interpret the waves in a different manner. Such as having sympathetic
> > resonators that respond to a radio wave spectrum such that it's
> > interpreted analogously to how we interpret sounds. E.g., certain
> > classes of organic molecules can absorb different wavelengths of light
> > depending on the length of their chains, some can absorb a range of
> > frequencies with different sensitivities, so one could, in theory,
> > handle things like formants in the radiowaves. These molecules could
> > form the basis of a radiowave-based hearing organ.
>
> Sure. There may be beings which transmit information by
> encoding it in the spectrum of a beacon light, similar to the
> way our auditory languages encode it in the spectrum of sound
> emitted from the vocal tract.
>
> --
> ... brought to you by the Weeping Elf
> http://www.joerg-rhiemeier.de/Conlang/index.html
> "Bêsel asa Éam, a Éam atha cvanthal a cvanth atha Éamal." - SiM 1:1
>
Messages in this topic (42)
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2.2. Re: Modalities of alien languages (was: Phonetic Transcription)
Posted by: "Logan Kearsley" [email protected]
Date: Sat May 4, 2013 2:08 pm ((PDT))
On 4 May 2013 14:28, Dan Henry <[email protected]> wrote:
> The difficulty for bioradio communication is that communicative abilities
> evolve to use existing sensory capabilities. Radio senses will only evolve
> in an environment in which practically useful radio data exists fairly
> consistently over long periods of time. It may well be that an environment
> that would favor such senses would produce life too alien for us to
> understand their psychology in any depth, much less imagine it from our
> armchairs. Or not. It depends on how universal our own notions of
> intelligence prove to be. One has a great deal of freedom in speculating on
> alien biology/psychology, as we are extrapolating from a single reference
> point of terrestrial evolution.
Perhaps they come from a planet in a binary (or formerly binary)
system around a pulsar, which puts out quite a but of radio energy.
That would pretty alien. Or maybe there're just a lot of large storms,
and being able to sense lightning flashes from far away is useful.
I think we can get a bit more prosaic than that, though. Earthly
lifeforms can produce pretty strong electrical charges, and can detect
very faint electrical charges incidentally produced by the activity of
other animal's nervous systems, but our nerves somewhat oddly don't
actually work on electrical conduction. It's not too difficult to
imagine alien life that *does* have electrically conductive nerves
(electrically conductive biomolecules are not particularly hard to
come by), in which case the starting and stopping of current in their
nervous systems would produce faint incidental radio emissions which
other animals could sense for hunting purposes.
> If you wanted to actually work out such a system of natural radio language,
> you'd do best to start by figuring out what the radio sense was originally
> evolved for. Communication would probably use frequencies near those of the
> sources of interest, but not the same frequencies, so that communications
> and navigational (or whatever) radio did not interfere.
I'm not sold on that. Human sonic language isn't distinguished from
other natural sounds by being in an offset frequency range, but by
having different frequency mixture characteristics.
-l.
Messages in this topic (42)
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3a. Re: Conlang X Sampa
Posted by: "Garth Wallace" [email protected]
Date: Sat May 4, 2013 1:37 pm ((PDT))
On Sat, May 4, 2013 at 2:57 AM, Nicole Valicia Thompson-Andrews
<[email protected]> wrote:
> How does the converter on the Conlang x Sampa work? Is it a converter, if
> so, I can probably use that, if not. I'll have to invent my own
> transcription. It would still have placement of articulation.
The converter is the human brain.
Messages in this topic (5)
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3b. Re: Conlang X Sampa
Posted by: "Nicole Valicia Thompson-Andrews" [email protected]
Date: Sat May 4, 2013 1:40 pm ((PDT))
So how does the site work? So that's not a converter?
Mellissa Green
@GreenNovelist
-----Original Message-----
From: Constructed Languages List [mailto:[email protected]] On
Behalf Of Garth Wallace
Sent: Saturday, May 4, 2013 1:37 PM
To: [email protected]
Subject: Re: Conlang X Sampa
On Sat, May 4, 2013 at 2:57 AM, Nicole Valicia Thompson-Andrews
<[email protected]> wrote:
> How does the converter on the Conlang x Sampa work? Is it a converter, if
> so, I can probably use that, if not. I'll have to invent my own
> transcription. It would still have placement of articulation.
The converter is the human brain.
Messages in this topic (5)
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3c. Re: Conlang X Sampa
Posted by: "H. S. Teoh" [email protected]
Date: Sat May 4, 2013 5:16 pm ((PDT))
On Sat, May 04, 2013 at 04:39:27PM -0700, Nicole Valicia Thompson-Andrews wrote:
> So how does the site work? So that's not a converter?
[...]
I'm guessing that perhaps it's not clear what the site does because your
screen reader is trying to read the symbols as words instead of symbols?
Basically, the IPA comes with a set of symbols that are present in
Unicode, but historically, older email clients did not support such
symbols (and also that was before the time of Unicode). So there needed
to be a way to represent IPA symbols with ASCII characters in order to
transmit IPA transcriptions without mangling. A handful of independent
schemes were invented for this purpose (namely X-SAMPA, CXS, and one or
two others, plus a few variations thereof), which were mostly similar
but had enough differences that converting between these representations
manually can be error-prone. So Henrik Theiling, one of our listmembers
(and currently the listmaster), wrote some Perl scripts to convert
between these representations automatically.
Later on, people began to get used to these ASCII representations of IPA
rather than typing IPA symbols directly -- for one thing, it's more
convenient to type, since otherwise you'd have to manually pick IPA
symbols from large character maps which can be a slow, painstaking
process. And since conlangers love to share their conlangs with each
other, it was found to be very useful to convert these ASCII
representations into HTML automatically, so that you don't have to type
everything over twice.
So that's what that site is for.
Unfortunately, I'm not sure how useful it will be to you, since you
mentioned that your screen reader tries to read the X-SAMPA or CXS as
words rather than symbols. Sounds like we'll need to invent a
screen-reader-friendly transcription scheme for IPA -- perhaps using
individual words to represent each symbol so that the screen reader
doesn't mix things up in a confusing way.
--T
Messages in this topic (5)
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3d. Re: Conlang X Sampa
Posted by: "Nicole Valicia Thompson-Andrews" [email protected]
Date: Sun May 5, 2013 12:14 am ((PDT))
Yes, I think something needs to be invented. In the meantime, I guess I'll
have to invent my own transcription as a work around.
Mellissa Green
@GreenNovelist
-----Original Message-----
From: Constructed Languages List [mailto:[email protected]] On
Behalf Of H. S. Teoh
Sent: Saturday, May 4, 2013 5:13 PM
To: [email protected]
Subject: Re: Conlang X Sampa
On Sat, May 04, 2013 at 04:39:27PM -0700, Nicole Valicia Thompson-Andrews
wrote:
> So how does the site work? So that's not a converter?
[...]
I'm guessing that perhaps it's not clear what the site does because your
screen reader is trying to read the symbols as words instead of symbols?
Basically, the IPA comes with a set of symbols that are present in
Unicode, but historically, older email clients did not support such
symbols (and also that was before the time of Unicode). So there needed
to be a way to represent IPA symbols with ASCII characters in order to
transmit IPA transcriptions without mangling. A handful of independent
schemes were invented for this purpose (namely X-SAMPA, CXS, and one or
two others, plus a few variations thereof), which were mostly similar
but had enough differences that converting between these representations
manually can be error-prone. So Henrik Theiling, one of our listmembers
(and currently the listmaster), wrote some Perl scripts to convert
between these representations automatically.
Later on, people began to get used to these ASCII representations of IPA
rather than typing IPA symbols directly -- for one thing, it's more
convenient to type, since otherwise you'd have to manually pick IPA
symbols from large character maps which can be a slow, painstaking
process. And since conlangers love to share their conlangs with each
other, it was found to be very useful to convert these ASCII
representations into HTML automatically, so that you don't have to type
everything over twice.
So that's what that site is for.
Unfortunately, I'm not sure how useful it will be to you, since you
mentioned that your screen reader tries to read the X-SAMPA or CXS as
words rather than symbols. Sounds like we'll need to invent a
screen-reader-friendly transcription scheme for IPA -- perhaps using
individual words to represent each symbol so that the screen reader
doesn't mix things up in a confusing way.
--T
Messages in this topic (5)
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4a. Re: natlang precedent?? vcc > v:c
Posted by: "Matthew Boutilier" [email protected]
Date: Sat May 4, 2013 4:46 pm ((PDT))
yeah, i was thinking that as well. thanks for the Scandinavian info.
all i myself could really think of was examples like
OE æppel 'apple' > modern /'æp(É)l/
OE sitteþ 'sits' > archaic modern /'sɪtɪθ/
but not with lengthening of the vowel.
at a conference last year, i heard a very interesting talk about how
variouslanguages (in particular, O
E / Middle English) deal with short-V + single-C mid-word ... how different
languages tend towards either adding a mora to the V, or *doubling* the C. but
anyway, that doesn't really help me.
i could always do *bikki > *biki and then have open-syllable lengthening.
but that would probably merge with *biki.
i originally was planning on having a *glottal stop mobil**eÌ* doing
certain work in my noun- and verb-morphology, rather than the geminate
consonant:
*biki > biki
*biÊki > (*bihki >) biÌki
*biÌki > bia̯ki
whatever, i don't know. i would *also* have to get rid of the
gemination separately,
but i suppose the output of that could merge with the output of *biki. that
would really mess with my semitic-like morphology, though.
*biki > biki
*bikki > (also) biki
*biÊki > (*bihki >) biÌki
*biÌki > bia̯ki
although that probably would be nothing novel. does modern Hebrew even have
phonemic consonant length? i was at a talk on Hebrew the other day and the *
pi`el* form of *gadal* "to grow" was cited as *gidel*, not *giddeÌl *as i
believe it would've appeared in classical Hebrew. i don't know if anyone
here knows about this.
ok, done rambling.
thanks,
matt
On Sat, May 4, 2013 at 5:37 AM, BPJ <[email protected]> wrote:
> 2013-05-03 21:37, Matthew Boutilier skrev:
>
> i was wondering if anyone knew, off the top of their head, of an instance
>> where a short vowel preceding a geminate consonant lengthens when the
>> language as a whole loses phonemically distinctive consonant gemination.
>>
>> so, like, to account for all the original syllable structures:
>> *biki > biki
>> *bikki > biÌki
>> *biÌki > bia̯ki (the diphthongization is separate; happens before the
>> aforementioned geminate-loss thing)
>>
>> well??
>>
>> thanks in advance,
>> matt
>>
>>
>
> AFAIK it's usually the other way around: _CC shortens
> and _CV or even _C# lengthens. In 14th century Scandinavian:
>
> * V:C > V:C
> * VCC > VCC
> * V:CC > VCC
> * V(:)# > V:
> * VC > V:C, some times/places/words VCC
> * V(:) > V / [-stress]
>
> Aptly known as the Scandinavian quantity shift.
> Other Germanic languages had similar shifts in
> vowels at about the same time with concommitant
> loss of consonant length. Needless to say there
> are still fringe dialects with the old system;
> e.g. the Swedish of Finland still has stressed VC#.
>
> AFMOC Linjeb has a twist (partly suggested on this
> list, by Alex IIRC): first vowels lengthen before
> voiced plosives (P/PP), later voiceless P / V_V >
> voiced and all PP > voiceless P.
>
> /bpj
>
Messages in this topic (3)
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5. Dictionary of Sound Changes -- Day 1
Posted by: "Paul Bennett" [email protected]
Date: Sun May 5, 2013 3:06 am ((PDT))
I've started preliminary work on my Magnum Opus, or at least one of my
Magnum Opuses. It's a dictionary of the sound changes in the principal
Indo-European languages, which will hopefully be useful for those of you
who are into that sort of thing. The draft listed below is basically what I
could crank out in about an hour. There is (obviously) a great deal of work
yet to be done. Questions, comments, suggestions?
https://docs.google.com/file/d/0B21ee_I1WzbwZEQ1SExsLU9FaGs/edit?usp=sharing
--
Paul Bennett
Messages in this topic (1)
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